Looking for a SaleHoo review?
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With over 137,000 entrepreneurs and dropshippers trusting SaleHoo, this platform claims to be one of the leading supplier platforms, competing with names like Spocket and Syncee.
SaleHoo boasts 8,000+ pre-vetted suppliers and an extensive catalog of over 2.5 million products.
Our goal with this article is to find out whether SaleHoo is worth using or not. With tens of hours of research, we've compiled all the pros, cons, and available features of SaleHoo.
We want to give you a detailed breakdown of what you can expect from SaleHoo.
Before we go more in-depth into what SaleHoo offers, let's first discuss what SaleHoo exactly is!
What is SaleHoo?
SaleHoo is an ecommerce platform that helps dropshippers find suppliers and products for their online stores.
As mentioned previously, SaleHoo has over 2.5 million products in its catalog and 8,000+ pre-vetted suppliers that you can use for your ecommerce store.
That's quite an extensive product collection!
On top of the large product selection SaleHoo has, they offer additional tools to help you find winning products, such as their Research Labs, which we will go through later.
SaleHoo was founded in 2005 by Simon Slade and Mark Ling with the goal of connecting businesses with trustworthy suppliers and products at wholesale prices.
How does SaleHoo work?
In a nutshell, SaleHoo helps you find products and suppliers for your online store and then ships the product to your customer once the orders come in.
That's the basic dropshipping model, but SaleHoo takes it up a notch by providing reliable suppliers and a large selection of products.
Unreliable suppliers, slow shipping times, and low-quality products are some of the biggest problems dropshippers face. And Salehoo's goal is to solve them.
Their mission is to offer a solution that addresses the challenges dropshippers face in the industry.
The pros and cons of SaleHoo
Next, let's go more in-depth and go through the pros and cons of SaleHoo.
We will also include the most notable features of SaleHoo here.
The pros
Let's start with the pros!
1. Intuitive admin dashboard
The first thing we noticed about SaleHoo is its ease of use.
Upon signing up, you get access to the admin dashboard instantly, and you can either start browsing the suppliers or browse SaleHoo's product catalog.
What's also great about the dashboard view is that you can conveniently see all your saved products and searches in one place.
Let's say you're researching products and want to save up a product to look into later. You can easily do that and refer to it directly from the dashboard.
While we'll go through SaleHoo's forum in greater detail later on, it's worth mentioning that you can also see the latest forum activity from the dashboard.
The dashboard view is simple and doesn't have too many sections, which is why we like it.
2. Pre-vetted suppliers on the SaleHoo Directory plan
If you select the ‘SaleHoo Directory' plan, you can access 8,000+ pre-vetted suppliers. SaleHoo has a process for screening new suppliers (they don't just accept anyone in).
While many suppliers are in the US, there are suppliers in different locations, such as China, Australia, and India.
The suppliers are divided into different sections on their website, such as ‘Trending Suppliers.' Here is how it looks:
Here's another section called ‘Recently Added Suppliers.'
These sections can benefit new suppliers so that they can be seen on the SaleHoo platform.
And as a dropshipper, you can find new and fresh suppliers under this section.
You can also search the suppliers directly by category, which is helpful if you already know your niche.
Let's look at an example. If you click the ‘Health & Beauty' category, this is how the supplier search view looks:
In this specific niche search for ‘Health & Beauty,' you'll find an impressive 467 available suppliers, highlighting the extensive range of suppliers within SaleHoo's platform.
But what kind of information can you expect to find for each supplier? By clicking the supplier name, you can access the supplier page and find information about the supplier.
Once you click on the supplier, this is how the supplier page view looks like:
As you can see, each supplier profile provides a wealth of information.
To conclude, here's what you can expect to find for every supplier:
- Link to their website
- Their contact information (usually email and phone number)
- Their business location and information about the business
- What countries does the supplier ship to, and what payment methods are available
- Their product catalog
Note: If you want to browse the pre-vetted suppliers of SaleHoo, you must opt for the ‘SaleHoo Directory' plan. You can't browse the suppliers with the ‘SaleHoo Dropship' plan.
And who do we think the SaleHoo Directory is best suited for?
It's an excellent fit for those who already know their niche and want to find suppliers in that area.
For all the suppliers, you can easily contact them from their profiles:
3. Quick shipping times
One of the biggest problems that dropshippers face is slow shipping times.
Luckily, all of the SaleHoo suppliers offer fast shipping!
During our review, we went through various SaleHoo suppliers, and the average shipping time was 5 to 30 days. This obviously depends on the shipping method you choose and the country the products are shipped from.
To provide transparency, SaleHoo displays the estimated delivery time for each product in the product information box:
A five to 30-day shipping is fast enough time for dropshippers to maintain a low refund and return rate and keep customers happy — as long as your customer service is on point.
