What is wrong with using wix for dropshipping

Tools of the trade E-commerce
#1

I’m evaluating different hosting models(shopify vs woocommerce vs wix vs opencart etc) for a drop shipping store and one thing that caught my attention over the internet is that people dislike wix so much but haven’t seen any convincing argument for that so far.

Between the arguments we can find:
==Its not flexible for customizations;
==You don’t have access to the backend;
==Can’t add javascript in the front end;
==bla bla bla;
==Its slow;
==Its for newbies

But then I ask myself what one needs to begin with. I work on IT for some time and can get my way around things quite well but don’t enjoy much having to code my front end and fight with PHP/HTML/CSS to display my square at the spot I want, so from that perspective wix seems to be great as its all drag and drop. Yes I dont have access to the backend but why would I need that in the first place? Wix has a web store module that comes with every fundamental feature you would want so I dont see why would one need back end access to start the business.

Yes I dont have access to cpanel and shit but why would I need that? Maybe I’m too ignorant but seriously, if wix takes care of that, why is that a problem? Yes I dont get to rdp into the vm hosting my site to look at things from an OS level but why do I need that? Its slow? Well, if we play devil’s advocate and say we subscribe to the 25$/month plan, can someone point out a solution out there for 25 bucks that is as fast as wix? Meaning, for 25 you get a hosted ecommerce shop completely managed infrastructure, with a team of technical engineers taking care of it, including all security tests and possibly pentesting, server management, system monitoring, and some say that is bad?

Ok so if you go with woocommerce stack, what can you get for 25$? Its free yes but can you do everything yourself? Maybe yes but that costs time or maybe not which then costs money to pay a freelancer to get it up to shape where you want and run the risk of having to hire more than 1 person because uu figured you hired a scammer. Oh and then you find that woocommerce doesnt even come with this feature you wantt and you need to buy a plugin on codecanyon anyways… I dont know, to me is a higher risk.

Wanna talk shopify where you have to pay for every fart? For 25$ can you have the same quality and flexibility and economy of time as with wix? I looked at their prices and anything decent in shopify doesnt cost less than 25$, even though I recognize that they include hosting.

So what is wrong with WIX to start a business? Wait, you wanna say scalling? I agree, if you get 50000 visitors per day it may be a challenge but if you are getting that much traffic most likely you are making shit loads of money and can afford to build something from scratch in magento anyways.

Really curious about your ideas? What am I failing to realize that makes a real difference?

2 Likes
#2

Shopify. Period.

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#3

Trying to stimulate a constructive debate here @HenryCooper. Great that you replied which probably means that you are using Shopify. Not willing to get into much details but can you share how much you spend a month, including outsourced work and shopify fee to keep your shop going? I’m happy to change my mind just trying to understand why people chose what they chose

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#4

If you would have spent the same time into researching about the topic - instead of writing a online diary - you would have found out that shopify is a managed solution. So any “outsourced” work applies also to your “wix idea”.

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#5

I’m not criticizing you choosing shopify, trying to understand why you decided to choose it instead of something like wix or weebly et al

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#6

I have no idea how wix works nor do I have any detailed answers but from what I see everyone is using Shopify, people making thousands of dollars per month out of drop shipping are recommending it over all other alternatives, I’m sure there’s a strong reason behind that and I didn’t bother to look more into it.

#7

Thank you Said, I don’t deny that I sure there is and if I had the money probably I would too, what I’m saying is that I figure that any shopify business owner at some point went through the same evaluation of platforms(or didnt) before deciding to go with Shopify and if they did chose Shopify its most likely its benefits outweighed the others. So what I’m asking is why did they chose shopify(or woocommerce or whatever else) over something like wix or weebly which offers the same benefits for a dropship starter for less money.

Do you think that people just went with shopify fullstop without even looking and testing what is available?

