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Based on our in-depth research and user testing, there are three clear winners standing on the podium for best ecommerce platforms for dropshipping:
- Shopify – best for dropshipping beginners who want a simple and easy user experience, with expansive sales features
- WooCommerce – the best choice for users wanting a free and easy-to-install plugin that will get them operating as quickly as possible
- Wix – best for users that want an ecommerce platform offering high-level dropshipping product customisation and automatic inventory synchronisation
Each of these platform lets you integrate with a number of excellent dropshipping suppliers, letting you set up a complete dropshipping solution with surprisingly little effort.
| BEST ALL ROUND  |  |  |  |  |  |
| WooCommerce | Adobe Commerce | OpenCart | |||
| Best for Dropshipping beginners who want a simple and easy user experience, with expansive sales features | Best for Users wanting a free and easy-to-install ecommerce platform that will get them operating as quickly as possible | Best for Users that want an ecommerce platform offering high-level dropshipping product customisation and automatic inventory synchronisation | Best for Advanced users who already have experience using an ecommerce platform to run a dropshipping business | Best for Using multiple channels to promote the products in your dropshipping store | Best for Dropshipping business owners with experience in website building, who want to get going with minimal outgoing and support costs |
| Price from £19 per month | Price from $6.59 per month (£5.33) | Price from £16 per month | Price from Contact sales for a quote | Price from $29 (around £23) per month | Price from Free |
| Visit Shopify | Read Review | Visit Wix | Try BigCommerce |
This article will cover:
1. Shopify
- Best for: dropshipping beginners who want a simple and easy user experience, with expansive sales features
- Pricing: from £16 per month (billed annually)
- FREE TRIAL 3-day free trial
- PRICE FROM £19 per month
- Preempts and predicts what a merchant might need next in all aspects of creating a website
- Best range of apps and extensions
- Perfect for dropshipping
Shopify takes the title of the most user-friendly platform, particularly for beginners. In our recent round of in-depth ecommerce product research, Shopify earned second place overall with an impressive score of 4.6 out of 5. Of the dropshipping-specific platforms, it is certainly the most user-friendly and easiest to navigate – especially compared to the more complex platforms like Adobe Commerce.
Shopify dropshipping was also designed specifically to help you build an online store – it even suggests specific add-ons and plugins from its app market depending on the type of template you select when creating your website.
Shopify also has some of the strongest sales features available for users, which is perfect since the basis of a dropshipping business is to make it as streamlined and simple as possible for consumers to purchase products from your website. These features include multi-channel integration options for selling across a number of platforms, including Instagram, Amazon, and Facebook. There’s also customisable checkout, plus excellent sales analytics tools that provide granular data and actionable insights on your customers’ behaviour.
The key downside of Shopify is that it doesn’t have a specialist supplier network, which means none of the providers you’ll see are vetted. You’ll also have to deal with credit card fees that start at 2.9% + 30p for each transaction, which can start digging into your profit margins if you’re not making lots of sales. This means you’ll have to spend some extra time doing the research and background checks yourself. It’s also important to note that Shopify’s long-standing integration with dropshipping supplier Oberlo is no more, as of 2023. We recommend Shopify customers integrate their online store with DSers. For more information, read our review of the best dropshipping suppliers.
Features
🔨 Unlimited inventory allowance
🔨 Stock management
🔨 Revenue reports
🔨 Multiple product variants
🔨 Comprehensive fraud detection abilities
🔨 An impressive library of dropshipping apps
Shopify dropshipping: pros and cons
- Huge range of apps makes it easy to acquire and manage your inventory
- Comprehensive range of POS (point of sale) options
- Great for creating product categories
- Very easy to use and set up
- Some core functions will require third-party apps
- No specialist supplier network, so you need to carry out background checks yourself
What other benefits do you get when using Shopify for your dropshipping store?
We’ve put together a Shopify Dropshipping guide for small UK businesses to give you more information.
Pricing
| GET FIRST MONTH FOR £1 | GET FIRST MONTH FOR £1 | GET FIRST MONTH FOR £1 |
| Basic Shopify | Shopify | Advanced |
| Price
| Price
| Price
|
| Features
| Features
| Features
|
| Online card processing fees 2% + 25p for online purchases | Online card processing fees 1.7% + 25p for online purchases | Online card processing fees 1.5% + 25p for online purchases |
2. WooCommerce
- Best for: users wanting a free and easy-to-install ecommerce platform that will get them operating as quickly as possible.
