What is Oberlo?
If you have plans of opening an e-commerce store on Shopify then there are two options for you. The first one is the conventional option; keep an inventory of the products you would like to sell and also take care of all shipping responsibilities yourself. The second one is a recent option that is rapidly gaining in popularity; use Oberlo. If you haven’t heard of Oberlo, then you better gear up, because this is going to be a long and interesting read.
How does Oberlo Work?
Oberlo uses the principles of dropshipping, which allows you as a store owner to sell a wide variety of products to customers without any headaches of keeping an inventory and shipping the products. This revolutionary concept has given a ton of opportunities to people who want to set up their own online business store without much fuss and bother.
The Features of Oberlo
User-Friendly Interface for Managing Products Efficiently
Oberlo’s interface is very easy to get used to, even for newcomers in the e-commerce scene. The app has made managing products a smooth and effortless task, with a very carefully organized menu.
Automated Order Fulfillment
All you need to do is find the product to deliver on Oberlo, add it to your Shopify store and order it. From this point onwards, packing the product and shipping it to your customer are Oberlo’s responsibilities
Track Shipments, Sales and Profits
Keep track of all your transactions through Oberlo’s integrated product tracking system. The sales and costs dashboard shows you your profit margins, making it easier for you to do the business budgeting.
Faster Product Delivery through ePacket Filter
If your customers want their orders within a few days, you can look for products through the ePacket filter. EPacket is a popular modern-day delivery method that delivers products much faster than conventional delivery methods while being cheap at the same time
Support for Google Chrome
Even though Oberlo is primarily a mobile application, users can also use it as an extension across desktops and laptops. Simply download the Oberlo extension for Google Chrome and import products for your Shopify store from Aliexpress, one of the biggest online retail hubs in the world.
What are the Benefits of Oberlo?
Significantly Lower Costs
Prior to Oberlo, it was unthinkable to sell products without buying them first. It was also hard to imagine a product-based business not keeping a stock or inventory. However, with Oberlo, you don’t need to worry about the costs associated with buying products and keeping a stock, enabling you to start a business without breaking the bank.
Find Products in a Matter of Minutes
You can find a product you want to sell on Oberlo in a matter of minutes. In a conventional business setting, you would have to get in touch with both local and international manufacturers and wholesalers. The correspondence would be time-consuming; the time you could otherwise save if you opt to use Oberlo.
E-Packet Delivery
For drop shipping purposes, Oberlo uses the ePacket delivery system. This fairly recent delivery method that guarantees speedy local and international deliveries. EPacket delivery is useful especially when drop shipping products from China. While conventional delivery methods may take up to two months to deliver products, ePacket only takes somewhere between 7 and 30 days. Thanks to Oberlo’s overlay filters, you can look for products that will be delivered via the ePacket delivery method.
Trusted by Numerous Businesses
Oberlo’s inception happened in 2015. In just four remarkable years, the app has been used by numerous Shopify storeowners. Over 85 million products have been sold on Shopify thanks to Oberlo, with countless transactions happening across the platforms at this very moment. This proves that Oberlo is a trusted brand.
Oberlo Can be Used Anywhere
Oberlo offers its services irrespective of where you are in the world, which allows potential e-commerce store owners to set up shop absolutely anywhere in the world. The fact that the app is only available in English may seem like a limitation. However, the freedom it offers in terms of using its services is unparalleled.
Store Owners Can Focus on Other Business Aspects
Maintaining an inventory and product shipping can be quite stressful to look after. If business owners are concentrating all their efforts towards these stressful activities, they may not find time to focus on growing and expanding their businesses. However, Oberlo enables business owners to come up with new and innovative ideas while it handles product shipping and delivery.
How Much Does Oberlo Cost?
Make no mistake, Oberlo is no charity. It is very much a business, but a business that has built itself up by supporting other businesses. Oberlo offers three plans to Shopify store owners. The most basic plan is absolutely free of cost and includes every feature that an up and coming e-commerce store may need. Some of the key features of the free Oberlo plan are:
- Auto-updates for inventory and price with the supplier
- Automated price markup
- Product customization
- Product filtering
- Order fulfillment in a single click
These features allow business owners to enjoy Oberlo’s core services without having to pay a single penny. However, there is a limit to the number of orders Oberlo will take shipping responsibilities for. If you do manage to cross that limit, don’t worry. It’s not like Oberlo will not let you take further orders. For further orders, you have to manage the shipping by yourself.
Once Oberlo’s free plan starts giving your business some benefits, you can take a step higher and choose the basic paid plan. Along with the features included in the free plan, you will enjoy additional facilities like:
- Up-to-date shipment tracking
- Monitoring order fulfillment
Through the basic paid plan, your store has the freedom to make a larger number of sales with Oberlo shipping support. When your business grows too big for the basic paid plan, you can shift to the third and currently most expensive Oberlo plan. This plan may be significantly costlier than the basic paid plan, but it allows store owners to take unlimited orders. It also allows other people to manage your e-commerce store, which is particularly helpful if you need personnel to support you in running the store.
