Dropshipping ads often promise successful futures and financial wealth without putting too much work. However, if you’ve been in the dropshipping space before, you know that there’s nothing easy about it. It’s great for smaller companies, without much upfront capital, and we also like established brands that would like to expand into a new product without having to buy in bulk.
Because dropshipping is so similar to ordinary e-commerce, we love to find tools that streamline the process for suppliers and make business easier. AliDropship is one of those tools and, in this AliDropship review, we’ll describe what features are offered to help your business and whether it’s worth checking out.
If you are not familiar with AliExpress it is part of the giant Alibaba company from China. Alibaba is similar to the Amazon but dominates the Asian market instead of more than the western world like the Amazon.
Eventually, they should send Alibaba out with a service called AliExpress, which allows companies and individuals to purchase individual products or in smaller batches at prices close to wholesale. As a result, many dropshipping plugins and apps have been created to instantly put AliExpress products on your online store.
AliDropship is one of those plugins, but with some differences.
How does AliDropship work?
You may notice that Shopify seems to have more options for dropshipping apps with AliExpress. This is one of the main advantages of AliDropship, as it integrates with WordPress and WooCommerce instead of Shopify. You can also get hosting and build a complete website through AliDropship, without developing the website yourself.
So, essentially, AliDropship connects to your WordPress store and allows you to browse and choose products from AliExpress. After that, the products are automatically sent to your store with product details included, such as description, title and photos.
You have two options to choose from when deciding to pay for AliDropship. The first is the personalized store, which allows you to develop your own dropshipping site on the AliDropship Platform. As mentioned, accommodation is provided and you enjoy 100% ownership of your store. In addition, AliDropship has a library of templates, so it’s not that difficult to make your online store.
The alternative is to consider the WordPress plugin. The plug-in looks and works similar to custom storage, but integrates with a previously designed WordPress site. So, if you’re already using WordPress and WooCommerce, or if you’re familiar with this interface, the AliDropship plugin makes more sense .
AliDropship review: the best resources
The main feature with AliDropship is the one-click plugin that turns your entire WordPress site into a fully functional online store with dropshipping options. You can also argue that custom websites are resources, but this is more of a service than anything.
As for the features that actually come with the plugin, here are some of the highlights:
Complete Automation
Many automated tools are packaged with the AliDropship Plugin. One is to search and import your products, with filters and a button to add the products to your website. Another help with price automation, as it allows you to create your own rules to define your own markings when price changes. We also like the options to automatically fulfill orders and send order tracking.
A handful of impressive complements
From Google Merchant support to Facebook Business add-ons, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to add a fully automated solution to your store. If you want to get started quickly, we encourage you to read more about Dropship.me, an Alidropship add-on that eliminates the need for guesswork and time-consuming product research.
This plugin helps you find and import high quality products from virtually all categories of AliExpress products.
Website customization
AliDropship comes with several built-in themes so that you don’t have problems with the code. There is also support for WooCommerce, a built-in image editor and product variations.
Marketing
The marketing section is one of my favorite parts of AliDropship, because you rarely get it with dropshipping programs. To start, AliDropship includes an option to share discount coupons with its customers. You can also set up an area for product reviews.
Email lists are possible if you want to receive emails, and the abandoned cart feature helps you bring people back to your site.
AliDropship review: the price
Although the price for AliDropship is quite simple, there are several items that you should decide between, and the site also has some add-ons that you may need to consider in the future.
To start, AliDropship sells its WordPress plugin for $ 89 . It is not clear on the website whether this is a one-time fee or if you have to pay annually for ongoing support. Regardless, most plugins like this have a one-time fee and support upgrade. This payment includes upgrades, automation, unlimited products and all the main features we talked about.
If you would like to build a custom dropshipping store on the AliDropship platform, packages start at $ 299 and go up to $ 2899 for the Supreme Package. This is a one-time fee where the store starts with 50 products (added for you), but then allows an unlimited number of products. The online store is created for you, so there is not much development work on your side.
The other custom store plans cost $ 499 and $ 899. These upgrades have several benefits, such as promotional videos for your products and promotional tools for social media.
The hosting is quite reasonable with AliDropship, seeing how it starts at $ 48 a year and includes free SSL.
Here are all the hosting plans compared:
- Silver – $ 48 per year for 3GB of space, unlimited bandwidth, a control panel, 20 email addresses, free SSL and up to five websites.
- Gold – $ 86 per year for 8GB of space, 40 email addresses, support for 10 sites and everything that came in the previous plan.
- Silver – $ 220 per year for 17GB of space, 80 email addresses, support for 30 sites and everything that came in the previous plans.
- Supreme Package – $ 2899 – one-time payment. This package is one of our favorites. Basically, you will have a business ready in 25 days. Comes with niche research, the domain name (.com), Platinum hosting for 1 year, personalized design (mobile-ready), integration with Google Analytics, AliDropship plugin, 500 product to sell, unlimited products to choose from.
Addons for AliDropship
The only other expense with AliDropship is if you end up paying for some add-ons.
The add-ons library doesn’t have a lot of items, but it’s definitely a place to look if you need some special functionality. For example, there is an addition to a recent sales pop-up, countdown timer and Facebook product catalog.
Some of the add-ons are free, but go up to $ 69.
What is the total cost of AliDropship?
For a personalized AliDropship online store, the least expensive option – with hosting and everything – is $ 347. This is not a bad rate, as it is a one-time fee.
As for the WordPress plugin, you should only pay $ 89 unless one of the add-ons catches your eye.
AliDropship review: customer support
AliDropship customer support is provided free of charge, as long as you pay for the WordPress plug-in or get a custom website created by AliDropship.
A support email is the primary way to contact the support team, so that you end up in a queue and receive a response within a reasonable period of time. AliDropship also has several social media pages. You can ask a few questions on places like Facebook and Twitter if that’s your style. The main reason I like social media for customer support is when you go through and analyze other people’s questions.
The knowledge base seems to have a large collection of articles for topics like improving your store, add-ons, hosting and more. Some of the articles have videos too, so this is clearly a bigger operation than a basic plugin that you would normally take for free and install on your WordPress site.
Finally, AliDropship offers a community forum to chat with other users, along with some guides and a complete blog to learn about updates and tips that come directly from the company.
Overall, the online resources are quite impressive for a company that sells a WordPress plug-in and e-commerce design services. I don’t notice phone numbers to call, but there is a live chat that is sometimes online.
Who should consider AliDropship?
There are two types of companies that should consider AliDropship. The first is a brand that wants to do dropship but does not have the desire, resources or skills to make the online store. In that case, you could contact AliDropship and request a customized dropshipping solution configured with access to AliExpress and all the back-end tools to start selling. These design services are reasonably priced compared to many other developers that you will find online.
The other type of business that AliDropship should consider is one with a WordPress site already running. Or you may have experience with WordPress and WooCommerce and want to start your dropshipping store with this platform. In this situation, you would pay for the AliDropship plugin and install it on WordPress. After that, you can continue with the design of your website and start adding products to the store.
One reason you can avoid AliDropship is if you don’t like the slow shipping times that affect AliExpress. It depends on the location of your customers, but I live in the United States and all items I bought on AliExpress take weeks, if not months, to arrive. Other than that, the price is generally incredible.