- Pricing: from £5.33 per month
- Pricing from Free
- Dropshipping-specific extensions
- Mobile app
- Freedom and flexibility to tweak everything on your site
WooCommerce is one of the most commonly used dropshipping ecommerce platforms worldwide. This is largely due to how easy it is to install the plugin and begin selling entirely for free. It uses a simple GUI (graphical user interface) that adds real value to a user’s experience. This means you don’t have to be a programming expert to make changes and add elements to your site. The wealth of plugins also give you extra flexibility to customise your site just the way you like it, empowering you to scale as your dropshipping operation grows.
A big bonus of WooCommerce is that it’s pretty affordable compared to Shopify, whose lowest plan for ecommerce businesses starts at £19. If you go for WooCommerce over Spotify, you could save £14 per month, which is great if you’re on a tight budget.
Keep in mind that, although the platform is affordable, WooCommerce is self-hosted. This means you’ll have to either be a tech whizz and set up your own server, or purchase a hosting account from the likes of Bluehost or HostGator – for this, you can expect to pay £2.44 to £3.17 per month.
Features
🔨 Woo Marketplace ripe with over 400 free and paid extensions, including dropshipping extensions
🔨 In-built blogging feature
🔨 Built-in payment processing through Stripe, Google Pay, and PayPal
🔨 One-click refunds
🔨 Inventory management including tracking stock levels and out-of-stock items
What are dropshipping extensions?
Dropshipping extensions are store management tools. They make selling easier by adding several tailored features to your ecommerce site, which help you manage your online store and improve sales. Check out Shopify’s ultimate guide to dropshipping for more info on extensions.
- A server or hosting account
- WordPress
- Payment gateway extensions to facilitate card payments
- A domain name and SSL certificate
WooCommerce pros and cons:
- Amazing level of support available online to help you use the platform, with a widespread community of expert designers and developers
- WooCommerce is free to install, whereas other competitors will charge you a monthly or annual fee
- Multiple add-ons are available for free, including WooCommerce Payments, which you’ll need to install before you can start making any money!
- Because it’s self-hosted, you will need some degree of technical skill and experience in web design if you want to make any big changes to your store.
- Some extensions that will help grow your business are pricey, so although WooCommerce seems like a cheap option, once you begin to scale it will get more expensive
Pricing
- WooCommerce platform = £5.33 per month
- Hosting costs = £90 annally (on average)
- Domain = £11 annually
3. Wix
- Best for: users that want an ecommerce platform offering high-level dropshipping product customisation and automatic inventory synchronisation.
- Pricing: from £14 per month (10% off code TAKE10)
- FREE TRIAL 14 day money back guarantee
- PRICE FROM £16 per month, billed annually
- Flexible pricing plans
- Perfect solution if you want more creative freedom
- Great additional features that support everything any up and coming merchant needs
Out of all the ecommerce platforms designed to let you get started with dropshipping, you’ll find Wix is the easiest to set up, especially compared to the complexities presented by Adobe Commerce and WooCommerce.
Wix’s automatic inventory synchronisation is one of its standout features. The function keeps close tabs on your inventory so that you don’t accidentally oversell on any sales channels – including your online store, marketplaces (such as Facebook Marketplace), and even on social media. You’ll also be able to integrate your Wix store with one of the UK’s top dropshipping suppliers, Modalyst. Boasting unrivalled dropshipping features, even on Modalyst’s free plan, Wix users can:
- Add products to their store in one click
- Receive real-time product updates
- Set automated markups
Another of the many things which make Wix a great dropshipping ecommerce platform is the outreach tools at your disposal. Wix’s SEO features are easily the best available compared to other platforms on this list, and they have even partnered with SEMrush to help push your content further up on the SERPs.
The downside of Wix is that you’ll have to pay extra for some third party apps that you may need to improve sales, meaning there’s hidden costs you’ll need to factor in as you’re piecing together your dropshipping budget. There’s also no option to change your template once you’ve published your website – if you decide you don’t like it, this could be incredibly tedious.
Features
🔨 Automatic inventory synchronisation
🔨 Integration with a top dropshipping supplier and one click product inclusion
🔨 Option to add print-on-demand products
🔨 Great SEO features and email marketing to reach your target market
🔨 Partnership with SEMrush to help boost SEO traffic
Wix dropshipping: pros and cons
- Integration with the best dropshipping suppliers on the market, including Modalyst and DSers
- Never need to worry about selling stock you don’t have - as inventory is automatically updated
- Incredibly easy to get started, build a website in a matter of minutes with Wix ADI and simply add on a dropshipping extension to get going
- SEO functionality and email marketing support to help reach your target audiences and increase sales
- Currently no option to change your template once you’ve published your website, so if you decide it is time for a change this will cause problems
- Although there is an abundance of apps available, you will have to pay extra for some third party apps that you may need to improve sales
Pricing
| | | |
| Core | Business | Business Elite |
| Price
| Price
| Price
|
| Features
| Features
| Features
|
| Free trial? | Free trial? | Free trial? |
| Try Wix | Try Wix | Try Wix |
Check out our Wix ecommerce review for more information about the platform.
