AliDropship Plugin vs AliDropship Woo: How Are These Dropshipping Tools Different?

When an entrepreneur looks for the best dropshipping tools on the market, careful research is always necessary. The chosen software should simplify order fulfillment, work with product descriptions and images and solve numerous other tasks that are necessary to sell products effectively. Let’s find out what’s the difference between two of the most popular solutions from our team!

The AliDropship plugin gets chosen by thousands of people all over the globe. Both newcomers and experienced businessmen buy the plugin because they want to dropship products and manage their stores in a quick, easy and efficient way.

Sometimes our clients feel slightly confused: when we receive their order on the plugin purchase, we offer them to choose between two plugin versions which are the AliDropship Plugin and the AliDropship WooCommerce Plugin.

But how to choose the right one? Which is the best dropshipping tool on the market?

What’s the difference between these dropshipping tools?

Which one is better?

Today, we’re answering these questions once and for all!

1. What is the AliDropship Woo plugin?

So, there exists the AliDropship plugin that manages the majority of the dropshipping processes automatically.

For the convenience of its users, 2 versions of the plugin were developed by our team.

The first version is the AliDropship Original Plugin. It works on any general WordPress website that has no WooCommerce plugin installed. It is important to note that this plugin is only compatible with web store themes offered by AliDropship.

The second version is the AliDropship Woo plugin. It will ONLY work on your website if you have the WooCommerce plugin installed on it.

In case you don’t know what WooCommerce is, please go to this article.

2. Okay, but which dropshipping tool is better?

From the technical point of view, both dropshipping solutions are great for reselling products from AliExpress, really. 🙂 Both of the plugin versions are carefully tested and regularly updated by our enthusiastic team of highly skilled developers.

From the point of view of the business performance, both of the versions also show equally impressive results. For example, our client, Kingpin from India, uses the AliDropship Woo plugin which helped him achieve $28,000 in sales in the first 30 days of his business operation. Another client, Otto from the Baltic states, uses the original version of the AliDropship plugin. This is how his dropshipping business made $13,000+ in a single month.

Read more success stories from our clients who use the AliDropship plugin here.

Still, it needs to be mentioned that from the point of view of their functionality, the plugin versions are quite different.

Initially, the plugin was created for one simple purpose: to automatically perform the most important tasks of dropshipping. This is why both of the plugin versions can:

• Import products from AliExpress
• Import product reviews from AliExpress
• Update product info
• Apply pricing markup formula
• Process the orders placed in your store

So, as you can see, both of these dropshipping tools on the market do the job that takes the majority of time in a daily dropshipping routine, and these processes are completed automatically.

BUT.

The AliDropship original plugin has an extended range of additional features and dropshipping tools. For example, it has several built-in themes, a convenient dashboard showing the most important store stats, etc. These features make it the perfect dropshipping tool on the market for people who don’t have much experience yet. In other words, it’s an all-inclusive business solution that helps you create a turnkey-ready store without any additional development/installation works.

The AliDropship WooCommerce plugin, in turn, has only the strictly necessary features: it only performs the core dropshipping functions listed above.

Why is that?

Well, because of the exceptional mechanism of WooCommerce itself. It was designed as a solution for full website customization, which is why there exists a specific plugin or tool for every specific management task. There isn’t such a thing as a universal plugin that would do ALL the desired job. Instead, a WooCommerce website owner is supposed to be skilled and inventive enough to independently source and install a separate plugin for every single one of his/her goals.

You can view the comparison of both versions’ features here.

3. I like the idea of full customization! Is it also true for the store design? I want a 100% unique dropshipping store, you know…

Yes, if you want a super exclusive store with a one-of-a-kind design, WooCommerce dropshipping is a good solution.

The thing is, thousands of developers all over the globe develop and upload numerous plugins, tools, and themes for WooCommerce. By combining and choosing these elements at your own pleasure, you get a distinctive store that has no analogs.

But.

It’s worth mentioning that all the existing Woo themes are produced by people who live all over the world, use a very different professional background, and have really different design and development skills. This is why AliDropship, unfortunately, can’t guarantee that a Woo theme you choose will be good-looking on any device, highly convertible, and smoothly working.

Still, as we really want to help you with your business growth, we’ve developed a range of WooCommerce themes compatible with AliDropship: they are carefully tested and perfectly optimized to boost your conversions.

Besides, we have experimented with a number of third-party WooCommerce themes. Based on our developers’ feedback, we made a list of the most appealing Woo themes in terms of their flexibility, safety, and ability to generate sales. You can find the list of the recommended Woo themes here.

