Are you looking for top e-Commerce platforms for dropshipping? Ever thought of running an online store without the hassle of managing inventory and fulfillment? 

Then, Dropshipping is definitely a good eCommerce business idea for you. With this, you never have to worry about managing massive inventory while launching your online store. Instead, you partner with suppliers who hold and ship products directly to your customers, allowing you to focus on other important tasks.

But the idea alone is just half of the deal.  Along with this, you will need an appropriate eCommerce platform that is easy to use, connects nicely with top applications of drop shipping, and allows scaling.

In this blog, we’re going to help you find the Top 5+ eCommerce platforms for your drop shipping business. Also, we are going to discuss their features and what makes them a good option for your company. Let’s get in.

What is a dropshipping?

Dropshipping is an eCommerce business model where businesses don’t need to keep products in stock. Rather, the store takes an order and passes on the sales order to a third-party supplier, who then ships the order to the customer. 

Online stores that use dropshipping will not have to buy large quantities of stock from suppliers. They just simply purchase a single item from their supplier after a customer has placed an order. Thereafter, the supplier packs up and sends the order to the buyer.

This business model has tons of benefits for new business owners. To be precise, dropshipping helps this business to save resources, time, and money that would otherwise be paid on inventory management. Many dropshippers also explore tools similar to manufacturing inventory management systems to streamline supplier coordination, especially when dealing with multiple suppliers and product categories. To streamline operations further, these businesses can use vendor management software to efficiently manage supplier relationships and orders.

How To Choose the Best E-commerce Platforms For Dropshipping?

Starting a successful dropshipping business requires a strong base, and that begins with choosing the right eCommerce platform. Below are some of the factors you need to consider to make sure it’s the right fit for your business needs:

1. Ease of use

You should start by looking for an easy-to-use feature when choosing your dropshipping platform. The platform should have a relatively friendly backend interface so that you can easily manage it, especially when dealing with products like diamond rings. Besides, building your storefront should be straightforward without requiring any coding skills. 

2. Customization 

Customization plays a key role when it comes to giving your brand a unique look and improving brand loyalty. Collaborating with a professional ecommerce development firm can enhance this aspect. It lets your business stand out among others and connects your target audience in a much better manner. That’s why it is essential to look for platforms that offer various customization tools and rich designs. 

3. Dropshipping integration

Seamless integration with suppliers is a must-have feature for a dropshipping store. It makes the operation from listing a product to order fulfillment quite smooth with very little hassle in manual coordination. This keeps your store’s inventory synchronized with your supplier’s stock.

4. Scalability

Since your sales volume is increasing, your website will need to handle the traffic. In this case, the dropshipping platform chosen must be able to keep up with page speed sufficient enough to handle it.

5. Customer support

You never know when confusion, bugs, or errors are going to strike so you need a dropshipping platform that offers live chat and around-the-clock support. This ensures that you can reach out to them whenever a problem arises.

6. Built-in marketing tools

Built-in marketing tools and SEO features are important elements to attract new customers and promote your dropshipping business. It may cost more money in apps and add-ons if the platform does not have the necessary tools you require. So make sure the platform you are choosing has all the needed tools that you want.

7. Pricing and Plans

With some dropshipping platforms, you have to pay a transaction fee on every order completed. That would be devastating to your profit margins since you can sell hundreds of items through your dropshipping business, but the product margin is pretty low. That’s why properly evaluate each of their plans and select the one that is under your budget. 

Top 5+ E-commerce platforms for dropshipping

It can be daunting to know how to begin, especially when creating a dropshipping business. For instance, just finding a good eCommerce platform for dropshipping that suits your needs can seem overwhelming. Don’t worry we have made this easier for you.

We have reviewed some of the most popular eCommerce websites currently being used by many dropshipping entrepreneurs to take some of the stress out of the process.

1. Shopify:

Shopify is one of the most popular dropshipping platforms available in the current marketplace. The platform is well-known for its comprehensive solution that gives non-tech savvy all the tools they require to build an online shop.

