AliDropship Review 2021 (+Video) – Can You Actually Succeed With this Plugin?

alidropship featured

Okay, you’re here because you want to know if AliDropship is good enough and want to know if you can actually build a successful dropshipping store with it, right?

I’m hoping you said yes 🙂 Here is my AliDropship Review!

Click the video below to watch a complete video review and tutorial (If you prefer reading, keep scrolling down)

Anyways…

For those of you don’t know what AliDropship is, it’s basically a plugin (addon) to help you import products from Aliexpress into your WordPress dropshipping store and also semi-automate the fulfilment process.

It’s basically a cheaper shopify/oberlo alternative.

But is it actually legit?

Let’s not forget WooDropship (another plugin to help WordPress users import Aliexpress products) but don’t worry I’ll cover them too – so you can make an informed decision before investing.

Forgive my ignorance but up until a few months ago – I actually didn’t know you could build a dropshipping store with WordPress. Let alone a successful one.

All the “gurus” were preaching Shopify…Facebook ads and Instagram Influencers.

Which makes everyone believe you need Shopify to succeed with dropshipping, but that’s not the case.

No one was talking about how you could build one with WordPress. Not until I had a few people requesting that I make a WordPress dropshipping store tutorial.

So I researched and came up with 2 alternatives. Alidropship & WooDropship.

Let’s talk about AliDropship…

My first impression of AliDropship wasn’t that great. The design of their website seemed a bit outdated and I wondered if the plugin was the same.

So, I decided to look around at other reviews and to my surprise they were pretty good.

But the price of the plugin was $89, so before I took the plunge – I tested WooDropship for 7 days cause their website had a much more modern and similar vibe to Shopify/Oberlo.

I was testing it with my demo wordpress store and it worked as advertised. The interface and also the way you imported and sorted the products before publishing the product was very similar to Oberlo/Shopify. There was also a Chrome extension plugin.

But I just couldn’t ignore the amazing AliDropship Reviews!

Although the “outdated” design wasn’t my favourite thing, I took the leap of faith and bought the plugin.

And…

I ended up loving it.

It’s like finding a small low key restaurant, not that clean or modern, but the food is the best and you go there every week.

What I mean is that the product is great. You had everything you needed with AliDropship and it can do all of the things that you’ll need when it comes to dropshipping.

  1. Easily Import Products from AliExpress (they also use a Chrome Extension)
  2. Semi-Automate the Fulfilment Process (& Tracking)
  3. Set Pricing Formulas

And…

It had some of the most important features that WooDropship lacked – which was the ability to import reviews and the option to purchase addons such as the countdown timers, abandoned cart, recently bought pop-ups and more.

Which to me and probably you as well – is an VERY important aspect to build a successful store.

What really surprised me…

I was surprised by how easy it was to import the products and you also have the ability to edit the images without exporting it into Photoshop. You can do it all within the plugin.
This is extremely helpful because you don’t want to have different logos on your products – cause it just doesn’t seem professional.

alidropship image editor

You have the ability to edit the sales page, edit the variants, edit pricing – All before importing into your store. It’s a little different in terms of the interface but it works quite well.

alidropship editing variations

As you might be aware, I am favouring AliDropship over WooDropship and here are 7 reasons why.

1) Pricing structure

I like the simplicity of the one-time fee and no limits on orders.

AliDropship is a one time fee of $89 whereas WooDropship is free for 7-days and then it’s $14/month for up to 100 orders, $29 for 500 order and $49/month for unlimited.

So if you are making 500 orders/month – you’d already be paying $98 by the 3rd month in business.

2) Better reviews on the web

5 stars with over 70,000 Users on their Chrome Extension.

AliDropship Chrome Reviews

Real reviews on trusted review sites. (See below)

SiteJabber AliDropship Reviews
TrustPilot AliDropship Reviews

3) Dedicated Support (See Screenshot above in the Chrome Extension)

They replied to a comment on their Chrome Extension.

What’s more important than reviews? Dedicated support that you know will be around if you need.

4) They have the ‘Necessary’ Plugins too!

In addition to any other useful WordPress and WooCommerce Plugins – the team at AliDropship have built the most important plugins.
Such as the Countdown Timer, Recent Sales Pop-up and Abandoned Cart too. Check their plugins here.

addons

5) Active community

The last thing I want is to have built a successful store, but for the plugin to be not available or not updated anymore.

So, I checked the around the websites of both to see which was more active.
And I determined that more people were using AliDropship and it seemed like there were a lot more resources to help people build a successful store.

I was even able to dig up several success stories using AliDropship.

They also have an active forum.

