The Top 10 Dropshipping Apps for Shopify

The Top 10 Dropshipping Apps 

When building your first e-commerce business, sourcing for inventory tends to be one of the most difficult things to do. For entrepreneurs starting out, I suggest that you guys build dropshipping store just to learn the ropes of eCommerce marketing. It’s easy, low risk and also a very satisfying way to start a business as it is very rewarding.

To help you source the best way to kick start your dropshipping business, I have compiled a list of the 10 best Shopify dropshipping apps that you can use to acquire inventory and products for your new Shopify store.

1. Oberlo

Oberlo is designed and built exclusively for Shopify. It helps dropshipping entrepreneurs to easily upload products directly to their Shopify stores from AliExpress or Oberlo’s own market platform.

When using Oberlo, you will have an entire library of products at your disposal at different price points. All you have to do is to just click on the products you are interested in selling and it will automatically get uploaded to your Shopify store.

The number of products there are very vast and consist of apparels, accessories, toys, electronics and much more. You would be able to sell them directly to your customers which means you will not have to handle inventory at all. Leverage on Oberlo’s strong network of logistics and pay very reasonable prices for their shipping.

Because of how tightly Oberlo and Shopify are integrated, the whole process of selecting, selling and shipping products is fully automated. This helps you to focus more on your business rather than going through the fulfilling process yourself.

There are 3 different price plans for Oberlo to choose from:

Free Plan
Upload up to 500 different products to your Shopify store. This plan allows you to process up to 50 orders a month with Oberlo.

Basic Plan ($29.90)
Upload up to 10,000 products , fulfill up to 5000 orders a month, which translates to about $2000 to $3000 USD worth of sales.

Pro Plan ($79.90)
Upload up to 30,000 products, Unlimited orders a month.

There are a few advantages that Oberlo has over the competitors. Their UI and user experience is very simple. You are also able to import goods for Oberlo marketplace and AliExpress straight to your website with just a few clicks. Not only that, you can change the product photos if you’re unsatisfied with it. You could order some samples, take some of your own high-quality product shots so you could differentiate yourself from other dropshippers using the same platform.

You might want to rename your products, write your own unique descriptions and more. Oberlo also offers plenty of resources and information on their website and blog to help new store owners help set up a successful dropshipping store with the right information.

There is also an option to purchase an Oberlo store from the Shopify exchange market place if you don’t want to build one up from scratch. This works as a shortcut and if you like a store on the Shopify market place you might want to consider buying it off the shelf and start marketing it.

Despite all the pros about Oberlo; there are flaws that come with it.

One of it is that each product must be manually added to your store and it doesn’t have a product feed where you can upload products in bulk from a certain supplier. You can only source products from the Oberlo market-place or AliExpress and you can tend to run into shady suppliers or some that are not well accustomed to dropshipping properly so its best to always check, and get samples for the products you are selling.

You can NOT on board other dropshippers if you found a new one. If you aren’t using Shopify and you’re using U-commerce, Magento or Tapcart, you are unable to use Oberlo due to it being only available for Shopify stores.

2. Printful

Printful provides really great products and good services based in the US and is famous for its top-notch service.

When it comes to Oberlo, you would at times need to rely on AliExpress, and you will have the chance to bump into shady dropshippers which can affect your credibility and trust as a business. When it comes to Printful, I would highly recommend this if you’re a graphics designer, illustrator, or a photographer that want your photos to be seen by the world.

Printful is a Print-On-Demand service which is a different type of dropshipping business. You upload your own designs for the products via Printful and create your own t-shirts, sweaters, pillows, leggings, phone cases and many more. Print exactly what you want on these items and sell them directly to your customers. You could even build an entire brand just by using Printful.

Similar to Oberlo, they are able to automatically fulfill your order and delivering them to your customers and you will not need to manually fulfill them. Just send your design in and you’ll have a product ready that you can sell an unlimited amount of time. Everything is saved online so it is always accessible, which makes it amazing!

What Makes Printful Great?

Printful is also completely free to use no matter how many products you have on your store or how many orders you get monthly. There’s no monthly membership, no fees, you simply pay a flat price for each of the products you sell depending on the items.

The advantages of using Printful app is that all the printing, fulfilling and shipping would be handled by them so you wouldn’t have to lift a finger other than uploading the products and creating your store. 

They also offer shipping for all products with tracking because of their high standards of shipping unless the orders are in larger quantities and during peak seasons they might be overloaded and have a lot of orders to fulfill. Generate mock-ups of your design so that you wouldn’t have to take up product shots. All you have to do is design the product and put it up on your store.

Moreover, they also provide branding services as your volume grows. Printful is able to help you customize your packaging when the orders are being shipped to your customers and this would really enhance your customer’s unboxing experience and branding of your company. Unfortunately, this is only reserved for people who have achieved a certain number of volume in a month.

