What is Oberlo?
Oberlo is a plugin belonging to Shopify, which allows users of this e-commerce platform to do dropshipping. But do not do dropshipping with any product, but with those that are sold through Aliexpress. It allows you to import products directly from AliExpress to your store in Shopify, sell them and that the seller of Aliexpress makes the shipment to the final customer.
This plugin is an ideal solution for all those who start an online business and do not have products. With Oberlo you can import hundreds of selected products to your Shopify store. In just a few minutes you can sell the items directly to your customers.
In short, Oberlo drastically reduces the time needed to add new products to your Shopify store and start selling online under a Dropshipping model.
Shopify is a very popular e-commerce platform, and it is gaining more and more followers. The basic Shopify plan is priced at only $ 29 per month.
How to install and configure Oberlo in your Shopify store
As we have already mentioned, Oberlo is an app for Shopify that helps you with the import of products from Aliexpress to your e-commerce. Today, this Lithuanian company serves more than 7,000 Shopify stores, which generate more than 40 million dollars.
You can hire Oberlo in many ways: through its official website or from the Oberlo application in Shopify.
The installation process is simple. You just have to click on the installation link and the application will be installed in your Shopify store. As with all Shopify applications, you need to register a credit card to try the trial version of Oberlo.
The process of installing the Oberlo app is the same as that of other Shopify applications.
What benefits does Oberlo have?
Once you have activated Oberlo, the app will redirect you to the Oberlo home page. You can visit this section at any time through the applications section in your Shopify administration area.
The home page has a very useful “quick start” section that will help you complete certain tasks, such as the price setting rules or the importation of your first product. In this section you will find a series of tutorials on how to configure Oberlo. For example, there are videos about importing products, personalizing products or connecting existing products.
Homepage of Oberlo
The most important thing in your store are the products. You must be careful when choosing the right products that you want to add to your direct shipping store.
Oberlo gives you a large number of ways to do it. You can access the page “Search products” from the intuitive navigation menu located in the left menu of the page. From here you can enter the keywords for the target products and the categories you want to search. Results can be filtered by price, score and sales volume within 30 days. We can also filter by those who have ePacket, verified suppliers or if they are available in the destination country.
The process of finding products is really simple.
If you prefer, you can import a product using the URL or product ID as well as the Oberlo for Chrome extension to import products while browsing AliExpress. A product page is also available in case you run out of ideas.
You may have to navigate through many results before finding the right products. You will find information regarding the price of the product, its valuation, the number of times it has been sold, information about the supplier and much more.
Once you have found a suitable product, you can add it to your import list.
In the import list you can modify the products before adding them to your store. You can change the name, add the article to a collection, choose the type and define the labels. It is also possible to change the description and you can choose the images to import. This process is important to optimize your e-commerce store.
Once you have finished, you can individually include all the products in your store or you can add them all at the same time.
All the items you import will be displayed on the “My Products” page. From there you can delete the product from Shopify and stop the tracking so that product changes in AliExpress can not be followed.
Another great option is the possibility of replacing a product. This allows you to replace one product with another item.
All your imported items can be opened in Shopify through the “Open in Shopify” link on the “My Products” page. You can modify all the information about the product on this page. This includes product information, description, inventory, price, shipping and much more.
From the product modification page in Shopify you can duplicate the page and see how it is displayed in your store.
Product example. Example of a product imported through Oberlo.
Oberlo also has an order page and a notification area. The best thing about Oberlo is that everything is processed automatically. Orders are posted automatically and inventory and prices are also updated automatically, according to current stock levels and prices.
You can track shipments, prices, connect existing products from your store, change product suppliers and much more. Everything is very intuitive and simple.
How much does Oberlo cost?
Oberlo has adopted a very simple and without price policy. They offer three different plans:
Starter – Free / MONTH
Basic – $ 29.90 / MONTH
Pro – $ 79.90 / MONTH
All plans include daily product synchronization, automatic order execution, automatic pricing, the free extension for Google Chrome and the generation of sales reports.
The main difference between the plans is the number of products that can be imported and the number of orders that can be executed per month.
The initial plan allows you to sell up to 500 products and make up to 50 orders per month, while the basic price plan allows you to put up to 10,000 products and 500 orders per month. The tracking of orders and shipments is also included in the basic plan.
The professional plan allows you to sell up to 30,000 products and an unlimited number of orders. This account is also multi-user and in the future it is expected that this plan offers multiple sales channels and verified suppliers.
Initial – 500 products / 50 orders
Basic – 10,000 products / 500 orders
Professional – 30,000 products / unlimited orders
The basic plan is undoubtedly the most practical if your store is already established and operational.
Oberlo offers a trial period for the professional plan. You can try the service for 30 days to check for yourself the services it offers. Once the 30 days are over, you will go to the initial plan if you do not want to cancel your subscription.
You can change plans whenever you want according to your needs.
Also published on Medium.