WooCommerce Dropshipping Made Easy With Dropified

Many people like to use WordPress to run their eCommerce stores because of the ability to quickly customize WordPress and extend the functionally due to the amount of plugins available.

One of the plugins that enable people to quickly create eCommerce stores is the WooCommerce plugin because it’s easy to use and allows them to use WordPress.

Much like Shopify users, WooCommerce dropshipping folks like to integrate the Dropified dropshipping app in order to get the nearly full dropship automation options that Dropified offers.

It’s really easy to set up and integrate WooCommerce and Dropified, so let’s walk through the setup process for both of these really quickly and get them connected.

This process will assume that you have a site with WordPress installed and you’ve already imported and activated the WooCommerce plugin.

Next, your WooCommerce dropshipping store will connect seamlessly to Dropified, in less than three minutes.

Before you connect Dropified, you will need to change some of the settings in your WordPress dashboard.

Click on WordPress settings > Permalinks. Make sure that the Post Name is checked off, and save changes.

For the next step in WordPress, click on the WooCommerce > Settings > API and enable the Rest API by checking the box, and save changes. 

In the same API window, select the hyperlinked Key/Apps, then click the add key button, and type in Dropified into the description field.

Next add the site administrator (owner) to the User field, and use the drop-down menu to set permissions to Read/Write, then click the generate api key. This will connect Dropified to your store. Go to your Dropified account, and use the drop-down menu in the top right-hand corner of your dashboard, and select WooCommerce. 

Next, click the ADD STORE button in Dropified. Enter your store name and store URL to connect, it will require both the store name, and the website URL (http://woo.yourstorename.com), then click the add store button. 

This will prompt a WooCommerce authorization message (click Approve).

That’s it! Now you are ready to start adding items to your WooCommerce store.

Yes, it’s quite easy to dropship with WooCommerce… when you use Dropified to power and automate your drop ship store.

If you have not yet integrated your WooCommerce dropshipping store with Dropified yet, please see the Setup instructions posted above on this page.

Once you’ve connected your Dropified account with your WooCommerce dropshipping store, it’s time to start importing your products.

To import products, you’ll want to download and activate the Dropified Google Chrome extension.

Next, you’ll navigate to AliExpress.com, do a product search, and you’ll see thousands and thousands of products you can now import quickly into your WooCommerce dropshipping store.

After clicking on the extension, we can see that the product details appear on your screen where you can update the title, description, price, color, size, etc. 

After adding the information, click on the “Send to My Store” button. Shortly after that, you’ll be able to view your products via “View in Dropified” button.

After that, you will go directly to your Dropified Dashboard, where you can see all the information. You can also update the information like adding a description, changing the price, etc.

After you’ve done that, you now have products inside your WooCommerce store that can now be drop shipped directly from your AliExpress vendors and fully automated and fulfilled by Dropified.

That’s how you turn your WooCommerce store into a dropshipping store.

One of the biggest questions we get from people that are checking out dropshipping for the first time, is wondering whether or not dropshipping is legal or not.

After all, you are selling an item first, then turning around and buying that item from a supplier and having them ship it out for you…

…versus the more traditional retail route of buying inventory first, then selling what you have in your inventory.

It’s a great question, and one that we’re happy to say yes, it’s legal to dropship.

Dropshipping Legal Issues

With that said, there are legal concerns you need to consider and due diligence that you must do as a seller / drop shipper in order to stay legally compliant in your business.

For example, from a foundational business level, you need to make sure that you are set up as a legal business entity. Whether it’s an LLC, an S-Corp, and Inc or any number of other options, you need to make sure that you are set up as a business so that you are protected legally. Since we can’t offer legal advice, you need to speak with your attorney and/or your tax advisor.

You also need to make sure you’re set up tax-wise to make sure you are tracking expenses and taxes so that you are paying the correct amount of taxes and you’re tracking all your expenses so that you don’t get hit with any surprises when tax time comes around. And if you’re buying and selling between countries, you need to know international tax law as well, so be sure you have a tax adviser that understands the type of business you’re in.

Next, you need to ensure that you have the right permissions to sell the products that you are selling. In the case of dropshipping, you need to make sure that you are not selling counterfeit items, which can be common when dealing with overseas suppliers. That’s why doing due-diligence is key to your success and your protection. So, while it’s tempting to jump onto a hot selling product, you need to verify that if you are selling the same product, that you have permission…

…or that if you’re selling the actual product itself and not a counterfeit version that will get you in a lot of hot water legally.

When it comes to using different sites to dropship from that are not set up to be traditional dropshipping sites, you’ll want to read and understand their policies regarding dropshipping through those sites.

