There are several applications to know about to create a Shopify store. Oberlo is an essential one to import products easily.
Extremely efficient and easy to use, Oberlo is essential whenever you want to to do dropshipping. But before using it, you have to understand what it is and how it works.
What is Oberlo?
Oberlo is an extension available in the Shopify application store.
It will easily couple with any e-commerce store under Shopify to allow you to import and sell Aliexpress products.
Oberlo has really changed the way dropshipping is done, because before, you had to import the products manually, you can imagine the trouble!
It’s now very different and fortunately for us!
With a few clicks you can retrieve any item on Aliexpress, sell it on your Shopify store and then automate a large part of the ordering process.
Oberlo is in 2019 used by hundreds of thousands of online shops, which makes it an extremely developed tool offering you advanced features to save time.
Basic Oberlo features
It is a very complete tool with a very well thought-out dashboard to help you manage your products, even if you don’t have any stock as such.
Multiple Suppliers
If you have already identified several interesting Aliexpress products for your Shopify store, you may wonder if the different suppliers will be a problem to import your products.
Indeed, this is a question that beginners often ask themselves. Fortunately the answer is no!
Oberlo offers you the opportunity to import any product from any quality supplier or wholesaler. You will also be able to change dealers easily if they are not serious.
This will not affect your Shopify store in any way.
Custom product page
Of course, Oberlo offers you the possibility to customize your product pages from A to Z. You can change the title, URL, description, images and even the name of the variants to translate or adapt them for example.
You are then able to easily adapt the imported products to the needs and brand image you want to reflect with your shop.
Automation
One of the biggest advantages of using Oberlo is its ability to save you a lot of time by automating a large part of the tasks.
This way, you only need a few clicks on the application interface to be able to place several orders simultaneously and without any effort.
Stock updates on Aliexpress are also automatic.
That is to say, if one of your products is temporarily no longer available, it will be indicated as « out of stock » without any action on your part, until the product is available again.
Delivery tracking
Finally, Oberlo offers a delivery tracking. It is very important to have access to the position of any package sent because in case of a problem, you can detect it quickly.
In addition, you can easily generate a sales report with all the details like :
- Total purchase prices
- The benefits generated
- The delivery costs
- etc.
And this, directly from the dashboard.
How to use Oberlo on Shopify?
The use of this application is very simple. But before you can use it, you must first install it.
Installation
Since this is an extension that you need to install on your Shopify store, you will have to go through the application catalog and then to look for Oberlo.
Once installed, you will find the dashboard by clicking on the extension icon:
Another important point is that it will be necessary to install the extension for Chrome or Firefox browser.
So you can import your products on your shop directly by browsing on Aliexpress.
Importing products
To import products, just click on the small blue button that now appears next to the product sheets on Aliexpress:
Once your products are selected, they will appear in the import list on Oberlo.
Here you can change the product title, collection, description, select the variants and then the images you want to highlight.
Once you have made this choice, simply click on « Import to store » and your product will be online, on your Shopify store!
Sourcing products on Oberlo
One of Oberlo’s practical features is its ability to search and source products from the application.
The most serious suppliers are highlighted, you can quickly see the latest trends in products and it’s faster than searching on Aliexpress.
The research section is made up of several elements:
- The keyword search
- The search by category
- The best sellers of the moment
- Products with high profit potential
- Products with video (typically for Facebook Ads)
- And right now, the beach products
The categories are not as precise as those on Aliexpress but they allow you to start the first product analyses. To search for a particular item, simply enter the keyword for more efficiency.
Here is an example with the search « shirt » :
You have quick access to the number of orders, global evaluation, shipping method and much more.
To add the products from the Oberlo search, simply move the mouse over them and a green « Add to import list » button appears.
Final configuration
Finally, a last important step is to check the Oberlo configuration. That won’t stop you from offering products for sale, but I advise you to take a look at them at least before you place your first order.
To do this, you must access the « Settings » section. You can configure the following points in particular:
- Set up automatic pricing rules for your products.
- Set a default delivery method (for example ePacket which is very good) when you are looking for new products.
- Personalize the message sent to the supplier, very useful to avoid having an invoice or advertising inside the package. The default message is fine.
There is no need to touch the other parameters.
What’s the price of Oberlo?
Fortunately, there are several plans to meet the needs of each Shopify seller.
The basic plan, completely free of charge, allows you to start an e-commerce without paying a penny because it’s available for up to 500 orders.
The following plan at $29.90 per month, unlocks some features you don’t need if you’re just starting out. With this plan, you are able to place up to 10,000 orders.
Finally, the last plan, at $79.90 per month, only concerns the largest stores, those generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales. Among other things, it allows you to place up to 30,000 orders every month.
An interesting alternative to Oberlo
For all beginners, I advise to start by using Oberlo because it has been around for years now and understands exactly the needs of any dropshipper.
However, there is also a free alternative, which makes it possible to place an order even faster!
It works the same way as Oberlo except that it offers slightly less functionality, for the moment. This is normal because it has only been in existence for a few months… So we have to give it time.
But you may be wondering what the alternative is? It’s about DSers, I mention it in my article DSers vs Oberlo.
Oberlo remains one of the best solutions currently available to import Aliexpress products on your Shopify store.
Completely free to start with, it allows you to automate a large part of the ordering process very easily.
