Cifnews in Europe: e-commerce service providers help Chinese companies access global market

Stefano Venza

But there’s a new and unfamiliar name that’s appeared in the feeds of many Chinese cross-border sellers: Oberlo. So what is Oberlo and what makes it so special? Cifnews did some cross-border sleuthing to find out.

Cifnews CEO and Founder Barry Weng, Cifnews VP Ken Zhao, Cifnews COO Guido Ghedin and their global team visited Oberlo’s main office in Berlin, Germany, and talked to Tomas Slimas, one of the company’s five founders.

Oberlo is a service provider, offering drop-shipping service. With Oberlo, you can quickly import Aliexpress products or Oberlo Supply products into your Shopify self-build. Then Aliexpress completes the delivery service.

For overseas sellers, drop shipping is no longer a new business model, and for those start-ups with capital budgets, sellers can transfer inventory risks to suppliers, so they only need to focus on the operation and promotion.

“Oberlo is a service provider, offering drop-shipping service. With Oberlo, you can quickly import AliExpress products or Oberlo Supply products into your Shopify self-build. Then Aliexpress completes the delivery service.“

The rapid development of Oberlo is inextricably linked to an important decision in 2017.

Like Shopify, Oberlo was founded in Vilnius, Lithuania  by Slimas and Andrius, who started it as an internal project. They developed a tool to resolve various problems in their drop shipping business process. The tool was called Oberlo.

On Apr. 28, 2017, Shopify acquired Oberlo for $157 million and rolled out its wholesale sales business, which was replaced by Oberlo’s drop-shipping business.

After Oberlo was acquired, its method of charging was also adjusted. For example, the starter plan was made free, knocking out the original cost of $4.90. The basic plan is $29.90 per month and the professional plan is $79.90.

Tomas told Cifnews that Shopify’s latest data shows that its sellers exceeded 500,000, and Oberlo’s active users accounted for one-fourth of the total number. At present, Oberlo’s independent operations team has more than 60 employees.

“Oberlo will be attending CCEE 2018 Hangzhou next month to share its industry experience. It will also be working with Cifnews, connecting the Chinese and European e-commerce markets.”

In addition to the above-mentioned core functions, Oberlo also allows users to freely edit and import product information, track orders, set up sub-accounts and complete sales analysis – which can all be personalized.

Oberlo will be attending CCEE 2018 Hangzhou next month to share its industry experience. It will also be working with Cifnews, connecting the Chinese and European e-commerce markets.