15 Oberlo Alternatives For WordPress! Who Needs Shopify Anyway?

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What are Oberlo alternatives for WordPress?

Let’s cut right to the chase. Here is a list of 15 Oberlo alternatives for your WordPress website. All these alternatives offer a wide variety of products and services for your dropshipping store:

In fact, you may find that if you ditch Oberlo all together for your WordPress eCommerce store, that the alternatives will offer you not only much more flexibility, but could save you money as well.

These Oberlo alternatives for WordPress will make you question why you even considered using Oberlo for your WordPress website in the first place.

Can Oberlo be used with WordPress?

Believe it or not, Oberlo can be used with WordPress.

It’s a little disturbing because I’ve read quite a few articles on the web saying that you cannot use Oberlo with WordPress.

Although there is some truth in that, the fact of the matter is that you can use Oberlo with WordPress.

However, since Oberlo is a Shopify app, it could only directly be used on Shopify.

Therefore, you can’t simply upload an Oberlo plugin to your WordPress website and go to town.

Though you can upload a few plugins that will connect your WordPress website to a Shopify storefront.

You can basically integrate Shopify with your WordPress website. Shopify has dozens of articles on how to do this as well as a few plugins to make this integration possible.

Once you have integrated your WordPress website with Shopify, then you can use all of Shopify’s products and services including their apps like Oberlo.

In fact, I have a post here, “Using Oberlo for WordPress. Add Dropshipping to your site.” that you can read which talks about how to do just that.

Does Oberlo work with WooCommerce?

This is another misconception in the Oberlo, WordPress and Shopify connection in regards to drop-shipping. WooCommerce is basically Shopify for WordPress.

It is the eCommerce platform that was made for WordPress and WordPress websites. You can do many things with WooCommerce on your WordPress website including drop-shipping.

Again Oberlo is a Shopify app. Therefore any integrations with platforms other than Shopify require a Shopify integration.

You can integrate Shopify with WooCommerce. Actually, there are plugins that can help you do so.

So basically you can offer Shopify products including those offered by Oberlo through your WooCommerce store and sell them like you would any other WooCommerce products.

In fact, if you do this, you can also benefit from the WooCommerce side of things like reviews, links to other relevant products etc.

Needless to say, if you integrate Shopify with WooCommerce, again you will have access to the Oberlo app and can use it through that Shopify-WooCommerce or WordPress integration. Again, I have an article that talks about that as well.

Why would you want Oberlo alternatives for WordPress?

Although it is possible to integrate Oberlo and offer Oberlo products on your WordPress website You must jump through a few hoops in order to do so. What are these hoops?

Well, as I’ve mentioned above and in another article, you must integrate your WordPress website with Shopify first. Then through Shopify you will have access to the Oberlo app.

So you can literally offer Shopify and Oberlo products on your WordPress website through Shopify’s storefront which can integrate into WordPress through the WP Shopify plugin.

However, You must pay for Shopify as well as the Oberlo app, if you are going to use them on your WordPress website.

They do though, from time to time, offer free trials etc. But at the end of the day, these are paid services.

Many Oberlo alternatives for WordPress are free to use or have a one-time fee and include support.

Also, despite the fantastic PR, social media reach and exposure that both Oberlo and Shopify do, they aren’t the only game in town in regards to dropshipping.

In fact, using one or both can limit you and your own exposure on the internet in promoting products.

I think most of all though, is you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. If you are relying solely on Shopify and Oberlo for your dropshipping needs, that alone is too much risk. Why is it such a risk?

Because Shopify is a platform. They own the platform. Oberlo is a Shopify app that can only be used through Shopify.

If for any reason either Shopify or Oberlo decides to cancel your account, that can leave your eCommerce business twisting in the wind.

It’s never good to put all your eggs in one basket on the internet or eCommerce.

This is becoming increasingly difficult with all the IPOs going on that supercharge these platforms and squeeze out the competition and options for those in eCommerce.

For example, Shopify listed on both the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange in 2015.

Nonetheless, if you have experience in dealing with for example, Amazon for all your affiliate marketing needs, you may have also experienced their constantly changing terms and worse, their lowering commission rates.

eBay, Walmart, Target, none of these are any better. But what do they all have in common? They are all closed platforms and you must play by their rules.

The beauty of WordPress is that it is open source. WordPress cannot ban you from using them. WooCommerce, although it is owned by Automattic, the founders of WordPress, is also open source.

Although Automattic does make the terms of use for WooCommerce, those terms are very reasonable and don’t constantly change on the whim of their board, trying to squeeze out every last drop of profit from their users.

It is a platform, but not an oppressive one that forces you to only use their products etc.

If you are a believer in an open web and open source in general, using WordPress should be looked at as a foundation for this belief in open source and an open web. This includes eCommerce.

By using WooCommerce and all the Oberlo alternatives for WordPress that you can access through WooCommerce, you will be diversifying your product supply chain and vendors.

If for example, a vendor’s terms, product or their customer service and support, changes you will have much easier options to change them for other vendors.

It’s all about flexibility and diversifying your risks That’s why you would want Oberlo alternatives for your WordPress website and eCommerce store.

Which is better, Shopify/Oberlo or WordPress/WooCommerce for strictly dropshipping?

Despite everything I have said above, I still approach this matter of finding Oberlo alternatives for your WordPress website with an open mind.

