What is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a business model where you run a webshop without purchasing a high number of inventory. When your customer orders a product on your online store, you will make a purchase to the Dropshipping supplier, who then will send the product directly to your customer’s delivery address in your name.
Not having to purchase large numbers of stock has several (financial) advantages. For example, you have no purchasing risk, you do not need staff for packing and shipping orders to the customer, and you can quickly expand your product catalog without having to deal with residual parties. In short: dropshipping is a cost-efficient way of doing online business.
Maybe it might interest you: How to start a Dropshipping business?
5 Best E-commerce Platforms for Dropshipping Sites
To get off to a good start with your Dropshipping business and to take maximum advantage of the growth of online retail, a good e-commerce platform is essential. An e-commerce platform allows you, to efficiently manage online sales activities, update stock levels and prices and automate your entire dropshipping process. Nowadays, there are many providers on the market, making it difficult to choose from all those webshop platforms.
To help you make the right decision, we have listed the five best e-commerce platforms for Dropshipping stores especially for you.
1. WooCommerce – Best Platform for Dropshipping
WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce solution for Dropshipping with over 1,000,000 unique domains using WooCommerce as their e-commerce platform. It uses WordPress as a base CMS (Content Management System), whereas WooCommerce adds e-commerce functionalities, such as; creating products, adding payment methods, shopping carts, etcetera.
WooCommerce is easy to use and has a large number of functionalities. You can use dashboards, set up your Dropshipping store as desired, and easily add products, checkout pages, and secure payment methods through Adyen, Mollie, Stripe, or other payment providers. Besides WooCommerce can be set up easily and quickly. Within days you can have an entire Dropshipping Store with an excellent design and edit every parameter you want.
The main advantage of WooCommerce is its flexibility. In addition, WooCommerce is an open-source platform and free to download and use. However, you do need a plan with a hosting provider to host your WooCommerce Dropshipping Store. Hosting a Dropshipping store with thousands of products can be a heavy process. Therefore we advise Minimum Server Recommendations for a Dropshipping store on WooCommerce with only a handful of hosting providers.
Last but not least, building a Dropshipping Store with WooCommerce from scratch will give you unlimited flexibility. This means the webshop can quickly expand together with your ambitions!
2. Shopify
Shopify is a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. It allows entrepreneurs to build their Dropshipping store and sell products quickly.
With over 500,000 unique domains using Shopify and more than 14,000 partners, it is the second-best e-commerce platform designed for e-commerce businesses of all sizes. Starting a store with Shopify is a matter of minutes. You can easily create your store via their website with a 14-Day Free Trial period.
Besides, the e-commerce platform has an extensive range of apps developed by third parties, including dropshipping apps that allow you to sell to customers almost instantly. At the same time, the extensive offering can also be a pitfall: some Shopify apps charge a monthly subscription, aside from the subscription you pay for using the e-commerce platform. Therefore Shopify can become an expensive webshop platform, mainly when you’re a starting entrepreneur.
Last, since Shopify is a SaaS platform, you can only use the platform and data with an active subscription. This is what they call a “vendor lock-in”. If you decide to move away from Shopify and choose a different e-commerce platform to run your store on, you will need to build this store entirely from scratch.
3. Wix
At first, Wix was developed as a cloud-based web design platform with over 500,000 unique domains worldwide. However, a web design platform doesn’t have e-commerce functionalities like; payment methods, shopping carts, and checkout pages.
For that reason, Wix created Wix eCommerce. This Wix branch is much smaller than its big brother and only has 100,000 unique domains using the Wix e-commerce platform. One of the most significant advantages Wix has, is there intuitive page builders. Even for entrepreneurs without experience creating a website, Wix feels like child’s play.
However, compared to other e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce and Shopify, Wix eCommerce offers limited connections with Dropshipping Suppliers. If you decide to use Wix because of its easy interface, you should prepare for a lot of manual labor. Something I would never advise an online entrepreneur who wants to become successful.
