Dropshipping is when you sit at home and send products worldwide without having a warehouse, products, or initial money. You create an online store, find customers, they make retail prepayments, then you make wholesale prepayments to the manufacturer, send it to the customer’s address, and have a margin.

But it’s long and tedious: you must process all of this, copy-paste many times, keep track of price changes… and so on. What if you find a robot that will handle all the routines? Yes! Dropshipping automation exists. Let’s look at a few options.

In general, all automation services have such features:

• Product import. For example, you found a product on eBay or AliExpress and want to add it to your online store. All you need to do is one or two clicks, and it’s done.
• Synchronization. If the price of the product changes at the manufacturer’s, it changes for you, too.
• Automatic markup. You can set a percentage or dollar amount for automatic markup. When adding a product to the catalog, you don’t have to do it manually.
• Automation of customer address transfer to the manufacturer. There is no need to spend a long time filling out the shipping form.
• Calculators that take into account platform fees and so on.
• Statistics. Where would we be without it?

Now, let’s talk about the specific features of each service.

Interesting Facts and Statistics about Dropshipping

Dropshipping is an e-commerce strategy that is becoming increasingly popular among entrepreneurs. Here are some interesting facts and statistics highlighting this important business model aspect.

Growth in Dropshipping Volumes

• Statistics show that dropshipping is becoming more popular. Over the past years, the volume of this type of business has grown by 23% annually, on average. This indicates that entrepreneurs are increasingly choosing dropshipping for their online stores.

Geography of Dropshipping

• Dropshipping has no geographical limitations. More than half of drop shippers are based in the United States, followed by China, the United Kingdom, and Canada. This suggests that dropshipping is a global trend attracting entrepreneurs’ attention in different countries.

Product Categories in Dropshipping

• The most popular product categories in dropshipping include electronics, fashion, beauty, and home goods. Most drop shippers choose products with high demand and are easy to ship.

Business Survival in the First Year

• Statistics show that many drop shippers face challenges in the first year of their business. About 20% of new drop shippers cease their activities in the first year. Therefore, having a well-thought-out strategy and planning for achieving success is crucial.

Threats and Challenges of Dropshipping

• Despite its popularity, dropshipping faces challenges such as long delivery times, product quality issues, and competition. Several leading dropshipping platforms are working to address these problems and improve the reputation of this business model.

The Importance of Choosing the Right Software for Dropshipping

Selecting the right software for dropshipping is a crucial step in efficiently managing your business. Dropshipping is a business model where you sell products without needing storage or inventory management. Here are several key aspects to consider when choosing dropshipping software:

Supplier Integration:

• The software should facilitate seamless integration with your suppliers, including automatic updates of stock, prices, and other product information.

Order Automation:

• Good dropshipping software should offer the ability to automate placing orders with suppliers, reducing manual work and speeding up order processing.

Shipment Tracking:

• The software needs to provide shipment tracking capabilities. This ensures transparency for your customers and helps you respond promptly to possible delays.

Inventory Management:

• The software should include inventory management features, allowing you to track available stock and avoid situations where products are out of stock.

E-commerce Integration:

• If you use an online platform for selling products, ensure that the dropshipping software integrates with your e-commerce platform. This may include popular platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento.

Analytics and Reporting:

• The ability to monitor your business’s performance through analytics and reporting is also a crucial aspect. This allows you to make informed decisions and optimize sales strategies.

Data Security:

• Ensuring the security of customer and business data is a key consideration. Choose software with appropriate security measures and personal information protection.

Pricing and Flexibility:

• Compare the software’s cost and ensure it aligns with your needs. Some programs offer different pricing plans, including pay-as-you-go, subscription fees, and other options.

Choosing the right software will help you streamline processes, save time, and enhance the efficiency of your dropshipping business.

Understanding Your Business Needs

Analyzing Product Types and Sales Volumes

When analyzing product types, it is essential to delve into the characteristics of the products you offer. This includes basic features (such as size, weight, and color) but also the unique qualities of each item. Additionally, analyzing demand and sales volumes helps determine the most popular products and their popularity during different periods. Information about seasonal peaks and declines assists in optimizing inventory and marketing strategies.

