WooCommerce or Shopify is always an interesting topic to talk. 2 sides are always comparing and over the year the growing number of each user is making the debate gets even hotter. But before I show you why I chose WooCommerce, it’d be perfect if I share you a bit of my history.
Little did anyone know how I start to know drop shipping world (I am pretty sure no one care anyway). I think I should share it here as a background before we talk about WooCommerce or Shopify. It’s only fair if I share the whole story.
It’s going to be long, but I hope it will help you to avoid the failure that made.
How Did I Start To Dropshipping.
The first introduction I had with drop shipping was actually accidental and not something I would expect. On 2015 I quit my job as a Senior Web Developer at a Chicago Digital company. I was looking for a remote job and employer that is not just looking for a good web/app developer but also a business partner to grow together, a high and silly hope I must admit.
Luckily, I met these 2 guys (well at first only 1 guy) who were looking for a good web/app developer that is not just looking for work but also to grow as a business partner. What a coincidence, right? I must admit, it was like fate. I got this synced energy with Hezi (one of the owners and co-founder), and we barely ever talk too much about my salary (good salary of course).
During those times I was working with them. I wanted to know more about this business. I then googled articles about “dropshipping”, I also asked Hezi questions around drop shipping. Finally, I get to meet with Adriano who taught me a lot about the business model and its benefits. I decided at that time that I have to try this business.
Why Drop shipping?
I believe that Drop shipping is the future of e-commerce. The growing number of marketplace websites will eventually make the market tired. Bored with the same pattern where a consumer is always a consumer and a supplier is always a supplier. People will value more of what they’re buying, even more extreme, people nowadays value the time they spend on anything.
Drop shipping is a win-win solution, it enables you to shop for yourself and at the same time, you can do business. You can do everything in one time, one place, and add values to the experience itself. This is what I call a proper business, it doesn’t promise you a quick big money scheme but it does give you an opportunity to generate a profit out of your transaction.
Yes, Drop Shipping. What then?
How should I build my website? Should I spend times building a website from scratch? Or should I use a ready to use an e-commerce platform like Shopify?
I googled, there were so many information and promo about “how to do drop shipping business using Shopify”, and how easy it is to make a money using an e-commerce store in Shopify for FREE (only then I understand the trial period is nothing to get me understand about this business). So I opened my first store in Shopify.
I also found a tool to import products to Shopify that also has a free trial. Everything is free and need a short amount of time to open an online store. What could be a better option for a starter, right? I was so happy and ready to show it off. I didn’t even get to consider thinking about WooCommerce VS Shopify, the promotion is massive and overwhelming.
Failed To Make Money With Shopify.
Finally, I opened my first babies and toddlers supply store on Shopify. I diligently read all the ebooks I found on the internet. Followed the steps, and sometimes rolled back and repeated the steps that I was not sure of.
All of sudden, an email with notification that my trial is ending in 1 week came. It hit me, I wasted 3 weeks without making sales or orders. I spent too much of my time to learn how to do it like others and wasn’t trying to make a profit to cover my subscription fee.
I was late to make my first sales. This is where I got it all wrong. I tried to be unique in the middle of a homogenous market. It doesn’t work that way!
With Shopify, it’s hard to diverge your market and niche. You are limited to certain limitations as a free user. At this point WooCommerce vs Shopify, WooCommerce is way ahead Shopify.
Migrating to WooCommerce.
Not saying that Shopify is less good than WooCommerce, I know some guys that are making real profit with Shopify. With the condition I had, it was so hard for me to go back using Shopify.
I then looked at other options, checked on other online store platforms like WooCommerce, Prestashop, and many other. As soon as I tried to install a WooCommerce to a subdomain I own, I know that this was the right one for me. The comparison is this:
Let us suppose you will want to run 10 dropshipping stores. (The reason will be in another article). Shopify will charge you a fortune of $290/month, which sums up to $3480/year for 10 stores! WooCommerce hosting will allow you to set up an unlimited number of websites for $9.99/month which averages out to to be just $120/year for 10 stores or $12 /year per store.
$120/year compared with $3480/year, Bang! It is not very hard to decide a winner here. From this perspective WooCommerce VS Shopify, WooCommerce is better. Especially when you need to scale up your business.
What doesn’t kill you make you stronger
Okay, now I have to restart everything in WooCommerce. Still with the high spirit, and ready to work hard to make this second shot finally make some profit. Spent 30-45 minutes to publish 1 item. Established Facebook Shop and start promoting. 3 days later I received my first order (finally). Boom! nailed it.
Then, days passed by without new orders. What in the world have I done wrong again this time? I looked at the number of visitors to my store. I was able to check which item attract the most and made sales. So I start removing the other items that were not selling and try to replace it with the item that attracts visitors.
With WooCommerce I have to do everything manually. Did find tools available in the market that are similar to what I had when I use Shopify. Sadly, none of the tools for WooCommerce worked as how I need it. Either it requires me to install ioncube, or it doesn’t do anything but importing items from AliExpress. I need to do something about this condition. On this head to head WooCommerce VS Shopify, WooCommerce is slightly below Shopify.
Finding The Perfect Tool(s).
I got to find a tool for my WooCommerce that works with my condition. I started to invest my weekends to develop a tool I used to call Dropshipping-Xox that stands for Drop shipping Xtra Ordinary Xolluteon.
4 months later, we have Dropshix running. I started to gain stable visitors flow, and sales were coming. Not much but enough to prove my concept is working. Long story short, we decided to provide the tool in WordPress.Org repository, so that many people can try it. From there I got a lot of new friends that came from similar background story and need to rebound using WooCommerce.
On August 2017, Dropshix is launched to the public. The first open source AliExpress WooCommerce Drop Shipping tool so a drop shipper newbies like me have a chance to make some profit. We share dropshix so that we can help people who are struggling with building their business in WooCommerce. With a silly hope, that “if everyone lives a better life then we’ll live in a better world”.
Remember, a tool does not always determine your success, but it surely will help you a lot when starting the whole journey. See you in another article.
Maximizing WooCommerce With DROPSHIX Web Application.
If after reading this article you start to question yourself on how you can maximize this potential e-commerce platform, then you should read about DROPSHIX Web Application. There is a special offer with a discount of (up to) 50% for all packages.
