When it comes to building an e-commerce website, Oberlo and Shopify are the most common names.
Oberlo vs Shopify
The main difference between Oberlo and Shopify is that Oberlo is used by a customer to directly purchase goods from a manufacturer without paying for the storage costs or other costs like preservation and such. On the other hand, Shopify is a standalone web application that is used by sellers.
Oberlo is an extension of this platform. Oberlo is a website that finds use in cutting down on the manufacturing costs that may come with selling products online. This cost reduction is because it is a dropshipping website. Oberlo cannot function on its own. It requires integration with Shopify.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows individuals to purchase goods.
Comparison Table Between Oberlo and Shopify
| Parameters of Comparison | Oberlo | Shopify |
| Ability to edit products | Oberlo does not grant access to its sellers to edit their products or product description. It means that sellers have to be careful the first time they upload their products. | Shopify grants the seller the ability to edit their products even after uploading them to the site. It is an important feature that can be used to boost sales on already existing products. |
| Importing products | Oberlo does not allow a seller to do import their products from the other online shopping websites. | Shopify allows a seller to do this. |
| Functionality ( Number of features) | Oberlo does not offer as many features as Shopify to create a good shopping platform. It can only create a skeleton of a shopping website. | Shopify has several features that can be utilized to create a shopping platform that can attract a number of people. Some features can be used to find the statistics of sales made. |
| Quality of products sold. | Oberlo is not the most trusted website when the quality of their products is brought into question. It can be a dicey situation. | Shopify, in general, has a better range of products to sell. Their products are of good quality. |
| Independence | Oberlo requires an affiliation with Shopify when it finds use as a dropshipping app. It specializes in products that are exclusively sold from one wholesaler. | Shopify is an online web application that is considered an online platform to sell goods on its own. |
What is Oberlo?
Oberlo is an online shopping platform that specializes in dropshipping. Dropshipping refers to the act of a shopper buying directly from the primary manufacturer and hence cutting out the added price that comes with mediators or storage. This website primarily deals with suppliers that are in connection to the wholesale website Ali Baba Express.
Oberlo is inferior to Shopify in terms of the features it possesses. It cannot reveal any statistics like Shopify, which can be a significant loss to sellers. In addition to this, upon uploading a product, no seller can edit their products on the website. It is connected to Shopify. All the products that we will sell on Oberlo require to be obtained through the Shopify store. The seller will then add it to their website, and finally, a buyer can purchase the product from Oberlo.
Most of the products sold are from China and are mass-manufactured, which may decrease the quality of the product sold. In addition to this, there is no quality control or quality checks done before selling it. Therefore, there is a sale of a large number of goods without proper inspection.
What is Shopify?
As mentioned before, Shopify is an online platform used by sellers to create their websites to carry out their business. It can be considered as a hosting website in that it finds use in supporting new websites. Shopify has gained several customers and manufacturers looking to do business in recent years. They offer several services that assist both buyer and seller.
Shopify’s most crucial feature is that it allows a seller or manufacturer looking to sell their goods online to view different statistics concerning the sale of their goods. This information is displayed based on the number of sales taking place locally and internationally. They also allow their users to edit their products after uploading them online as well. In addition to this, a seller can edit their products in bulk as well.
Shopify also allows its users to import their products from other online shopping platforms like Amazon. It also contains built-in SEO friendly features that significantly contribute to the boost in sales. Shopify can help a seller deal with several wholesale manufacturers. It also includes a better interface that allows a seller to see vendor ratings and such.
Main Differences Between Oberlo and Shopify
- Oberlo cannot function on its own. It requires integration with Shopify. On the other hand, Shopify is a shopping platform on its own which, means Shopify does not need any integration with other applications. Oberlo is an extension of Shopify which, indicates that Oberlo
- Oberlo is known to contain less functionality at a reasonable price as compared to Shopify.
- We import the products sold on Oberlo only from Alibaba Express. Products on Shopify can be imported from other online stores and is not exclusive to Alibaba.
- Oberlo lacks rating options and some other features. The display of various ratings or information like the sale of goods in other countries and vendors’ ratings is present in Shopify.
- Oberlo does not grant vendors permission to edit their product descriptions. Shopify grants all these permissions.
Conclusion
Therefore, one can conclude that Shopify is a better option concerning dropshipping products. This fact is due to its vast number of services that it offers to a manufacturer compared to Oberlo. In addition to this, Shopify has its marketing strategy to sell the products on their site by creating a product description that can be SEO friendly. Therefore, for a seller to better understand their business state, it would be advisable to use Shopify.
References
- https://zir.nsk.hr/islandora/object/algebra%3A196