Dropshipping is an electronic commerce system that has become popular among entrepreneurs due to its great advantages. Mainly, because maintaining the stock of products and managing logistics and transport falls on a third party, the supplier. So, the economic investment is also less.
But how can you create an online dropshipping store? First you will need a program that allows you to manage content on the Internet. And one of the most used systems is WordPress, with its plugin WooCommerce.
Doing dropshipping with WooCommerce makes it easier for you to build and manage your store. Of course, always following certain steps and recommendations.
Dropshipping with WooCommerce: how it works
In dropshipping, the business is based on the triangulation of trade: the customer buys the product from the owner of the electronic store, but it is the supplier who has the merchandise stored and manages the shipping and delivery of the product directly to the customer or buyer.
Therefore, the owner of the dropshipping store takes care of:
- Market the product. Show it and promote it on the web.
- Receive the order and its payment.
- Request and purchase the product from the supplier.
- Customer service for questions, sales, claims or returns..
When you do dropshipping with WooCommerce, your online store is linked and synchronizes internally with the supplier’s website, so that you can load or import the products that it has and that want to offer in your store.
The synchronization of your ecommerce is achieved by installing a plugin that will connect you to the provider you have chosen. And it is this plugin that turns your virtual store into a dropshipping store.
In this way, the changes made by the supplier in their virtual storefront, in prices or other important information, will also be automatically reflected on your page.
There are several plugins to connect your store with the supplier. For example, to synchronize with AliExpress you can install the AliDropship plugin or the WooShark plugin.
Steps to create a dropshipping store with WooCommerce
To run a dropshipping store with WooCommerce, you need to perform the following steps:
1 Create your online store
First, register the domain and hosting. After create an online store in WooCommerce. For this you must:
- Install WordPress.
- Login to your WordPress account.
- Install WooCommerce . From the left menu: plugin > Add new. It is the plugin that will give the virtual store functionality to your website.
- Activate and configure WooCommerce : location, payment channels, type of currency, etc.
2 Install the dropshipping plugin
Now you must convert your virtual store with WooCommerce into an automated dropshipping system:
- Select and form the alliance with a good dropshipping provider, characterized by:
- Have experience.
- Offer good prices.
- Have efficient management.
- Sell high-quality products.
- Purchase a dropshipping plugin that suits the provider you have selected. For example:
- Wooshark is a plugin to import products from Amazon, ebay or AliExpress.
- AliDropship imports products from AliExpress.
- Go to your online store and log in as administrator.
- Install and activate the dropshipping plugin. Remember to activate the corresponding licenses.
3 Configure the desired settings
Once you have activated your dropshipping store with WooCommerce , you must enter the menu of the dropshipping plugin that you have installed and configure the settings of:
- Contact information for orders.
- Images of the products.
- Service monitoring.
- Price updates.
- Appearance or attributes of products, etc.
4 Import the products to offer
You can import products from your own website, without having to enter the supplier’s store.
Within your dropshipping store, as an administrator, you can easily search and select the products you want to offer. From there you can analyse and visualize all the characteristics and costs associated with the product.
You can edit its information for each imported product. Therefore, take advantage of this option to expand the description of the products and offer your customers a better service.
Advantages of dropshipping with WooCommerce
WordPress is a flexible, intuitive, constantly evolving and free platform. When you create your dropshipping store with WooCommerce you are creating your own sales page, with all the advantages that this brings you:
- Property of the online store. WooCommerce is open source. Therefore, you will always be the owner of all the data and content of your store.
- Efficient management. WordPress presents constant updates to improve its functionalities. In addition, it has plugins for SEO optimization of the online store.
- User friendly setup. The menus and tools offered by WordPress and WooCommerce are completely intuitive and very friendly.
- Security. WordPress always improves its security through its updates. It also has various plugins with more advanced options to protect your website.
- Statistics. An online store with WooCommerce offers you the necessary metrics to analyse and make timely and efficient decisions in the management of your company.
- Customer experience. Due to the various configuration tools, with your WooCommerce dropshipping, you will be able to personalize and improve the shopping experience of your customers.
- Control and freedom. Creating a dropshipping store with WooCommerce gives you the freedom and control to apply whatever strategies you see fit in your business.
In short, WooCommerce is an important tool for electronic commerce. Thanks to WooCommerce, a WordPress website can offer the functionalities of a virtual store. In addition, it leaves the field open for that virtual store to be automated to operate as a dropshipping business.
To create and manage a dropshipping store with WooCommerce, no specialized knowledge is necessary. Although it is always important to advice from specialists regarding hosting and domain registration, web design for better engagement, etc.
In this and more we can help you. At Doowebs we are specialists in web development for WooCommerce, PrestaShop and custom web programming. We always adjust to the needs of your business and the project you have in mind.