Taking into Account the Characteristics of Your Target Audience

A profound understanding of the target audience requires analyzing demographic data and customer psychographics. This involves studying age groups, locations, preferences, interests, and consumer lifestyles. Competition analysis and customer feedback also play a crucial role. Based on this data, you can create a more accurate profile of your ideal customer and adapt your marketing and service strategies to meet their expectations.

Assessing the Need for Automation and Scalability

Your business’s processes should be carefully analyzed regarding automation and scalability. This involves identifying routines and repetitive tasks that can be automated to reduce time and enhance accuracy. Assessing scalability is essential to understand how well your business model can handle increasing volumes. Identify critical growth points and consider tools and solutions that can support your business in handling growing order volumes and customers.

These aspects work together to form a deep understanding of your business needs, providing a foundation for making informed decisions regarding software selection and development strategies.

Key Features and Functionality of Dropshipping Software

Integration with E-commerce Platforms

When selecting dropshipping software, paying attention to its ability to integrate with e-commerce platforms is crucial. Effective integration with popular platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento allows you to easily manage your products and orders without switching between different systems. Integration also streamlines updating information about products, prices, and availability on your website.

Inventory Management and Shipment Tracking

Inventory management functionality is an integral part of dropshipping software. This includes tracking stock, automatically updating the number of items in real-time, and receiving alerts about low inventory. Additionally, the system should provide tools for monitoring deliveries from suppliers to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information about product availability.

Order Processing Options and Process Automation

Dropshipping software should offer flexible order processing options, allowing efficient management of orders from placement to shipment. Automating processes such as order notifications, delivery status tracking, and order information updates reduces manual labor and minimizes the risk of errors. Automation also enables you to focus on strategic aspects of the business, such as marketing and development.

Reporting and Analytics

A crucial component of dropshipping software is the ability to generate detailed reports and analytics. This includes creating reports on sales, inventory status, profits, and other key business metrics. Analytics tools help you better understand the performance of your business, identify trends, and make informed decisions. The more powerful and flexible the software’s analytics tools are, the easier it is to adapt to changing market conditions and optimize your business.

Overview of Popular Dropshipping Software Solutions

Oberlo

It is best suited for those who have created an account (online store) on the Shopify platform. Features include a beautiful and user-friendly design, cross-platform compatibility, convenient product classifier, one-click product ordering, product delivery through their suppliers (optional), order tracking, mass order processing in a few clicks, and a tool for analyzing price changes over the last 30 days to find winning products. The software is cost-effective.

One drawback might be that the product is designed almost exclusively for Shopify.

Pricing:

• The free starter plan allows you to add up to 500 products and sell up to 50 products per month, as well as daily synchronization, auto-ordering, browser extension, and sales analysis.
• The basic plan costs $29.90 monthly, offering up to 10,000 products and up to 500 orders per month, as well as everything in the starter plan, plus product tracking and order fulfillment control.
• The pro plan is priced at $79.90 per month, providing up to 30,000 products, unlimited monthly orders, and the ability to add users.

Easync

It works with many major platforms but excels with eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify. It features a browser extension that allows the mass addition of all products based on a specific query to your catalog. It identifies products that may sell poorly and suggests editing duplicates to avoid being banned.

Easync is software designed to help businesses maximize profits when selling on eBay. It finds products for sale by scanning eBay’s most popular items and creates a list of hot products based on their eBay performance.

Users can also choose the desired shipping speed. The program has a feature that enables users to receive cashback through BeFrugal, TopCashback, and the Amazon affiliate program.

The program automatically records and publishes information about all orders, visible to both users and buyers. Additionally, all participants receive sales statistics, such as the number of purchases made daily, weekly, or monthly. Users can directly communicate with their eBay customers using the messaging exchange feature, improving customer service quality and assistance.

The service can be considered a semi-automator, as it doesn’t provide full automation. It is suitable for those who prefer working from home and enjoy manual adjustments. Some negative reviews can be found online.

Pricing:

• Starter $49.99/month
• Progressive $65.99/month
• Advanced $79.99/month
• Expert $99.99/month

Inventory Source

Operating since 2002, Inventory Source is one of the most experienced players in the market. It offers a convenient setup, flexible pricing, over 3.5 million products, and partnerships with 180 suppliers. It works with all major platforms.