However, its relatively easy-to-use feature makes this an ideal dropshipping website for newcomers who want built-in marketing tools. This includes features like email marketing capabilities, abandoned cart recovery, promotion of gift cards, and more. Thus, allowing setting up a seamless shopping experience at your store without having a bunch of apps installed. Shopify is impressive because it can scale up while maintaining lightning-fast speed and good performance.

Price: Shopify offers three different pricing plans with each of them offering different features and functionalities. 

• Basic Plan: Starts at $39/month with features like 10 inventory locations, 24/7 chat support, and localized global selling. 
• Shopify Plan: Starts at $105/month which includes Localized global selling (3 markets),

5 additional staff accounts and POS Lite.

• Advanced Plan: Starts at $399/month Localized global selling (3 markets), 15 additional staff accounts, and 10x checkout capacity.

Pros:

• It offers various rich features like built-in marketing and CMS tools. 
• Easy to use and set up without requiring technical knowledge. 

Cons: 

• Can be expensive for small businesses, especially when you add a lot of extra applications. 

Best For: Suitable for all business types and sizes.

2. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a strong eCommerce platform that offers many tools and features to dropshipping businesses for the effective setting up and running of their online store. Being a feature-rich platform already covers advanced SEO tools, abandoned cart recovery systems, and email marketing integration.

The platform’s inventory management polishes with real-time stock updates and built-in tools for setting low-stock alerts. Further, its built-in marketing features and user-friendly interface make BigCommerce one of the best eCommerce platforms for dropshipping that aims to grow quickly.

Price: BigCommerce does not include transactional fees in any of its plans.

• Standard Plan: At $29 per month
• Plus Plan: At $79 per month
• Pro Plan: At $299 per month
• Enterprise Plan: Cost is determined by what customizations you need.

Pros:

• Provides some of the features that lessen the need for other apps.
• Supports multiple payment types through different account options without extra fees, such as transaction fees.

Cons: 

• Extremely feature-rich for beginners and overwhelming.
• Additional features that you might want will likely require access to higher plans.

Best For: For dropshipping businesses who want a sturdy online storefront that needs to be minimally maintained.

3. Wix

Wix is one of the popular drag-and-drop website builders that can be used to create a business-friendly and aesthetically attractive website. The company has recently launched Wix eCommerce to match the growing trend of eCommerce, which enables individuals to make an online store without writing a single code.

Focused on providing an easy-to-start commerce package for small businesses, it offers a comprehensive solution with features that one might need to start an online store without much hassle. Among them, some are pre-designed templates, an intuitive drag-drop interface, and automated marketing. Its theme designs and various design tools make it a great eCommerce platform choice for dropshipping businesses.

Price: Wix offers four different pricing plans to its users. 

• Light Plan: It starts from $17 a month.
• Core Plan: It starts from $29 a month.
• Business Plan: It starts at $36 per month.
• Business Elight: It starts from $159 per month.

Pros:

• Simple to use along with a drag-and-drop interface. Hence perfect for the latest beginner.
• Over 900 predesigned storefront templates.

Cons:

• Once you have selected the templates, switching to another one needs to rebuild the whole website again.

Best For: Beginners looking for an easy-to-use platform to get started with their dropshipping business.

4. WooCommerce 

WooCommerce is not an independent platform, but a strong plugin that transforms your WordPress website into a full-fledged online store. One of the best things about WooCommerce and WordPress is that the site and customer experience are completely customizable. This gives users great flexibility to design their site as per their brand’s voice. 

It also offers a massive number of dropshipping apps and WordPress plugins that you can use as both paid and free as well. Due to the easy-to-use interface, one does not need to be technologically smart to run Woocommerce. The platform is very flexible and WordPress sites do well with SEO as long as your search words are placed properly. 

Price: WooCommerce is free to download and install, but you need to look at hosting & domain, themes, and extension costs. It doesn’t take any portion of your sales, no matter how much revenue you are generating. 

• Hosting: $5 – $110/month
• Theme cost: $0 – $100/ year
• Extension cost: $0 – $299

Pros:

• Built-in SEO features inherited from the WordPress platform.
• Extensive range of customizable and scalability features. 

Cons:

• Might require many plugins to perform smoothly. 

Best For: Dropshipping businesses who are beginners and trying to start a side hustle.

