Choosing which dropshipping agent to work with could be one of the most challenging tasks in growing your business because they would be in charge of many matters for your ecommerce store for a relatively long time. With that, this blog post aims to help your decision making by comparing the most important aspects among some agents, namely Wiio, Fulfillman, Jingsourcing, CJ Dropshipping and Xianchao Logistics.
1. Overview
Overall, all of the companies above are private dropshipping agents who aim to solve dropshippers’ pain points with a wide range of services. However, the main difference among them is their target groups, which dictates many other elements in their business operations.
Wiio mainly serves beginner dropshippers (no MOQ required) by providing basic services and limited choices for store integrations.
Fulfillman caters to multiple niches of clients, from dropshippers to crowdfunders.
Jingsourcing (minimum order value of $500 required) and CJ Dropshipping work with dropshippers of varying scales and charge their clients based on the commitment level, which includes the typical order size and types of services used.
Xianchao Logistics targets experienced dropshippers by setting a daily minimum order quantity (MOQ) of 5 and offering many advanced services.
2. Services
When partnering with a dropshipping agent, it is essential that you consider the services they offer. Since the range of services provided by the companies analysed in this article is similar, you could assess their service quality if they are in your shortlist. Although it is difficult to obtain objective views on this matter, there are certain things that you can look out for as explained below.
Product sourcing: The agent should be a reliable point of contact between you and your suppliers. Hence, they should have good communication and negotiation skills as well as extensive relationships with factories, preferably in China, so that you get the most bang for your buck (e.g. good prices for high quality products). Furthermore, you should also look at their response speed to your quotation and sourcing requests, which is within 2 business days according to industry standards. If they take any time longer than that, this might be a red flag suggesting that you should not work with them.
Purchasing, stocking, and warehousing: Typically, an agent who has many years of experience in managing warehouses and handling inventory is more ideal as they know the best practices to keep your products in good condition. More specifically, when each company was established is as follow:
Fulfillman - 2016
Wiio - 2015
Jingsourcing - 2015
CJ Dropshipping - 2014
Xianchao Logistics - 1988 (started to specialise in dropshipping fulfillment and services since 2015)
Quality inspection & product certification: Quality control ensures that your customers receive quality products consistently, thus keeping them satisfied and loyal to your business. Although product certification is not a must, it provides an additional layer of guarantee to increase customers’ trust in your brand.
Order fulfillment: A good agent should provide a wide range of alternatives for shipping routes as well as packaging materials and methods (e.g. vacuuming, inserting dunnage). This would give you more flexibility in strategic planning (e.g. whether to offer free shipping, which products to sell).
Branding, customisation, and bundling These are special services if you want to scale your dropshipping empire. Some great benefits that you enjoy are increased profit margin and brand recognition.
Product photography: Using this service may allow you to capture the best angles of the goods you are selling, rendering them more visually pleasing and enticing to buyers. It also enables you to stand out in the competition compared to those who use stock images found on the Internet. However, this is usually not highly necessary.
After-sales: This term refers to activities that occur after shipment of orders, such as monitoring status of sent packages or reshipping lost and damaged parcels. In order to assess the trustworthiness of an agent, you can find out to what extent they support you and your end consumers after sales.
3. Store integration
Generally speaking, dropshipping agents either develop their in-house app (e.g. Wiio, CJ Dropshipping) or utilise a third-party platform for store integration (e.g. Fulfillman, Jingsourcing, Xianchao Logistics). Each type has its own merits and drawbacks. In particular, using in-house developed software allows the agents to have more authority on what features to add on to serve their clients’ needs and wants. On the other hand, a third-party application usually incorporates more advanced technology and encounters technical issues less often thanks to their dedicated strong software development teams.
The table below provides an overview of what ecommerce platforms each agent supports. In the case of Xianchao Logistics, we are able to connect up to 36 platforms as of now by using Dianxiaomi.
4. Pricing
Another factor on which dropshippers put a lot of weight when choosing their agents is pricing models.
Wiio and Xianchao Logistics’s pricing models are transparent where they charge customers the costs of goods sold (COGS) and shipping fees. Although they help you with some basic activities such as free storage of up to 3 months in warehouse and quality check, this excludes more advanced services such as customisation.
Fulfillman has different ways of billing their clients based on the type of services they utilise, such as sourcing or dropshipping fulfillment. Since they do not publicise this information, clients need to submit a request for quotation for more details.
JingSourcing offers four different plans for their clients depending on their scale. Each package includes many kinds of services for their clients to make use of (as shown below). Except for the most basic package, they take a portion of your product value as a service fee plus COGS + shipping.
CJ Dropshipping does not charge a fixed monthly/yearly fee although they have multiple ‘subscription plans’. More specifically, it is a membership programme where you would enjoy more benefits if you purchase more products with them and use more services such as POD and product photography.
For the ease of comparison, the pricing model of the above agents can be summarised in the table below.
Please do note that CJ Dropshipping and Jingsourcing also charge COGS + Shipping fees on the top of membership commitment level or service fees.
We hope this article gives you a good reference point on finding your dropshipping agent. If you are interested in scaling your business, get in touch with us today! With over 30 years of logistics experience, Xianchao Logistics, a Guangzhou-based company, began to branch out to serve the dropshipping industry in 2015. With our experience in logistics fulfilment and close relationships with suppliers, our company has risen to help different dropshippers expand their businesses over these years. We practice what we preach, from being transparent and responsive to protecting your identity and trade secrets, because we believe that our company’s success and growth will only come with helping our clients grow.
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