#8

I think so, yes. Especially when someone else that they trust recommended it directly. But I guess it doesn’t matter, if you are able to build a pro looking store using wix and you are sure you can set up the payment methodes, shipping rates…etc just go for it.

1 Like
#9

Weebly and Wix ARE NOT providing the same benefits to “dropshippers” and ecom runners as shopify and other managed solutions.

At the moment there is 2 ways of doing things:

  • You go with a hosted solution -> Shopify, Prestashop etc.
  • You go with a self-hosted solution -> most likely Wordpress because of the dropshipper plugin

How should you make your decision?

Look at the plugins/apps provided which you will need for your operation. That could be:

  • Automatic Order Fullfillment
  • A/B testing and variation testing
  • Payment Processor plugins/apps (which are OFFICIALLY supported and maintained)
  • Built in Card Recovery and Abandoned Card Features
  • Have a plugin which works with either MailChimp or GetResponse
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#10

That’s a bad place to be in for making decisions , especially in ecom. How will you handle your chargebacks or fraudulent customers if you don’t have any money? :frowning:

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#11

the reason why shopify is the best choice ,
shopify gives you a store of free and paid apps , that helps you dropshipping .
also gives you sales channels and integrations like facebook amazon . ebay !
integrate with print on demand plateforme like gearbubble and the printful . so you can start your t shirts business easily .
SECURITY ! and ssl certificat for your business .
shopify payments …

2 Likes
#12

Woocommerce period!

You own everything
You can build how YOU want it
It is ALL under your control
No ridiculous monthly cost like shopify
No risk is getting your shit deleted for whatever reason (like Wix and Weebly)

That is why i would go woocommerce

1 Like
#13

Do you have an estimate on the costs involved in setting up a woocommerce shop from scratch, considering plugins required as pointed out by @HenryCooper and @instame

#14

The only reason going for woocommerce is the 100$ plugin for importing a lot of products from alibaba or aliexpress.

But you should consider the benefits that branding has over a massive product portfolio.

Judging by the questions your are asking, go for the Developer Sign-Up Route for Shopify. Its free until you reach a certain amounts of sales. Always remember , time is not free . Even tho you don’t pay a price right away to consume it.

1 Like
#15

Sure, you can setup a site for $100-

Ali Dropship plugin $79-
Domain 10-
Hosting $20- a month
Advertising/Traffic ???
Woocommerce theme free
woocommerce plugin

That is when you’re on a shoestring budget, with shopify you have to pay $29 a month + $75- a month for all the ad ones that you’re going to need, also you do not have any flexibility when it comes to building the store, you can see a shopify store from miles away (unless you pay $180 for a theme)

#16

I’m not sure if its a mistake but I’m thinking of working with local(in country wide) drop ship suppliers and not alibaba. Not only because its what everyone seems to be doing(alibaba) but also because by using locals, I can cut the shipping time and offer a better value for money. Not doing it because wanna cut costs of buying ali dropship plugin, just something I thought of doing from the very begining.

For advertising, I’m warming up social media accounts on mp and they will be ready by the go live

1 Like
#17

Make that decision first, and then update the thread with all the relevant information.

And don’t expect a lot out of social media “spamming” in the sense of getting sales.

#18

The idea of dropshipping using ali is because they have done all the “work” for you. You get to have lots of products to test without sourcing for local stuffs.

If you wanna go local to local, then there’s no point in using expensive solution like shopify. You probably don’t have alot of things to put up in your store.

Once you go big, you need inventory management platform that deals with alot of the headache that a wix most likely cannot handle.

Less than 10 item, no big deal. More than 10, use shopify or woo.

#19

Just to clarify “local” in the sense of only UK wide companies that offer dropshipping services and I already identified several, also, identified many companies within the EU who offer great shipping times. I expect to have more that 10 prods yes. I didn’t realize local vs aliexpress made a big difference on the platform you choose.

#20

Another thing I didn’t realize. If its not too much to ask, what would you advise, faceboock ads?