Dropshipping on Amazon

When it comes to retail sites like Amazon, you can have products drop shipped, but you must do it the right way. 

Here’s Amazon’s policy on dropshipping:

Drop shipping, or allowing a third-party to fulfill orders to customers on your behalf, is generally acceptable. If you intend to fulfill orders using a drop shipper, you must always:

• Be the seller of record of your products;
• Identify yourself as the seller of your products on all packing slips, invoices, external packaging, and other information included or provided in connection with them;
• Remove any packing slips, invoices, external packaging, or other information identifying a third-party drop shipper prior to shipping the order;
• Be responsible for accepting and processing customer returns of your products; and
• Comply with all other terms of your seller agreement and applicable Amazon policies.

Examples of drop shipping that is not permitted:

• Purchasing products from another online retailer and having that retailer ship directly to customers; or
• Shipping orders with packing slips, invoices, external packaging, or other information indicating a seller name or contact information other than your own.
• Failure to comply with these requirements may result in the suspension or removal of your selling privileges.

Dropshipping on eBay

eBay does allow dropshipping on its site, and as was the case with Amazon, they have specific policies regarding how you can and cannot dropship through their site.

Here’s eBay’s drop shipping policy:

Drop shipping, where you fulfill orders directly from a wholesale supplier, is allowed on eBay. Remember though, if you use drop shipping, you're still responsible for the safe delivery of the item within the time frame you stated in your listing, and the buyer's overall satisfaction with their purchase.

However, listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your customer is not allowed on eBay. In such cases, we may remove your listings from search, display them lower in search results, or remove them completely from the site. We may also limit, restrict or suspend your ability to buy, sell, or use site features on eBay, and you could lose any special status and/or discounts associated with your account.

As you review each site’s policies for staying compliant with your dropshipping business, there are a few common questions that naturally arise as you begin to dropship.

This is probably the biggest question we get when it comes to dropshipping.

Now, I’d love to just be able to hand you a list of products to start selling, here’s why you should NOT want to have a list just handed to you.

This wouldn’t help you run a successful store.

Just because you may know something is selling well doesn’t mean that YOU would or could see those same results. You may not know how to run targeted ads to the same products, who to target your marketing to, or even if paid traffic would work. Certain products may sell well because of the person themselves selling it. Maybe they have a special relationship with an audience that you don’t have, or maybe they have a certain angle to sell it that doesn’t work for you.

Instead, let’s focus on how to find the best products for you to sell.

Here’s some criteria we use when looking for products to sell:

• Can Be Sold With Enough Margin To Be Able To Scale Ads
• Are Unique / That Can’t Be Found Easily Elsewhere
• You Make Then Unique By How You Market And Sell Them

 

1. Can Be Sold With Enough Margin To Be Able To Scale Ads

Unless you have some great free traffic sources, you’ll probably be paying for ads or other paid media sources to drive traffic to your stores. If that’s the case, then you'll need to know that you are making enough margin on each sale to not only cover your advertising costs, but to also make money…

…and enough money to put right back into your marketing budget to continue driving new sales.

2. Are Unique / That Can’t Be Found Easily Elsewhere

Next, you’ll want to look for products that are not easily found elsewhere on places like Amazon, eBay or Walmart because people will more than likely buy from those sites… unless you are just way cheaper than them. And even then, people know and trust making purchases through established brand sites like Amazon, so if ever you are cheaper, they may still just go to Amazon and buy.

However, if you find ways to make your products more unique to you, then sales become easier and less likely to be lost to these other big retailers.

A great way to make your products more unique is to create clever product bundles that no one else offers.

The good news is that creating special bundles is something that Dropified helps you set up and fulfill really easily, whereas other dropship apps don’t offer bundles or if they do, make the process hard and more manual.

3. You Make Then Unique By How You Market And Sell Them

Many times, the reason a product sells well is that the person selling the item is good at doing a few things like:

• Taking their own pictures of the product
• Making videos demonstrating the product well
• Writing really good, unique descriptions for the product
• Knowing how to target their ideal buyer really well and selling a lot to them
• Creating unique bundles of products for this one product that no one else offers

When almost every other seller out there is using the same stock products images and descriptions, it doesn’t take much from you to get a little creative, do things different and stand out to make more sales.

So, while we didn’t hand you a list of products to sell, hopefully we handed you something more valuable – the way to find better, more unique and more profitable products.

This hopefully helps you have ongoing success, not just some quick flash-in-the-pan sales (then nothing) like you might get from a “hot product list” that everyone and their brother is trying to use to find products too.