AliDropship Forum

6) You can import reviews (For Free)

With AliDropship, you can actually import the reviews from AliExpress to give your store and products more social proof. That’s going to increase your conversions. And as you can see, they’ve also recently added in a very great interface showing the progress.

Import Reviews

7) You can sign up for the AliExpress Affiliate Program

Not many people know this but you can get up to 12% cashback on each item you sell.

Not something Oberlo or WooDropship Offers.

But it’s not all Sunshine and Rainbows…

Just added: They added the option to track the order within the dashboard of WordPress, which is amazing!

alidropship tracking

What I didn’t like about the plugin?

When we import the review from AliExpress and once translated – they are not translated properly. They have filters to import the reviews but sometimes they don’t work as you would expect.

However, you can edit them and tweak them once you’ve imported into WordPress – included deleting images which might not be good. But it does take time.

Since AliExpress doesn’t actually show the full name of the reviewer on their site – AliDropship will import it as is. It would be great if they could auto populate it with a random name.

With that said, I had the same issue with Shopify too. WooDropship currently doesn’t have this feature.

Also it’s important to note – this plugin requires your host to activate “ioncube loader”.

Most hosting providers already have this setup. But if not you can follow the instructions they provide here.

But you don’t have to worry – Your host can easily activate it for you, if it’s not on. And if you follow my tutorial so how you can make a dropshipping store with WordPress – I’ll guide you too!

I also didn’t like they sent promotional emails abit to often – however you can unsubscribe to those if you don’t find any value from them.

You might be scared by all this information and be a little overwhelmed with all the features/requirements etc – so let me break it down of what you need to do from start to finish.

Here’s the entire process broken down into 10 simple steps.

(Assuming you have WordPress & WooCommerce Plugin installed already)

  1. Purchase, Download, Install and Activate the AliDropship Woo Plugin or AliDropship Original (In that case you will need to use one of their themes & you won’t need WooCommerce)
  2. Add the AliDropship Chrome Extension
  3. Open AliExpress.com
  4. Select the product you want to Import
  5. Select Import
  6. Edit the Images, Variations, Pricing & Sales Page.
  7. Publish the product to website
  8. Once someone orders, you will be paid via your preferred payment gateway
  9. You will then click on “Place Order Automatically” within your WordPress Dashboard. This will open up AliExpress and Auto Populate the Products that your customer ordered and also Auto populate your customers shipping address & details. Then you will pay the AliExpress Supplier with your credit card/paypal.
  10. Your AliExpress Supplier will confirm the order and ship to your customer. Normally, if you have chosen ePacket shipping – you will be notified of when it arrived at your customers home.

That’s pretty much the whole process.

If you would like – watch this part of my full tutorial of how to get started and how to set it up step by step.

Conclusion

So who is AliDropship for?

If you are looking for an Shopify/Oberlo alternative – this is DEFINITELY my top pick.

If you are deciding between Shopify and WordPress/WooCommerce/AliDropship – then I would say Shopify is easier to get started but it IS more expensive to run. With a basic shopify plan, oberlo and a few apps you could easily be running on $100+/month.

If you are asking for my personal opinion I pick WordPress + WooCommerce & Alidropship. Because with WordPress you get much more flexibility in terms of customization such as the styling and appearance of the website. And I’m already well versed with WordPress so it’s not hard for me to use.

Shopify is still an awesome eCommerce platform, however you definitely don’t need to be using Shopify to succeed.

Update: AliDropship recently launched their own app within Shopify for Dropshipping! I have yet to test but once I do I will give you guys a review of it.

Overall, I rate it AliDropship a solid 9/10 – as I don’t think any product is a 10/10 cause there is always room for improvement.

Get AliDropship Here!

This will take you to the next screen. From there you need to click on “BUY NOW

Purchase AliDropship Discount

Then it will take you the the Order form, where you can enter in “HOGAN” for a 15% discount.

alidropship discount code

There’s another option though…

If you want to get a custom store built.

Yes, they also offer a complete store built for you starting from $299.

Use HOGAN for 15% discount.

I’ve also created two videos that walk you through step by step how to get started.

In this tutorial below, I walk you through step by step how to setup a Dropshipping store using WordPress, WooCommerce & AliDropship Woo.

The theme we use is completely customizable and includes a drag & drop builder to help you easily design the store you like

I’ve also created another Tutorial based on Alidropship Original Plugin using their Ruebens Theme. This theme is specifically designed for the plugin, therefore you don’t need to install WooCommerce.

It’s super easy to setup, however the downside is that it doesn’t feature a drag & drop builder.

Thank you for reading (or watching), If you have any questions please drop them down below.

Best of Luck,

Hogan

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