How to start dropshipping: creating the store
In this blog post the goal is going to be to understand what dropshipping is and how to get started.
What is dropshipping ?
Dropshipping is a way to supply and distribute products automatically for ecommerce stores. The concept is simple, you pick products from your favorite suppliers, put them on your online store and when you receive orders for that product you order it from your supplier with the customer's information.
How to start a dropship store ?
The first step to starting in dropshipping is setting up a store. A store is really just a website you could code it or hire someone to code it manually for you. But in 2026 there's tools that make this step easy !
Woocommerce
Is a wordpress plugin which lets you start an ecommerce website in a few minutes without needing any code. The benefit is that you can have full control of your store and everything can be modified as you wish later. And it's completely free !
Shopify
Is the ideal way to get an ecommerce website started very quickly with the least amount of overhead. And you can get started for $1/month as the trial. The catch is that eventually that subscription drastically increase and on top of that you pay a % fee on each of your sales. Perfect to start quick, but you give up control and money long term.
Comparison between Woocommerce and Shopify:
| Shopify | Woocommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Starter plan Price | $29/month +2.9% + 30¢ +2% 3rd-party payment providers | Free |
| Simplicity | The easiest | Takes a bit of tweaking around |
| Control | Limited, can't modify the code of your store directly | Full control |
| Support from 3rd party programs | Excellent | Excellent |
Either of these will get you great result and will get your store up and running in no time !
What's next ?
In the next blog post we'll see how to choose a supplier and after that we will learn about automations.
MarginGuard is one of the automation tools and works for any stores doesn't matter if you choose Shopify or Woocommerce ! MarginGuard tracks the price of your supplier and alerts you when prices changes.
If you want to avoid losing money to supplier price changes, get started for free: https://mymarginguard.com