4. Diverse product range
Most people choose SaleHoo mainly because of its large selection of dropshipping products.
In fact, SaleHoo claims to have 2.5 million products available.
Now, that's impressive!
To browse the product selection, you need to select the ‘SaleHoo Dropship' plan, and then you get access to the products and can import them to Shopify.
It is worth noting that almost all SaleHoo Dropship plan products can be found on AliExpress. Every product has ‘View on AliExpress' next to it for this reason:
You may ask, then, why shouldn't I use AliExpress directly? Well, SaleHoo is chosen by many because the products are often listed at lower prices compared to AliExpress.
SaleHoo also makes product management easier when compared to doing it manually.
This is what the admin dashboard looks like when browsing the products with SaleHoo Dropship plan:
As you can see, there are various filtering options available, such as the origin of the shipment, destination country, category, shipping speed, price, and how many orders it has.
When it comes to categories, here are some of the main ones available:
- Apparel
- Beauty & Health
- Consumer Electronics
- Home Improvement
- Jewelry & Accessories
- Mother & Kids
- Pet Products
- Sports & Entertainment
- Toys & Hobbies
And more.
You may wonder, what information can you see for each product?
Let's take a look! As an example, we will use this ‘Military Pullover Shirt' product that can be found on SaleHoo:
For each product, you can see:
- Name, reviews, and price. When you click on a product, these are the first things you will see, and they are available for all products.
- Add to import list button and AliExpress info. To import products to Shopify, you will see the import button and a link to the original AliExpress page.
- Shipping details. First, you can see the countries the product is being shipped from and the countries it ships to. It's worth noting that most products available through the SaleHoo Dropship plan can be shipped worldwide.
- Shipping methods and carrier info. For every product, you can find all the available shipping methods. Most of the products have some form of free shipping available, as well as fast shipping if you prioritize it (it's also more expensive).
- Product specs. You can also see product specs for every product, such as material, origin country, and fabric type.
- Variant info. You can see what variants are available for the specific product.
These are the main things you can see on every product page.
Once you import your products, you will also see additional details on the import page, including product images and all the variants listed with their prices.
5. Helpful customer support
To test SaleHoo, we wanted to try how their customer service performs.
SaleHoo offers email and live chat support for all customers, and it's available 24/7 on business days.
So, to test their live chat, we sent them a basic question asking if they offer integrations with platforms other than Shopify.
We got an answer back in under five minutes, which was really detailed.
Overall, we think their customer service was great. If excellent customer support is a priority for you, rest assured that SaleHoo delivers on this front.
They also have an extensive knowledge base where you can find answers to your questions, even if you're not their customer yet.
6. Active community forum
Many companies have a community forum, but whether it's active or not is a different game altogether.
Luckily, SaleHoo has an active community forum that comes with many benefits.
The SaleHoo community forum can help you:
- Find winning products
- Get selling advice & tips
- Find a supplier for your products
- Get technical tips on things like shipping
- Get tips about dropshipping
And much more.
The SaleHoo community forum is divided into different sections, such as ‘Products For Sale,' ‘Supplier Reviews,' and ‘General Selling Advice.'
As an example, this is how the section ‘Products For Sale' looks like:
As you can see, different suppliers show new products they offer in the forum. This can help you find a new winning product for your store.
All the other sections also provide additional beneficial information related to the section.
And the best part is that you can access the forum even if you're not a SaleHoo customer!
7. Product research tools
SaleHoo has a few extra tools that can help in the process of finding winning products.
Let's go through them!
SaleHoo Research Labs
SaleHoo has a built-in product research tool called SaleHoo Research Labs which helps you find winning products to sell.
You can use different filters like the level of competition, average price, and product type to identify winning products.
Compared to other product research tools, SaleHoo Research Labs is not as good. But it is just one of SaleHoo's supplementary products; thus, it doesn't receive the same level of dedicated development and attention.
SaleHoo Product Trends
On the SaleHoo Product Trends page, you can find different product trends.
While this is not a main feature of SaleHoo, we thought it was cool, and there are many product trends listed.
If you click on one of the trends, you can see different products related to the trend.
The cons
Now that we're done with the pros of SaleHoo, let's look at some of the cons it offers.
No platform is perfect in the end.
Let's begin!
1. No free trial
One of the significant downsides of SaleHoo is the absence of a free trial or free plan.
In comparison to competitors like Spocket or Sellvia, which offer free trials to test their platforms, SaleHoo lacks this feature.
That said, SaleHoo offers a 60-day money-back guarantee, which allows you to get your money back if you're unhappy with their service. So this is not an ultimate deal-breaker. But still, we would like them to offer a plan for at least browsing the platform.