Oberlo charges for its services every month. While the starter pack is free of cost, the basic paid plan requires users to pay $29.90 every month. The pro plan, the most advanced plan that offers unlimited orders, is priced at $79.90 per month.
What More Does Oberlo Offer?
Apart from its revolutionary services, Oberlo also offers a host of free e-books for recently established businesses on how to become bigger. There is a free online course as well. Upon completion of the course, you can set up your e-commerce store and start selling within a week’s time. You can also find numerous resources on the Oberlo app that talk about drop shipping and how its practices can be implemented to your business’ benefit.
The Oberlo app has a wide range of FAQs as well, where they talk of what it takes to establish and run an online business successfully. Over the course of the FAQs, Oberlo touches on important points such as marking-up items, budgeting for a store launch and managing sales and customer relations.
One of the best things about Oberlo is the fact that you can actually buy someone else’s “live” store on the app. You can browse through all “live” stores available for sale on the app. The app even displays the store prices along with how much revenue the store has generated prior to the sale.
How Does Oberlo Support Its Users?
In terms of user support, Oberlo has a 24/7 help center. Be warned, however, that this is not a conventional telephone helpline, as Oberlo doesn’t have one. The help center consists of articles that cover issues that users may face while using Oberlo. Consider it a support center with resources that you have to use by yourself.
Oberlo’s website has a chat option as well. If you send your queries across to them, they will typically send their reply within a day. You can also participate in discussions in the community forum, where you can ask more experienced users for help. Once you become experienced at using Oberlo, you can share your valuable insights here to help others who are new to the app.
Is Oberlo Worth It?
Oberlo may have one or two limitations, but its pros far outweigh its cons. Sure, the app is only in English. Sure, it works only for Shopify stores. However, If you want to set up an e-commerce store without making a huge investment in products and shipping arrangements, then there is no reason why you shouldn’t give Oberlo a try.
How to Set Up Oberlo
Since Oberlo can be used only with Shopify, you should first set up a Shopify store. So first, let’s go through how to do that.
- Go to Shopify and click on ‘Get Started’ to launch your very own e-commerce store
- Once your store is set up, you can install the Oberlo app from the Shopify App Store
- Alternatively, you can also sign up for Oberlo use on the Oberlo website, which will also showcase the products available on Oberlo
- Remember that once your Shopify store and Oberlo account are synced, there’s no way to separate them
- If you want to link your store to another Oberlo account, you have to start a new e-commerce store on Shopify
The following steps will help you in installing Oberlo from the Shopify App Store:
- Open the Shopify App Store from your Shopify account
- Search for Oberlo and visit it once you find it
- Click the ‘Add App’ button
- Click the ‘Install App’ button to permit Oberlo to manage your products and orders, along with other important data
You can also link your Oberlo account and Shopify account on the Oberlo website. Here’s how:
- Head to the Oberlo website
- Sign up to create a new Oberlo account by clicking on the ‘Add Oberlo to Shopify’ button
- Once the account is created, head to the Oberlo dashboard and click the ‘Connect a Store’ button
- There will be an auto-login if your Shopify account is already logged in
- If you are not already logged in, use your Shopify store information to log in
- Click the ‘Install App’ button once Oberlo asks for your permission to manage your store’s products, orders, and data
How to Add Products from Oberlo to Your Shopify Store
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can add products to your Shopify store from Oberlo:
- Open the Oberlo dashboard
- Search for the products that you want on your Shopify store using the search bar
- After you find products to your liking, just place the cursor over them and click ‘Add to Import List’
- Before importing the products to your Shopify store, you should edit the product details appropriately to make them unique for your store
Here’s how you can import products to your Shopify store from the import list:
- Go to ‘Import List’ from your Oberlo dashboard
- You can either import individual products by clicking ‘Import to Store’ for each product or import products in bulk by selecting multiple products and clicking ‘Import All to Store’
For selecting certain variants of a product, you can:
- Open the ‘Import List’ from the Oberlo dashboard
- Go to the ‘Variants’ tab for a product
- Uncheck the variants you don’t want and click ‘Import to Store’
What Is Oberlo – Final Verdict
Starting an e-commerce store has never been easier, all thanks to Oberlo and its excellent services. Despite its limitations, the Oberlo app and its features have greatly benefited e-commerce entrepreneurs of modern times. Over the course of the next few years, Oberlo is sure to improve even further and keep adding to its varied features to make it an app that e-commerce entrepreneurs simply can’t ignore.
If you are an e-commerce entrepreneur who wants to run a profitable store on Shopify, you should definitely consider using Oberlo.
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