With that being said, there are still some weaknesses when it comes to Printful.

For apparels, you will have to follow their custom cutting, material, and sizes. This provides less control of the quality of your product as you are building your brand. There is also time, where each product is made upon order so it might take 2-7 days for the product to get ready before it’s even shipped out, which can delay the overall process so it’s best to manage customers expectations in your FAQ, delivery and product description on your website.

3. MXED

MXED is a fairly new dropshipping app and is one of the most exciting ones that I’ve seen this year. Available in the USA, MXED has a large collection of licensed pop-culture merchandise from brands such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, etc and is also partnered with one of the leading suppliers for pop-culture merch in the USA.

Not only that, but MXED also enables entrepreneurs to dropship these products. The products are fully licensed and it’s completely legal to be sold. You wouldn’t run into any legal issues when using MXED. These products have proven to be very high in demand as well, not to mention the huge demand for these products.

MXED comes in 3 different plans:

Free
Upload a total of 10 products, process up to 20 orders a month.

Pro Tier ($49 per month)
Upload up to 250 products, fulfill up to 500 orders per month.

Expert Tier ($99 per month)
Upload up to 500 products, unlimited orders per month, early access to new features, team account.

It’s very clear that the major advantage you get from using MXED is that you wouldn’t have to worry about licensing rights to sell these pop-culture merchandises. You also wouldn’t have to infringe on any registered trademarks or copyright. MXED has a growing selection of inventory from many popular movies, TV series and video games.

This market is already in very high demand and there’s already a vetted market for customers, all you would have to do is to market it, build your own concept store and then bring it to market. Like all dropshipping apps, there is no shipping, fulfillment or logistics required. The app does it all for you, including pricing and inventory.

Lastly, the main strength of MXED is also their weakness. Due to the licensing restrictions of these brands, MXED is only available if the retailer and customer are based in the USA. This makes it difficult for retailers out of America to set up stores as well as to reach out to other customers around the world.

4. MODALYST

MODALYST provides a very wide selection of ready-made products by independent brands from the USA and Europe. The products they sell on MODALYST includes men and women apparels, shoes, bags, bridal wear, children’s clothing, beauty, etc.

Just like MXED, it is also integrated directly with Shopify store and you can add and remove the products with a click of a button, so you can always update your product catalog with ease. It is also available in Bigcommerce. You are also able to modify the product description, pricing, and images to suit your store theme and design.

MODALYST comes in 4 different plans to suit your business needs or as you grow:

Hobby Plan (Free)
For those who are starting up, this is the plan to choose. Access nonpremium suppliers and with a product limit of 25.

Start up plan ($25)
Non-premium suppliers, up to 250 product limit. Real-time data feed. Access to product images, descriptions and pricing. No minimum order.

Pro ($175):
Shorter shipping times, up to 5000 product limit and access to the entire catalog of products.

Business ($250):
Suitable for high volume stores, an unlimited amount of products and full access to products.

Like all dropshipping apps, there’s no upfront inventory cost. For selected brands, MODALYST also offers free shipping worldwide with tracking, which is a very distinct advantage when it comes to dropshipping.

MODALYST also communicates directly with these independent brands that are on the platform so you won’t have to worry about these products being fake or at an unreasonable quality. They have 4 days shipping policy with the brands under them, as well as return policy for your customers.

Having all your these under your belt helps in building a very reputable brand. However, there is also a disadvantage of using this app.

While the catalog of items provided is huge with over 650+ sellers, do note that many of them are independent brands so the shipping time for each brand might differ. It is also not fully automated, where every time you receive an order, you will have to submit an upfront payment to the seller before they ship your product out. This will incur more manual work and is best to manage your potential suppliers so it does not get messy when you have a lot of orders.

5. KITE

KITE is another dropshipping alternative that offers products that are a little bit different than the others. They provide smaller merchandise that can be customized such as magnets, hoodies, cushions, phone and tablet cases, posters, stickers, t-shirts, tote bags, canvases and more.

KITE starts off free and there are no membership payment or additional fees at all. They only charge the user when customers make an order. There are no minimum orders and it is a POD (Print on Demand) service similar to Printful and Pillow Profits. They are also backed by strong brand names such as Polaroid, Pic Collage, Lenovo and Canon.

However, the disadvantage of using KITE is that due to the products being sourced from different suppliers, there may be some disjointed and slow shipping time when customers combine a lot of different products to their purchase. Not only that, they only offer track shipping for some of their products and only on an opt-in basis. Your customers would have to pay a bit extra to get the tracking for their purchase, so its best to plan everything ahead to make it easier to manage.

6. Spocket

Spocket sources its products from various dropshippers from the US and EU and includes them all in one easy to use platform. They have a huge catalog of products to choose from to fit your specific markets. It’s easy to use dashboard includes price filters, location, and keyword option to help you search for the best products.