The average success rate of a dropshipping business is between 10% and 20%. That percentage obviously is highly moderated by the market and the products you sell, but it also has to do in part with your dropshipping platform and how well it fits into your business operation.
4. Adobe Commerce
- Best for: advanced users who already have experience using an ecommerce platform to run a dropshipping business.
- Pricing: varies – full breakdown in the pricing section
- Pricing from Varies
- Platform is free to download
- Large number of payment gateway options
- Order management features
It is safe to say that out of all the top ecommerce platforms for dropshipping stores, Adobe Commerce is the most sophisticated and professional. Like WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce is an open source ecommerce system. This means it is constantly being improved by a community of developers, and can employ more advanced technical solutions compared to hosted ecommerce platforms that are updated a lot less frequently.
This makes Adobe Commerce great for creating a professional, slick online store with immaculate design functionality. If you want the flexibility to add practically any type of feature to your site, look no further than Magento OpenSource.
Adobe Commerce is also great for dropshipping specifically thanks to its segmentation feature. You can divide customers into groups based on factors like their demographic, user activity, shopping cart, and previous purchases. This makes it easier to tailor content, pricing, and promotions to specific customers, which can lead to increased sales and customer satisfaction.
Just keep in mind that despite the platform being free to download, the costs of getting set up are very high compared to other platforms. It also might not be as user friendly for amateur dropshippers due to the sophisticated technical tools it offers. This is because, even when selecting a ready-made Adobe Commerce template for your website, you will still need to give the team of developers time to tailor the web pages to your preferences. On average, they’ll need to spend 40 hours adjusting the main pages, which could cost up to £1,300.
Features
🔨 Huge number of payment gateway integration options
🔨 An impressive set of order management features, including assisted shopping and customised order status
🔨 Impressive catalogue management for your products, including creating different price points for different customer groups, such as wholesales and retailers.
Adobe Commerce pros and cons
- The platform itself is free to download
- Hugely customisable – can add any feature you want (as long as you know how to)
- The most scalable platform on the market
- Because it’s open source, the platform is constantly being improved and upgraded
- Despite the platform being free, additional costs (including Magento site developer costs) actually make Magento one of the most expensive dropshipping platforms available
- Magento isn’t a simple ecommerce platform to work with. You’ll need at least some coding knowledge to get started
- Support is very limited unless you have lots of money to spend on the expensive Enterprise package
Pricing
Magento pricing is hard to calculate accurately, as the costs can vary when it comes to website design and development. But we have summarised the costs as well as we can.
- Hosting – £75–£350 annually
- Web design – £0 if applying a ready-made Magento theme. A custom theme can cost up to £3,600, depending on how long it takes Magento’s developers to create it.
- Minimum website development cost – £1,300
5. BigCommerce
- Best for: using multiple channels to promote the products in your dropshipping store
- Pricing: from $29 (around £23) per month, billed annually.
- Free trial 15-day
- Price from $29 per month
- Quality in-built sales features
- Excellent SEO support
- Great for scaling businesses
Like Shopify, BigCommerce is a hosted ecommerce platform that excels in the sales features department. In our latest round of ecommerce research, it achieved an overall score of 4.2 out of 5, largely due to its multi-channel selling capabilities. For reference, Shopify scored a slightly higher 4.6 out of 5.
When using BigCommerce, you can look forward to no transaction fees, depending on the plan you select. It also has the most advanced SEO tools available in the ecommerce platform space, which is ideal if you want to help get your dropshipping store featured high up in customers’ SERPs. Keep in mind that the plan you choose will determine your sales allowance. This may not be a problem when you start out, as the standard plan gives you a substantial limit of $50,000.
The downside is that if you’re planning to scale and want to sell higher-end products through dropshipping suppliers, you’ll need to change your BigCommerce plan, which can become pretty expensive. This is in contrast to Shopify, which has no product limit regardless of the plan you choose. Unlike WooCommerce, BigCommerce also doesn’t have as many dropshipping apps and integrations. If you’re looking for a more tailored dropshipping solution, there’s better offers in the market than BigCommerce.
