Welcome to my review of Zendrop, a new dropshipping service that will help you run a dropshipping business more efficiently by making it easier to import and fulfil products.
This is a relatively new service from serial entrepreneur Jared Goetz who himself runs several 7-figure dropshipping stores and a couple of other businesses including the popular eCommerce training program, eCom Hacks Academy.
Dropshipping is a very popular eCommerce fulfilment method mainly because it does not require a huge investment to start one up.
You don’t have to hold any inventory or make delivery arrangements, it sounds simple to run and it is once you have everything in place but like all business’s it will require a lot of your time to see it become profitable.
As dropshipping has grown in popularity over the last decade or so, there have been a plethora of online services to help online retailers run their business more efficiently and more profitably.
I have reviewed many of these dropshipping apps and services, some like Oberlo, Dropified, Spocket and AliDropship, all provide a fantastic service and have excellent customer testimonials.
So, how does Zendrop compare to its competitors? Keep reading this review to find out.
Zendrop Review
So, Zendrop was originally known as Silkroad after the famous trading route that connected the east and the west. They later rebranded to Zendrop probably to emphasize how relaxed you would be by running a dropshipping business with Zendrop. That’s just my guess, the owner may just like the word Zen and decided to link it together with “drop” to indicate the relationship to dropshipping.
What is Zendrop? Basically, it’s a dropshipping app that has a database of products in a variety of categories.
You can connect your Shopify store to Zendrop and easily import any of these products into your store.
Once an order comes in, it will be automatically fulfilled without you having to fill any form, you have the option to do this manually, but if you start getting hundreds of orders a day, the automatic ordering option will save you a lot of time.
That is basically it, the other main feature is the ability to send custom thank you letters, this is a good way to brand yourself which is a good long-term business strategy.
Just to be totally transparent, to bring you this review I signed for the free version which does not give you access to the main features of this app. So I did some further research to fully understand what you can do with this dropshipping app so you can make an informed decision on whether it will be right for your business or not.
Something I always notice whenever I test a new software application is how the UI looks and as can see below, the team behind Zendrop have designed a nice UI that is easy to navigate.
By the way, unlike some of the other dropshipping apps, to test out Zendrop, you will need a Shopify account. You can sign up for a free trial here (at the moment because of Covid-19, Shopify are offering a 90-day free trial!!).
In the dashboard, there are several filters you can apply to narrow down the list of products, these filters include the following:
- Category
- Supplier
- Price
- Made in the USA
As it is a new dropshipping service, it does not have a huge range of products, as of writing this review, they have 10 suppliers, most of these suppliers based in China. There are some that are based in the USA, but there is not a wide selection of products from these suppliers and most of it is apparel and simple home accessories.
To get more details about any of the products, you just click on the image and you will be provided with more product details, similar to what is shown in the image below.
As you can see you get a detailed description of the product as well as all the images the supplier has provided. You get details of the supplier price and a suggested retail price and the profit you would make.
There are also shipping details and you will get several methods to choose from, one of the main selling points of using Zendrop is that they can offer faster shipping times than what is usually offered on AliExpress.
While this is true, it is not possible with the current situation and they are upfront with this. Usually, shipping is between 2-7 days but now with Covid-19 complicating things, the average shipping time is around 20 days.
If you like the item and think it may be a good fit for your store, you can either order a sample or add it to your import list.
In the import list, you can change the description of the product and choose the variants and images you want to sell and use. After making the adjustments you can easily import it into your store by clicking the green button.
To fulfil orders you have two choices, you can either do it manually, if you have a small number of orders, manually entering them will not be an issue. However, once your store starts to grow and get more orders, you should switch to automatic fulfilment, Zendrop will do the rest.
As soon as an order has been fulfilled, your customers will be notified, and a tracking link will be sent to them.
Zendrop – Other Features
The following features can only be accessed if you sign up to their plus plan which you can only sign up to by applying for it.
Its most probably a plan that they tailor-make to whatever your needs are because you get the following perks in the plus plan:
- Dedicated sourcing agent – Someone who well research and find winning products for you to dropship.
- Dedicated support – As it is a plan made just for you, there will be a special support agent you can seek help and support from.
- Private labelling – Sell products under your own brand and make even more money
- Coaching calls – I suppose this will be given by Jared where you will be able to ask him questions and get the latest on what is working in the world of dropshipping.
Zendrop Pricing Plans
You can use Zendrop for free with limited features and only be allowed to fulfil 50 orders a month if you are just starting out, the free option will be good enough to start with.
The most popular option is the Pro plan which will cost you $49pm, or if you decide to go for the yearly option, it will cost you $33pm.
The other option is the Plus plan, to sign up for this plan you will need to contact them.
Final Thoughts
There are a lot of very good dropshipping apps and so Zendrop has a lot of tough competition if it is to compete in this area.
It’s a very new service and so the features do not stack up well against the likes of Oberlo, Dropified, AliDropship, Shopmaster and others.
Another area where they will struggle against the competition is the limited number of suppliers in their database which means they do not currently have a huge range of products to choose from.
I do expect this to change in the future but at the moment, I would totally rely on them for my dropshipping needs. I recommend you check them out because it does offer some good features, especially the automatic fulfilment but overall the features are very limited.