Depending on your seller and market, you can also achieve shipping time frames of 2-5 days and this will really help in boosting your sales and keeping your customers happy. Product import is also easy with just a click of the button and you are free to change the description and price to make it more flexible.

There are 3 plans to choose from:

Free plan
Upload up to 25 products, an unlimited number of orders, real-time inventory updates, takes care of currency exchange, offers global pricing. Email support.

Standard plan $39 per month (7-day free trial)
Upload up to 250 products, have all the features from the basic plan, real-time shipment tracking, branded invoicing, email and chat support.

Professional plan $99 per month (7-day free trial)
Upload unlimited products, have all the previous features.

The cons of using SPocket is that the supplier base in mainly in the US and EU, so shipping products internationally can occur a high cost and time for your customers depending on your market. Similar to MODALYST, the huge catalog with different sellers can also mean you will have to deal with more than one drop shipper that could have different fulfillment time so its best to do your homework and plan well before jumping in.

7. Gooten

Gooten is a print fulfillment company similar to Printful and they provide other variety of products such as kitchen and bathroom products, home decor, photobooks, apparel, wall-art, and even pet products.

It is a very simple platform to use, with zero setup fee and membership fee so it’s very simple to get it running. Your profits are calculated by the difference in the cost and your selling price that can be adjusted to suit your store/market. The advantages to using Gooten is that there are no minimum orders, no hidden fees, it’s free to use.

Worldwide shipping is also available. Gooten also sets themselves apart due to their amazing service. Based on my previous experiences, they got back to me in a matter of minutes (this depends on the time zone of course).

Unfortunately, there are also some disadvantages just like the other apps. Gooten does not offer any branding services at all, that means you can not customize the unboxing or fulfillment experience as your business grows and although it’s easy to start up an account, the dashboard is a little messy and take a bit of getting used to.

8. Pillow Profits

Pillow Profits specializes in a different area compared to the other dropshipping applications. They provide printing services for items such as shoes, sneakers, full fur boots, high heels, flip flops, high tops, bedding, pillow covers and much more.

With Pillow Profits, you will have your design printed on any of their available products to create a custom and unique product for your store and brand. While Pillow Profits offers a 7-day free trial, their services cost $29.99 per month to use.

Pillow Profits includes the shipping cost into the price of the product itself, so it’s easier to manage your expectations and profit counting when you are setting up your store. The advantages of using this app itself are that you get to print your design on sneakers and many different items compared to the other dropshipping apps, which makes your product pretty unique!

Not to mention they also provide free worldwide shipping and a very user-friendly integration on their app itself. You would also have complete control over your orders, you get to edit customer addresses, product sizes and you can also cancel the orders if you need to.

However, despite all the pros, there are also cons. Not all countries have tracked shipping because they use registered airmail and they ONLY integrate with Shopify store, which would increase your cost by at least another $29 a month. There are also no half sizes for shoes, so building a brand with Pillow Profits tends to be a little trickier in some markets.

9. Collective Fab

Collective Fab is a massive supplier of fashion and beauty products based in California. They are specialized in meeting the constant change of trends in the fashion industry and provides a huge catalog with over 3000 products that you can curate and add to your Shopify store with just a couple of clicks, It’s that simple!

They provide products such as shoes, clothes, plus-sized clothing, accessories, swimwear, and even beauty products. All of these products are shipped to your customers with info that it was made in their factory in California, USA.

They offer a 14-day free trial and their subscription starts at $29 per month and it can be canceled anytime. This membership will include access to all of their items and includes Blind Dropshipping. Blind dropshipping means that they would ship the product while including your company info and address, compared to others that use the dropshipper’s address.

Collective Fab also possesses automatic inventory updates. Besides that, they also have semi-automatic product ordering and would help you upload shipping information directly to your customers. The advantages of Collective Fab is that it is very user-friendly, multiple channels for support, a wide variety of women fashion and beauty products.

Not to mention their inventory update is done every 4 hours via their API (Application Programming Interface). Unlike MODALYST when you have a fixed margin, using Collective Fab, you get to price your products however you like. They are always in trend and is constantly bringing in new inventory.

The disadvantage, however, is that there are ONLY women clothing available. But if your target market is focused on women, this is it for you!

10. Teelaunch

Teelaunch is another print on demand fulfillment company. When a customer makes an order on your website, they will print, pack and ship it directly to them.

There isn’t a membership fee and sign-ups are free, you will only have to pay for a product when your customers make an order so you wouldn’t have to have a minimum quantity or hold any inventory. Teelaunch’s inventory includes men and women apparel, tote bags, tapestries, shower curtains, jewelry, phone cases, kitchen products and many more.

The advantages of using Teelaunch is that it is completely FREE to use, which is perfect for those who are starting out an eCommerce business. There is also no minimum order, fully automated process, interchangeable profit margins, and worldwide shipping.