4. So, I got the AliDropship Woo plugin, but, when I log in, I don’t see a logically structured dashboard in my store! What the…?!

Yes, that’s exactly what we were talking about.

When you install the original AliDropship plugin and log in to view the admin panel, the first thing you see is a dashboard that shows the overview of your store stats (you can see the example below):

But, when you work with the AliDropship Woo plugin, it gets a little bit more complicated.

If you run a WooCommerce-based dropshipping store, you can view its stats in the internal admin panel or use a different independent plugin for this purpose.

There should be a separate plugin for each separate task, remember?…

5. Oh. But your AliDropship Woo plugin still processes the orders, right?

Certainly!

Both our plugin versions can automatically redirect the order information to original AliExpress suppliers.

If you use the AliDropship Woo plugin, you need to go to the WooCommerce section, then choose the Orders tab, and click on the order you need to redirect. When the window with these order details opens, all you need to do is click on the ‘Place order automatically’ button.

After this, the plugin will do all the job. It will visit AliExpress, select the necessary product variation, add the chosen items to your shopping cart, and write your client’s delivery address on the checkout page.

The only action you need to take after this is to click the Confirm & Pay button at the bottom of your page.

That’s it!

And for the AliDropship plugin, order processing is even quicker. You can read the step-by-step guide and view the video instructions here.

6. Are the shipping options identical for both the plugin versions?

Generally, the AliDropship plugin allows you to select, set up, and modify lots of shipping options – you can read more about it here.

Still, there are differences.

When you use the original AliDropship plugin, all of your settings are automatically applied to all the deliveries arranged to any country on the globe.

When you use the AliDropship Woo plugin, you need to deal with the so-called Shipping Zones. It means that you need to individually assign these settings for every separate region.

7. How do the plugins work with tracking?

If you have the original AliDropship plugin, simply read this article in our knowledge base to find out how to track the order details and how to automatically send the right tracking IDs to your buyers.

If you have the AliDropship Woo plugin, you need to do the following:

• Enable your Google Chrome extension
• Log in to your AliExpress account
• In a different browser tab, open the Orders section and hit the ‘Get tracking’ button

The plugin will synchronize your AliExpress account with your store and, if the original supplier has already provided the tracking ID, this number will automatically appear on the Order page.

8. What about payment gateways?

The original AliDropship plugin is compatible with the majority of the most popular payment gateways across the globe. Here you can view the list of payment gateways supported by the AliDropship plugin.

With the AliDropship Woo plugin, it’s a whole different story. WooCommerce itself supports almost every payment gateway that exists in the world. It means that you can go on the WooCommerce official website and download any plugin that attaches the necessary payment gateway to your store. Alternatively, you can look for the necessary plugins on the official websites of the desired payment gateways.

9. Can I install Woo plugin on a general WordPress site or use the original plugin on a WooCommerce site?

Well…it’s really not a good idea in terms of compatibility and smooth working process, and here is why.

The original AliDropship plugin only runs effortlessly on general WordPress websites that have no WooCommerce plugin installed.

The AliDropship Woo plugin is specifically developed to be used on WooCommerce sites.

If you try to mix them up, your store simply won’t work as planned.

Please note: if you already have one of the plugin versions running, it will be quite time-consuming to switch to the alternative one as you will have to delete the current store contents and import all the products from scratch.

10. Is the Woo version a good choice for a beginner in dropshipping?

Hmm.

As you have noticed it from the previous parts of this article, WooCommerce itself is a platform that requires considerable technical knowledge and/or development skills.

If you don’t have any experience in building websites and running online stores, we strongly recommend sticking to the original AliDropship plugin. It has all the necessary dropshipping tools on the market already integrated, which is why you won’t have to waste your time and nerves on the selection and installation of additional plugins.

11. Okay, but…  I still can’t decide which of these dropshipping tools suits me better.

There’s nothing to worry about! Go through this tiny checklist and tick the statements you agree with.

• I want a store with a totally unique layout that doesn’t look like anything else
• I am a programmer / developer / IT person
• This is NOT the first online store I’m going to have
• I’ve tried all the basic dropshipping solutions on my previous stores, and now I want something a bit more interesting
• I’m curious to assemble my store from lots of tiny details, like a Lego bricks dollhouse

Have you just ticked more than 4 statements? Go for the AliDropship Woo plugin.

Have you just ticked less than 4 statements? Go for the original version of the AliDropship plugin.

That’s probably all you need to know about AliDropship’s most popular dropshipping tools on the market! So, which version of the AliDropship plugin do you prefer?