Shopify and Oberlo aren’t evil, so please don’t misunderstand the purpose of this post.

In fact, Shopify and Oberlo are pioneers in bringing eCommerce and the means of which eCommerce is conducted to the masses.

This explains their meteoric rise to the stratosphere of Technology. Shopify is now considered one of the top tech companies in the world and for good reason.

From a strictly dropshipping point of view, I would have to say that Shopify and Oberlo are slightly better at this than WordPress and WooCommerce.

I say slightly better only because if you are only interested in setting up a dropshipping store, then it’s very easy to sign up for Shopify, get your store up and running on thei and fill their platform with products from Oberlo.

They make the process, including setting up payment gateways, the store, themes etc. quite easy. They do have it down to almost a science, I must say.

So if you’re only interested in dropshipping and setting up a simple and quick ecommerce drop shipping store, then yes, I would go with Shopify and Oberlo right off the bat.

They’re both pretty easy to set up and get started, the cost of entry is fairly reasonable considering you are actually starting a business.

So setting up a Shopify store along with Oberlo is pretty low cost, especially compared to setting up a bricks and mortar business.

However, if you are looking to make a serious presence on the web, create a brand, a following and have a more stable and long-term presence online, then you would be much better off going with WordPress and WooCommerce, which I will explain more below.

Why WordPress and WooCommerce are better than Shopify and Oberlo.

First, WordPress is open source. It is not a closed platform. Unlike Shopify and Oberlo, where they can close your account at any time and basically your eCommerce business, since they own and control that platform and you must agree to their terms of service. WordPress however, is open source.

WordPress cannot close down your website.

Although WooCommerce is also a platform and can basically, in all honesty, close your account as well. This rarely happens.

Unlike Shopify, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and all the other big platforms where it’s pretty easy to find horror stories of them closing and banning accounts, you don’t really hear too much of this going on with WooCommerce. Why?

Well, although WooCommerce does have terms of service and can literally close your account if they are so inclined as well, they were created by the founders of Automattic, who incidentally were also the original founders of WordPress.

So the philosophy behind WooCommerce as to that of WordPress is, open source.

With WordPress you get the freedom and flexibility to express yourself and promote your business and the products of that business as freely as possible on the internet.

That’s not to say that you can sell anything in WooCommerce, obviously you can’t and you’re also limited to the products that you can get from various vendors through their platform.

However, you’re not exactly at the mercy of a public company, like you would be with Shopify.

Another reason why WooCommerce and WordPress are much better alternatives than Shopify and Oberlo is because approximately 40% of all websites on the internet today are powered by WordPress. That is huge!

This makes WordPress in my opinion, much better for SEO than Shopify. Here are some other reasons why.

Although you can have a blog on Shopify and do some of the same things you could on WordPress. Let’s not forget that if you go through the time of developing a blog through a closed platform like Wix, Weebly, or even Shopify, they can again, change their terms, pricing or even simply close your account and all that work is gone.

In addition, you are at their mercy for their monthly fees, whereas with WordPress, if you don’t like for example, the hosting plan you’re on, you can always switch hosting companies for example.

If you don’t like the theme, you can always get another theme. Shopify also has a selection of themes, but again, not only are you very limited in choice, but you’re also stuck with their web hosting plans and prices. Oh, and if you want to migrate to another web host or platform, good luck with that.

WordPress was built for bloggers and creativity. It’s the best place to build your brand online.

You can also do much more with a WordPress website than you could with Shopify.

For example, Shopify basically limits you to drop shipping or selling other vendors products in your Shopify storefront. Although they do allow you to set up a blog etc.

However, with WordPress you can not only add eCommerce stores to your WordPress website, but you can also monetize that WordPress website much better with premium display advertising, affiliate products, you can even create your own digital products to sell on your WordPress website.

You can also create a YouTube channel and connect it to your WordPress website for free.

Will Shopify and Oberlo you will become much more dependent on advertising to attract traffic to your Shopify store.

This will require spending lots of money on Facebook ads, Instagram ads as well as Google AdWords etc.

Whereas WordPress you can attract people to your WordPress website mainly through SEO, which is free and when you attract buyers to your WordPress website via SEO, it’s because they’re interested in you, what you have to say and your content. You can then funnel many of these loyal readers to your WooCommerce store.

There’s no need to pay for Facebook ads if you have WordPress and WooCommerce in order to get traffic.

That alone will save you a ton of money. Just cruise through some of the online forums like Reddit where you will read countless horror stories of ad spends gone wrong especially for Facebook.

By the way, Facebook is notorious for closing accounts for no reason whatsoever as well.

That’s just one more reason why you should go for WordPress and SEO traffic over Shopify and paid traffic.

Oberlo alternatives for WordPress, conclusions.

There you have it. Not only have I given you some excellent Oberlo alternatives for your WordPress website, but I’ve given you several reasons why you should diversify away from Shopify and Oberlo to WordPress and WooCommerce.

WordPress and WooCommerce aren’t as slick as Shopify and Oberlo. However, WordPress and WooCommerce will give you much more freedom and flexibility to not only diversify your product line, but your presence on the web as well.

Using WordPress and WooCommerce will give you just one extra string on your monetization bow.

If you are more interested in building a brand and a stronger more long-term foundation on the web, then there’s no better way to go than WordPress, WooCommerce and dropshipping to your monetization strategy for diversification.