Features
🔨 A wide range of product sourcing apps that can connect you with some of the top dropshipping suppliers in the UK
🔨 Access to the Modayst app, connecting you to hundreds of vetted UK suppliers
🔨 Easy to import dropshipping products in just a few clicks
🔨 Comes equipped with ShiperHQ, a top-of-funnel solution connecting ecommerce platforms to carriers and logistics services
BigCommerce pros and cons
- Zero transaction fees mean you can make more profit in a low-margin industry like dropshipping
- BigCommerce’s SEO tools are some of the best available to help your site and products appear in more searches
- Sales and marketing features will help you reach more customers and make more sales – which is the name of the dropshipping game
- There’s no product limit with BigCommerce – although there is a sales limit
- Outstanding inventory and stock management tools
- Sales revenue cap means if you are planning to scale at pace, you’ll need one of BigCommerce’s expensive plans
- Although good for dropshipping, BigCommerce doesn’t have as many dropshipping specific apps and integrations as its competitors - particularly Shopify and WooCommerce
Read our full BigCommerce review here
Pricing
| | Best plan for small businesses | | |
| Standard Plan | Plus Plan | Pro Plan | Enterprise Plan |
| Price $29 per month (around £23) | Price $79 per month (around £64) | Price $299 per month (around £240) | Price Custom |
| Features Coupons and discounts | Features Customer groups and segmentation | Features Google customer reviews | Features Express routing, priority support, and customer success management |
Between 2022 and 2023, the dropshipping industry saw a 23.7% increase in value. This significant jump showcases how alluring a business model it has become. If you’re going to jump onboard with such steep competition, you want to make sure you have the right dropshipping platform by your side.
6. OpenCart
- Best for: dropshipping business owners with experience in website building, who want to get going with minimal outgoing and support costs.
- Pricing range: free
- Pricing from Free
- Solid range of dropshipping apps
- Unlimited products, unlimited categories and the ability to sell digital products
- Large number of payment gateways and multi currency capabilities
OpenCart is another ecommerce platform that is part of the open-source, self-hosted gang. A complete ecommerce solution, OpenCart provides all the features you’ll need to create a successful online store. These include the ability to add and manage products, leave product reviews and ratings, and pay via more than 20 payment gateways. This reduces the number of friction points your customers could experience during their purchasing journey.
There are no limits on the number of products you can sell or manufacturers you can work with, which is great if you have lots of stock available from your dropshipping suppliers. Because it’s a self-hosted platform, OpenCart gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of website design and features – although you’ll need some coding skills and experience to get any new elements up onto your site.
The downside is that out of all the ecommerce platforms we reviewed, OpenCart is the only solution that doesn’t come with any specific design templates. Instead, a generic store template is given to you when you install the platform. Moreover, as you start to scale – just like with Adobe Commerce – you’ll need to start buying additional dropshipping and sales features, which can become pricey.
Features
🔨 Solid range of dropshipping apps that can help you optimise your dropshipping store and connect with some of the top dropshipping suppliers in the UK
🔨 Unlimited products and categories
🔨 Ability to sell digital products
🔨 Large number of payment gateways and multi-currency capabilities. This means customers can make payments with zero hassle.
OpenCart pros and cons:
- Opencart offers support to its users at no additional cost via ticket and email assistance
- OpenCart is completely free to use, and you’ll only have to pay for hosting
- It’s a complete ecommerce platform with multiple free plugins and themes for dropshipping
- OpenCart doesn’t provide any store template designs, unlike its competitors – and this limits your options when creating your online store
- If you want to add specific features and customise your site, you will need knowledge and expertise in coding and web building
- Great for a startup dropshipping business, but features become costly as you start to scale - so it’s not the best platform for growth
Pricing
OpenCart software – free
Hosting plan – around £2–£10 per month
A custom design/template – £80+
How to choose an ecommerce platform for dropshipping
It’s all well and good knowing the pros and cons of ecommerce platforms, but the most important thing you need to do is make sure the solution you choose will bring the best out of your dropshipping store.
There are a number of criteria you will want to consider when selecting an ecommerce platform for dropshipping:
Ability to support dropshipping plugins
Dropshipping plugins (product sourcing apps) are incredibly useful and will make your life much easier. These applications have been designed to enhance your store’s dropshipping capabilities and make the whole process more streamlined.
Choosing an ecommerce platform that doesn’t offer any dropshipping-specific apps will hinder your business’s growth.
Affordability
One of the primary reasons to start a dropshipping business is to keep costs down. If you are paying for an expensive subscription or web development fees, you will struggle to make much profit.
