Dropshipping is a great option if you don’t have any inventory but want to open an online shop. You can sell products and not stock them. Dropshipping can be started by connecting your Ecwid store to Alibaba. Syncee. Spocket. Printful.
Dropshipping is where a third party company (usually a manufacturer, wholesaler, or fulfillment company) handles the production, storage, packaging, and shipping of products to buyers. You can only market and sell their products as if it were yours.
Dropshipping: What does it mean?
Dropshipping is basically this:
- Your customer orders a product online.
- You can either manually or automatically forward your order and customer details to dropship suppliers.
- Dropship suppliers package and ship the order to you in your name.
Dropshipping is popular in the following:
You can act as a reseller for products. You can, for example, resell learning toys from a supplier (e.g. via Wholesale2B. Spocket. Alibaba. Syncee.) If you are an expert in child development, you can market them well. Dropship suppliers will fulfill the orders.
Dropshipping is a print-on-demand service that allows you to sell your products. You might be a musician who wants to sell merchandise, or an artist who wants to sell their art in canvas prints and framed posters. A print-on-demand service like Printful can produce and store these products, print your designs on them once they are notified of an order, then pack and send the ordered print products to buyers in your name.
Partner with a dropship supplier to start selling dropshipped products. You can then list their products in an online store. Send the details of your order to your supplier when you receive it. They will ship it to you.
Ecwid is compatible with Spocket and Syncee as well as Alibaba, Wholesale2B, Spocket and Syncee dropshipping services. You can connect your store to them by installing their apps from the Ecwid app market. Once you have done that, you can import their products into your store and notify them about any new orders.
Connecting your store to Printful
Printful is a dropshipping service for printing on-demand merchandise that can be used to sell brand products and merchandise by artists, athletes, musicians, and other creatives. It is integrated with Ecwid via the Printful app.
The app allows you to choose from a variety of Printful products, including t-shirts and hoodies (embroidery), posters as well as photo prints, canvas and mugs. You can add your graphics to the selected products, adjust your margins and publish the products in Ecwid.
Printful will automatically be notified when a customer places an online order for this product. Printful will place your graphics on the product and pack it for you.
Here you can find the detailed instruction on the app setup: Printful: Dropshipping for Custom Print Products.
Sign up for the app free of charge and only pay once an order has been placed.
Connecting your store to Wholesale2B
Wholesale2B connects you to over 100 dropship suppliers and handles your orders. You can connect your Ecwid store to Wholesale2B service by using the Wholesale2B app. The app can be installed and you can choose the products from dropship suppliers that are integrated with Wholesale2B. You can also change the product title and description, adjust your price markup, and list these products on your Ecwid store.
Once you receive the buyer’s payment and place a new order, your order details will automatically be imported into Wholesale2b. To make wholesale payments, you will need the “Order Now” link. The Wholesale2b team will then process your order, send you the tracking code and mark the order as shipped. Please note that only US and Canadian shipments are currently supported.
Wholesale2B is $29.99 per month. The service comes with a 7-day free trial. You can add only 10 items to the Wholesale2B service during the trial period. However, you can increase this limit by activating the Wholesale2B plan at any time.
Connecting your store to Spocket
Spocket is an online dropshipping marketplace that allows you to connect with dropshipping suppliers in the US and EU. Spocket will help you increase your inventory by providing high-quality products.
You can connect your Ecwid store to Spocket service by using the Spocket app. Once you have installed the app, your Spocket Account will automatically be created. You can then import products from different suppliers into your store. You can filter your search by top suppliers, item costs, and best sellers to help you choose the right store for you. You can also select where the product will be shipped from. You’ll find the retail price for each product and the shipping cost to Spocket + Shipping.
Edit the product information before you import them to Ecwid. Your customers will be able to buy the products once you have imported them into your Ecwid store.
Once your customer has placed a payment in Ecwid, you will need to click on the Checkout button within your Spocket app in order to place the order. After you have made the wholesale payment, Spocket will process your order, send you the tracking code, and mark the order as shipped. To learn more about order processing, watch the Spocket’s video instruction.
Spocket is available for free up to $99 per monthly. You can also choose one of the Spocket paid plans depending on how large you want your catalog to be.
Connecting your store to Syncee
Syncee provides ready-to sell products to small and large retail stores.