5. Squarespace

Alike to Wix, Squarespace is one of the most commonly used CMS platforms which is later upgraded with advanced eCommerce features to present Squarespace Commerce. This platform is built for smaller businesses that might want a more visually appealing site by offering countless templates to choose from, all with an advanced website builder.

It’s a SaaS platform that enables it to take care of hosting and domain costs for you. All you have to do is sign up, choose one template from their professional-looking designs, and you can start customizing your store easily. Apart from strong building options, Squarespace offers a variety of SEO features, marketing tools, and site analytics that will help you run your business effectively. 

Pricing: Squarespace offers four different pricing options for its users. 

• Personal: At $16/ month with 0% transaction fee on invoices.
• Business: At $ 23/ month with a 3% transaction fee on online store transactions.
• Basic Commerce: At $28/ month with 0% transaction fee on online store transactions
• Advanced Commerce: At $52/per month with a 0% transaction fee on online store transactions.

Pros:

• An affordable pricing plan makes it easier for even beginners to start their online store. 
• Seamless integration with marketing tools for effective marketing. 

Cons:

• To avail of some of the advanced features requires switching to higher pricing plans. 

Best For: Dropshipping businesses with a tight budget looking for a low-cost way to sell products or services. 

6. Magento

Magento is another famous eCommerce platform that has earned a good reputation with strong, in-built features and great customizability. This is also one of the best eCommerce platforms for dropshipping because of its great scalability. As you already know, a dropshipping business can grow exponentially that’s why relying on an eCommerce platform that gives you the ability to scale up fast is crucial. 

Serving as an open-source platform, it needs some coding skills to set up and adjust all the important features. However, its pretty intuitive backend makes users familiarize themselves with the platform in a very short duration. Also, this feature-rich platform offers the maximum number of powerful built-in tools and integrations so that you can manage your business more effortlessly. 

Pricing:

• Magento Open Source: Free of cost 
• Magento Commerce: Begins at $22,000/year 
• Magento Commerce Cloud: Begins at $40,000/ year 

Pros:

• Advanced SEO features and built-in marketing tools for your online store. 
• Intuitive back-end interface to get you started easily. 

Cons:

• The platforms require coding skills to set up.

Best For: Businesses with advanced technical knowledge and seeking trusted suppliers to partner with.

Frequently Asked Question

Q1. What is dropshipping?

A. Dropshipping is an eCommerce business model wherein businesses do not need to keep products in stock. Instead, the store takes an order and passes on the sales order to a third-party supplier, who then ships the order to the clients. 

Q2. What are the factors to consider while selecting eCommerce platform for dropshipping?

A. To maintain a successful dropshipping business it is important to remember a few of these factors. Those include customization, scalability, integration of dropshipping, customer support, pricing, and much more.

Q3. Which is the best e-commerce platform for dropshipping?

A. Amongst the very best e-commerce platforms for dropshipping are Wix, Shopify, Woocommerce, BigCommerce, and Squarespace. If you are looking for an integrating eCommerce platform these are some of the great options to look at. 

Q4. How much does it cost to build an e-commerce website for dropshipping?

A.The cost of building an eCommerce website for dropshipping depends on factors like the website builder you select, Web App vs Website: which one do you need?, features you want to integrate, subscription plan, transaction fees, and third-party apps you choose.

Q5. Which are the best eCommerce platform that scales well for growth?

A. BigCommerce and Shopify are platforms that offer various features and integration options for your dropshipping business to make it grow. It helps in expanding your product range as well as your customer base. 

Conclusion

From this article, we have given you insight into the top 5+ eCommerce platforms for dropshipping businesses. The idea of dropshipping is very fantastic to begin or expand your online store only if an eCommerce platform you have opted for meets your business needs.

To make the right choice of a platform, ensure the platform offers smooth product integrations, some inherent marketing tools, efficient inventory management, and an easily driven interface. For the newly emerging drop shippers in this business, research and testing would be among the most important tools in identifying the best. Getting the appropriate platform with the correct marketing strategy can help you boost your business growth faster than ever before. Hopefully, this article can guide you through the finding of the best platform for drop shipping.

Also Read: How to Increase eCommerce Sales