Dropshipping typically has low profit margins – so make sure you either use a free ecommerce platform, or one that costs very little but still offers all the functionality needed to scale and grow your business.
Ease of use
This one is important for businesses that don’t have any experience in coding or web design. The last thing you want to do is to try to build a dropshipping store using complex software with no prior experience.
Be sure to check what level of skills are required for each ecommerce platform. Typically, hosted platforms like Shopify are far easier to use, especially for ecommerce beginners.
Efficient customer support
24/7 support and multiple contact channels are what you want to aim for. You don’t want to be missing out on vital sales because you don’t have the support necessary to fix a problem.
What are essential features of dropshipping platforms?
- Inventory management → since you don’t physically hold the inventory, it’s crucial to have real-time inventory updated from your supplier. This ensures you don’t oversell products and disappoint customers with order cancellations. Features like inventory synchronisation are key here.
- Order fulfilment integration → this saves you time and effort by eliminating manual order entry and reduces the risk of errors. Automatic order routing features are green flags in this category.
- Product listing and management tools → this includes importing product data from suppliers, setting prices, and managing product descriptions and images. Look for platforms that have product import tools, bulk editing options, and the ability to customise product information to fit your brand.
- Marketing and sales features → consider platforms offering built-in marketing tools like email marketing, discount codes, and abandoned cart recovery features
- Payment processing → secure and reliable payment processing is essential for customer trust and order completion. Choose platforms that integrate with reputable payment gateways like PayPal.
- Security and scalability → choose a platform with robust security features like data encryption and compliance with relevant security standards.
Hosted platforms are all-in-one solutions. They typically include hosting, SEO optimisation and technical support. They offer a range of sales features and provide you with online store template designs. Shopify, BigCommerce and Wix are all examples of hosted ecommerce platforms.
Self-hosted platforms differ in that you build them – you guessed it – yourself. You are in charge of hosting your website, maintaining its SSL security, and storing its data. You are required to set up your own server, and a much smaller number of templates are available (if any) – you typically have to design and create your website and all its features yourself.
The big difference between the two platform types is their ease of use. To get the most out of self-hosted platforms, you will need to have some prior experience in coding and web design. The benefit is that this allows for huge design flexibility and expandability for businesses looking to scale.
Hosted platforms are definitely preferable for ecommerce beginners. The templates are all set up for you, so you don’t need to have any prior experience in web design. Of course, even hosted platforms have different levels of design functionality – check out our review of the top ecommerce platforms for more information.
How we test ecommerce website builders for small businesses
Our in-house research team conducts thorough in-depth testing of the ecommerce dropshipping platforms, with the process taking 5 months to complete. We go through a round of preparation, planning, data collection, and delivery to source you the best dropshipping suppliers so you can boost the chances of your venture succeeding.
We test suppliers more thoroughly based on these categories:
- Dropshipping features → from inventory management to product tracking, we look at how expansive the features offering of each provider is.
- Customer score → in addition to our first-hand research, we also wanted to make sure real-world customers are happy with their experience of each provider. We look at review websites like G2 or Capterra to get a feel of this.
- Help & support → we look at the offering of customer support so that if you run into a dropshipping SOS, you can mediate your expectations and get a feel of how useful each provider will be.
- Value for money → pretty straight forward – based on the features you’re offered, we determine whether you’re getting good value for your buck so you can feel you’re making a worthy investment.
- User experience → we do the testing ourselves to understand where you might experience some pain points and what parts of the interface are good or could be improved. This gives us an idea of how beginner-friendly the platforms are.
Next steps: choosing the best ecommerce platform for dropshipping
Your dropshipping store vision will determine what ecommerce platform is best for you. If you want an all-in-one ecommerce solution that does a lot of the hard work for you, look no further than Shopify. Not only does it have excellent sales features and functionality, but it also has dedicated dropshipping apps and extensions to help you get the most out of your new business venture.
WooCommerce is the ideal platform if you want to get going right now with minimal costs. It is simple to install and has great dropshipping extensions and sales capabilities.
Regardless of our opinion, you should always compare ecommerce platforms before making a decision. This where our quick and free comparison tool comes in – simply provide us with a few details and we’ll connect you with the best providers for your dropshipping business.
Dropshipping for eCommerce is what flexible working is to traditional work – a more dynamic, easy way to make your business venture a success. With the right tools and research, dropshipping could evolve from your side hustle into your full time job.
Shopify is perfect for dropshipping businesses. Try it before you pay...
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