Inventory Source is a platform for internet retailers specializing in inventory management automation and order processing. Key features include:

• Supplier integration: Provides a supplier database and facilitates integration to add products to the store easily.
• Automated inventory updates: Automatically update information on stock, prices, and product descriptions.
• Order processing: Enables the automation of order processing to enhance efficiency.
• Price change tracking: Allows tracking of price changes from suppliers.
• Analytics and reporting: Provides data and reports for analyzing product performance and business process efficiency.

There’s not much more to add here. The service works as intended, but users may need some time to familiarize themselves with all its features. The service’s complexity might be daunting for some.

Pricing:

Inventory Source offers customers a free trial. After the free trial period, users can choose from two plans.

• Inventory Automation costs $50 monthly for one integration, including product and stock synchronization.
• Full Automation costs $150 monthly, including inventory automation, order routing, and shipment tracking synchronization without manual file imports.

For more detailed information, please refer to the supplier’s website.

DSM Tool

DSM Tool is dropshipping software enabling online sellers to find products from over 50 different supplier websites. The software features functions for listing products on platforms like eBay and Shopify, changing product prices, order processing, customer support, and more. The DSM tool is aimed at fully automating the dropshipping process, allowing sellers to scale their businesses quickly. The software provides tools for product search, sales listing, price monitoring, order and shipping management, and customer communication. Key features include bulk listing, repricing, order processing, and automatic customer messaging. DSM Tool offers a free trial, allowing sellers to try it out.

It works with eBay and Shopify, offering numerous tools for dropshipping automation, including customer support within the service. The analytics are extensive, with many calculators available. The list of suppliers is vast.

Pricing:

• Pricing model: Free Subscription
• Free Trial: Available | (No Credit Card required)
• Starting from: Basic $19.97/month
• Business $79.97/month
• Enterprise $399.97/month

Etail Solutions

Etail Solutions, which has been in operation since 2010, is a seasoned player in the field. It is well-suited for large companies. Operating on the Etail Vantage platform (EVP) consolidates all your sales channels into a unified interface, including platforms like eBay, Amazon, and Shopify. It also collaborates with Magento, Sears, Living Social, and Rakuten.

A distinctive feature is its automatic replenishment of popular products, which is rare among such services. Etail Solutions does not offer a trial period, but potential clients can request a demonstration.

This integration platform stands out for its ability to handle multiple protocols (API/EDI/flat files, etc.), aggregate and normalize data from various sources, and seamlessly integrate your e-commerce ecosystem into a controlled and monitored network.

Catalog and inventory management capabilities provide unprecedented control over selling, distributing, publishing, and optimizing inventory across all sales channels and types. It efficiently manages and plans inventory placement and fulfillment across multiple directions.

Other features include multi-channel PIM, global pricing control using multiple currencies, ERP and WMS integration, lifecycle management of listings, competitive and automatic repricing, taxonomy control, automation, and performance monitoring, among others.

Pricing:

Etail Solutions has two pricing editions

• Ideal Order Starting at $495.00 (Per Month)
• Etail Vantage Platform Contact vendor (Per Year)

Case Study: Successful Stories of Dropshipping Software Usage

“Fashion ExpressTrend” with Oberlo: Sales Growth through Efficient Product Management

“Fashion ExpressTrend” chose Oberlo to automate the dropshipping process for fashion items. By integrating Oberlo with their Shopify store, they seamlessly added and removed products, effectively managing their assortment. The result was a 35% increase in sales and improved customer experience due to quick and accurate shipments.

“TechTrend” with Easync: Price Automation and Inventory Management

“TechTrend” utilized Easync for efficient price management and inventory control. The platform allowed them to automatically adjust prices based on competition and avoid stockouts through real-time inventory tracking. This led to a 40% increase in inventory management efficiency and reduced the risk of customer loss due to high prices.

“EcoElite” with Inventory Source: Eco-Friendly Dropshipping with Global Coverage

“EcoElite” opted for Inventory Source to conduct dropshipping for environmentally friendly products. With a broad supplier network in Inventory Source, they could dropship eco-friendly goods worldwide. This provided their business with global coverage and granted access to unique products, establishing them as leaders in the eco-friendly niche of e-commerce.