Wix is an excellent e-commerce platform for online entrepreneurs who only sell a handful of products. Unfortunately, it has a monthly subscription and a vendor lock-in similar to Shopify.
4. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is an upcoming e-commerce platform with over 30,000 unique domains. It has the flexibility of an open-source platform and the simplicity of a SaaS platform.
BigCommerce can be the right choice if you have big ambitions or already generate revenue. It will give you a lot of flexibility, with the downside that there are still lines to color within because of their SaaS DNA. Besides, BigCommerce will still charge you a monthly subscription, but they don’t have a vendor lock-in. BigCommerce also offers a wide range of apps with various Dropshipping suppliers.
BigCommerce has the advantage of SaaS and open-source combined: automated updates, a support desk, and unlimited flexibility. However, the combination can make the platform more complex for people without coding or technical knowledge.
5. Lightspeed
Lightspeed is a SaaS platform for e-commerce websites. It was founded in Amsterdam (NL) with the name SEOshop and was later acquired by Lightspeed POS in Canada.
With only 6,000 unique domains working with Lightspeed, it is the smallest e-commerce platform you can choose from. However, that doesn’t make it less important. You can create a webshop in minutes and have a 14-Day Free Trial period. Besides, their interface is straightforward to use and understand for people with no coding experience.
Lightspeed is one of the best e-commerce platforms to choose from if you have a physical store combined with an online store. Their identity is mainly a POS (Point of Sale) platform, basically the store’s cash register. Lately, they started to decline Dropshipping and solely online stores and only started selling the combination of an e-commerce website and cash register system.
Lightspeed is an excellent choice if you are having a physical store or want to expand to a physical store. Similar to Shopify and Wix eCommerce it has a monthly subscription and a vendor lock-in.
6. Magento
Magento is an open-source system for webshops and was founded in 2008. It was acquired by Adobe in 2018. The platform is free for download and use and is particularly popular among prominent players. Magento allows you to efficiently manage orders, shipping costs, and warehousing.
Magento has almost 80,000 unique domains using its e-commerce platform. If you compare this to other e-commerce platforms we’ve discussed earlier, this is not a significant number. However, Magento stores are often big stores with revenue over $1,000,000 annually. Basically their target group is more successful with regards to generating revenue.
The advantage of Magento is that you can quickly launch several webshops from one platform. Magento can run big webshops with many products, orders, and customers. However, the CMS itself is pretty big too. This means you have to invest a lot of money to develop a stable webshop and keep it running daily. For big companies with millions in revenue, this is a no-brainer. For Dropshipping stores, looking for a way to start Magento is too big of a leap.
Conclusion
We have briefly explained to you what Dropshipping is and what the five leading e-commerce platforms are. As you can see, many options are available when choosing an e-commerce platform for Dropshipping. The right option for your business depends on your goal. If you want to start a dropshipping business, then WooCommerce is the best solution for a dropshipping platform. WooCommerce allows you to automate your entire Dropshipping process, is user-friendly, can be expanded easily, and is cost-effective.
Want to experience the benefits of WooCommerce plugins yourself?
Woosa offers WooCommerce plugins for WordPress that can strengthen your Dropshipping business. As the official WooCommerce plugin developer for Dropshipping suppliers, such as vidaXL, BigBuy, Matterhorn Moda, and others, we support over 4,500+ companies worldwide with our plugins.
FAQs
What is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a form of e-commerce where you run your own shop without stock. When you make a purchase, the manufacturer, wholesaler or dropshipping supplier sends the products directly to your customer’s delivery address.
What is a dropship platform?
A dropship platform is your own webshop or an online sales platform from which you sell your own products.
What is an e-commerce platform?
An E-commerce platform is a software application that allows you to build your own online store. Thanks to the software, you can easily manage online sales activities as a web store.
What is a WordPress plugin?
A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that extends the functionality of a WordPress website. WooCommerce is one of the most popular WordPress plugins.
