Dropshipping can be the next step for merchants looking to increase their order fulfillment quality. Dropshipping can be a boon to businesses and startups with limited stock management resources.
Dropship integration with Shopify makes it easy to maintain product stock and consistency during order fulfillment. All of this adds up to a better user interface, lower maintenance costs, and greater profits.
Merchants also get the subtle benefit of being able to concentrate on their users’ experience when they use Shopify Dropshipping.
What is Shopify Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a model where the retailer does not own the product inventory, but instead uses inventory from a third-party wholesaler in order to fulfill orders.
Merchants can say goodbye to the hasslesome inventory management system with the Shopify Dropshipping Integration app. Instead of manually sending a notification to their Dropshipping service with customer details, merchants can receive new orders and automatically send it.
What’s new with Shopify Dropshipping 2021
Shopify’s dropship app has evolved over time to offer better convenience and more affordable options. These are the features that make it easier to access Shopify drop shipping services:
- Shopify has signed up top dropshipping companies. Shopify now makes it easier to add Oberlo, allowing businesses to expand by the thousands. Shopify has also attracted new dropshipping companies like SaleHoo, Doba and others.
- Shopify labels allows drop shipping providers to fulfill orders with just one click. Shopify labels can also be used to create shipping labels from mobile devices. This makes order fulfillment much quicker.
- Dropshipping is also possible with Shopify, such as Amazon and eBay.
The Problem?
Dropshipping can be a great way for Shopify merchants save on inventory management. However, dropshipping has its flaws that can make it difficult to navigate through dropshipping-based businesses. These are just a few reasons merchants need a Shopify dropship app.
- Subscription renewals
- Dropshipping providers may have compliance policies that might not be compatible with merchants.
- Dropshipping has a lower profit margin than traditional retail. This is because there are multiple costs that add to the product price, including shipping cost, retailer profit, and dropshipping platform fee.
- There are many wholesalers on platforms like Aliexpress or Oberlo. It can be difficult to get your product listed and selected by Shopify store owners.
- Dropshipping platforms predetermine retailers’ commission rates and, in many cases, these rates cannot be edited.
These issues are often not apparent to merchants at the beginning. Dropshipping-based businesses can have problems over a longer time, when they need greater speed, efficiency, and scalability.
Shopify Dropshipping Integration
Dropshipping is not without its flaws and setbacks but it remains a viable business option for merchants. Dropshipping is really about subscription-based dropshipping.
Affected by the poor architecture of subscription-based dropshipping services, one of our clients approached our Shopify agency to create a custom Shopify dropshipping app.
We developed an app for Shopify dropshipping integration to meet the needs of our client. It makes dropshipping with Shopify almost as easy as a plug-and play task.
Shopify Dropship App
Our team of developers was determined to simplify the order fulfillment and online store management for our client. Our team of developers was inspired by famous dropshipping companies like Oberlo to create the custom order fulfillment Shopify app.
We created a non-embedded, feature-rich application that allowed suppliers to share their inventory and generate orders from their store. These technologies were used to create the Shopify dropship application.
- Dropshipping Product Interface YII 2.0
- Multiple Shopify hooks, Shopify API to synchronize data between retailer and supplier stores
The Custom Shopify Dropshipping App
Our custom Shopify dropshipping app was developed and tested extensively. The client now has the ability to access the following features.
1. Designed to allow suppliers to set up products in Shopify Dropship App. All Shopify retailers can access the default Shopify inventory updates through the app.
2. Suppliers can use Shopify’s default admin interface to receive and manage orders. These orders are created automatically based on the Shopify orders received by the retailers.
3. The client was able access a minimal interface that allowed retailers to browse supplier inventory and choose the products they wanted to add to their Shopify store.
4. You can set up shipping costs for products by the supplier right from your Shopify admin panel.
5. A retailer could determine their commission for a product.
Automatic and immediate payouts are available for wholesalers and retailers as soon as customers purchase a product.
Suppliers can convert their existing store to a dropshipping channel, allowing them to target other retailers selling the same product niche. This allows for a more simple dropshipping channel, which promises organized dropshipping operations and a better ROI.
Development Challenges: Shopify Adaptive Payments
We had to apply for adaptive payment for Shopify Dropshipping Integration. This would enable transactions between supplier and retailer. Shopify doesn’t support adaptive payments so it is more difficult to do this in Shopify.
We used Stripe integrations to solve this problem. With our custom code, retailers can now create Stripe customer accounts for payment transactions. After the application installation, retailers will need to enter their card details. These details are used to automatically set up a Stripe Account.
This is how you dropship on Shopify.
With this method of creating separate stripe accounts for retailers, we were able trigger two transactions with every purchase. The merchant account receives the order amount and the transaction is sent to the retailers. The second transaction is automatically initiated and charges the supplier the fee.
Shopify Dropship app uses the same structure to handle refunds for cancellations. The supplier can programmatically detect the product status to offer refunds that are then automatically refunded.
Shopify is an inventory management tool?
Although the app was designed for Shopify merchants, the choice to use Shopify’s admin interface was not made by Shopify. The supplier can use any CMS he chooses to manage inventory and fulfillment, including Magento, WooCommerce BigCommerce, Opencart or a custom-built inventory management software.
We only needed its API to synchronize data with our YII-based intermediate app.
We used Shopify API to manage the client’s supplier inventory. Additionally, hooks were used to synchronize the stored data and the store data for all retailers using the plugin via our YII based website.
If the client preferred another CMS, such as WooCommerce or Magento, then the exact same process would have been followed except that the API and webhooks would be used by the CMS.
The app has been updated many times over the years.
To Conclude…
A strong supply chain is crucial for a dropshipping business. Shopify’s dropshipping app is designed to do just that by focusing on suppliers.
Dropshipping is a popular option for retailers who are looking to source genuine suppliers. It’s a smart idea to reach out to them using a Shopify custom dropshipping app, removing any third-party dropshipping service and making it easy for them to use the Dropshipping model.
Do you feel inspired by this approach? If so, do you plan to adapt it for your wholesale company? Hire Shopify developers from The Brihaspati Informationtech today, or contact us to speak with our offshore Shopify development team.