You can connect your Ecwid store to Syncee by using the Syncee app. After downloading the app and creating a Syncee Account, you can begin searching for suppliers or products. After you have selected the item, you will be able to choose a name and any margins you wish. You can then add the item to your Syncee catalogue and sync it with your Ecwid shop. All products in your Syncee catalogue will be added to you store.
Once a customer has placed a payment in your store, the order will be visible in your Syncee account via the Manage orders page. You can pay the product to the supplier directly using PayPal or credit card from your Manage orders page. The supplier will receive the payment directly. After the supplier has received your payment, they will fulfil the order. You can learn more about processing orders with Syncee in their help center.
The Syncee app costs $129 per month. You can also choose one of the Syncee paid plans depending on how many products from the suppliers you want to sell in your store.
Connecting your Ecwid store to Alibaba
Alibaba is the largest shopping market in the world, bringing hundreds of millions of products from over 40 major categories. This includes electronics, machinery and apparel. You can import products from Alibaba into your Ecwid store to make them yours. The Syncee app can be used to connect Alibaba and Ecwid. The Syncee App allows you to:
- Add ready-to-sell Alibaba products to your store
- Rename products to increase margin and cost.
- Manage orders
In just two steps, Alibaba can connect to your Ecwid store.
Step 1 — Connect your Ecwid store with the Syncee app
Since Alibaba uses Syncee as a dropshipping technology partner, you should first connect your Ecwid store to Syncee with the Syncee app. Once you have installed the app and created a Syncee Account, you can begin searching for products on Alibaba.
Step 2 — Connect your Syncee Account with Alibaba
You must enable connection between Syncee to Alibaba in order to search for products on Alibaba and add them to your store.
Connect Syncee to Alibaba
To open the Syncee app, log in to your Ecwid admin and go to Catalog – Syncee –Global dropshipping.
From your Syncee dashboard, open the menu on the left and select Alibaba – Search products. The connection page will redirect you. Connect to Alibaba
Log in to your Alibaba account, or create a brand new one.
Accept the following terms and conditions to connect Alibaba to Syncee.
After your Syncee account has been connected to Alibaba, it is possible to go to Alibaba to pick products to sell. To do so, click Go to Alibaba Dropshipping Site:
That’s all. You can now search on Alibaba for products and add them to Ecwid.
Click Add to import the product that you have found. Next, go to Syncee dashboard – Alibaba – Import list and then click Add to catalogue. You can select a name and any margin for your product.
You now have a new item added to your Syncee catalogue. Go to Syncee dashboard – Alibaba – My Catalogs, and click Sync. After synchronization is completed, new products will appear in Catalog – Products in your Ecwid shop.
Once a customer has placed a payment in your store, the order will be visible in your Syncee account under Manage Orders – Alibaba Orders. Syncee won’t automatically download orders if you’re on the Starter Marketplace Plan. Click the Syncronize button to do this. After your order is placed on Alibaba Orders, you can either pay directly to Syncee’s supplier using PayPal or a credit/debit card. The supplier will receive the payment directly. Once the supplier has received your payment, they will fulfill your order.
You can learn more about Alibaba dropshipping with Syncee in their help center.
The Syncee app costs $129 per month. You can also choose one of the Syncee paid plans depending on how many products from the suppliers you want to sell in your store.
Selling products of another dropship supplier
You can use Ecwid to integrate with another supplier. Simply add the products to your shop and notify the supplier about the orders to be fulfilled. This is how it works:
Get a list of products from your supplier (ideally, in the form of CSV file or a spreadsheet) and add them to your Ecwid store in bulk using CSV import.
Send an email to the supplier regarding orders that must be fulfilled.
You can include the email address of your dropship supplier in the list of the recipients of admin notifications. Or you can use the tools of your mailing service to automatically resend the New Order Placed notifications from your mailbox to your supplier’s address – here is how you can set up forwarding in Gmail, for example.
To make your store ready for accepting orders, you can follow Ecwid’s initial setup guide however take into account the following things:
Your product descriptions can be yours. Write your own product descriptions instead of using the default text provided by the supplier. Search engines love unique content. This will make it easier to index your store and for customers to find it.
As the origin address, set the address of the supplier. If you are going to use real-time shipping quotes in your store, specify your supplier’s address as the Origin address in your store. It will then be used to calculate shipping costs for shoppers at checkout.