2. Only integrates with Shopify
One downside of SaleHoo is its limited integration options, as it only integrates with Shopify.
We even asked the support of SaleHoo to confirm this, and they said it was true.
For example, if you use platforms like BigCommerce or WooCommerce for dropshipping, SaleHoo doesn't integrate with those.
While there are no direct integrations with other platforms, almost all suppliers on SaleHoo Directory support integration to certain platforms, which you can discuss directly with them.
3. Shipping can get expensive
If you prioritize fast shipping, the cost of shipping can become expensive.
Let's take an example and look into the shipping costs of this ‘Coffee Maker' product within SaleHoo.
If you're comfortable with a 30-day shipping time, then the shipping cost is quite minimal. In this case, it's only $5.26.
However, if you need expedited shipping within ten days, the shipping cost can get pricey, as illustrated in our example product here:
The shipping cost is nearly seven times higher when compared to the slower shipping time product.
If slower shipping is acceptable to you, then this shouldn't be a problem.
Pricing
Regarding pricing, SaleHoo offers three main plans, each serving a specific purpose.
To help you understand them, here is a breakdown of each one:
- SaleHoo Dropship. SaleHoo Dropship is suitable for both existing dropshipping store owners and those starting from scratch. With the ‘SaleHoo Dropship' plan, you can integrate all the available products into your Shopify store.
SaleHoo Dropship costs $27 a month for the basic plan and $97 for the premium plan.
- SaleHoo Directory. With this plan, you get direct access to the suppliers of SaleHoo. They are located worldwide, mainly in the US, Europe, China, and Australia. It's particularly beneficial for those who already have an existing dropshipping store.
For the suppliers in the ‘SaleHoo Directory' plan, there is no existing integration to Shopify. Although most suppliers support selling on Shopify, you must reach out to each supplier individually to understand their specific integration process.
For SaleHoo Directory, you can get lifetime access for $127 or pay $67 per year to access it annually.
- SaleHoo Educate. If you want to learn more about dropshipping or Amazon FBA, you should check out SaleHoo Educate. You don't get access to any of the supplier or product research tools with it; it is solely for educational purposes.
For SaleHoo Educate, there are two options, one-time payment of $47 to get the dropshipping guide or one-time payment of $47 to get the Amazon FBA guide.
Money-back guarantee: SaleHoo aims to make their service as risk-free as possible, which is why they offer a 60-day money-back guarantee for all purchases made on their platform.
How to get started with SaleHoo?
This is an exciting part!
Now that you know what SaleHoo has to offer and the pricing, you may wonder how to get started with it.
It's actually quite simple, and we will go through it.
To make this as beneficial as possible, we will go through the starting process of both main plans, SaleHoo Directory and SaleHoo Dropship.
Getting started with SaleHoo Directory
Let's start with SaleHoo Directory!
1. Sign up for SaleHoo
The first step is to sign up for SaleHoo.
To do that, head to their website and click on the ‘Get Started Now' button.
Next, SaleHoo asks you to choose one of three options, depending on what you want to use SaleHoo for.
You can choose SaleHoo Directory, SaleHoo Dropship, or Educate.
We went through these previously, but here is a brief explanation of each one:
- SaleHoo Directory is for people who want a direct connection with thousands of suppliers. The suppliers are located worldwide, but mainly in the US.
- SaleHoo Dropship is for people who want to add AliExpress dropshipping products to their online store. It comes with native integration for Shopify.
- SaleHoo Educate is for people who want to learn more about dropshipping or Amazon FBA. It provides expert knowledge and insights from a successful seven-figure dropshipper.
For our example, we will start by going through the process of getting started with the SaleHoo Directory and contacting suppliers. After this, we will also go through how you can start with SaleHoo Dropship, so if you're interested in that, you can skip this part!
So, select the option that is best for you, and then you will need to complete the sign-up process. SaleHoo asks you to opt for the paid plan at this point (as they don't have any free plans).
After you're done with that, you have access to the admin dashboard!
To help you get started, SaleHoo asks you some simple questions, like your experience in online selling, your preferred selling method, the marketplace where you plan to sell, and the specific niche you are interested in.
They'll also get you familiar with the platform with a quick tour.
After this, you have full access to the admin dashboard!
2. Start browsing suppliers
One of the fun parts: browsing the suppliers!
To do that, click on ‘Directory' from the header of the admin dashboard.
From the Directory, you can see the whole collection of suppliers that SaleHoo has.
They are divided into different categories, so browsing them would be easier.
If you have a category in mind, you can pick that one or just look for product ideas by picking a random category.
For our example, we will pick the Health & Beauty category.
Under every category, you can find thousands of different products and suppliers.
For Health & Beauty, there are over 70,000 products and 254 suppliers!
In the SaleHoo Directory, you have two options; you can either search by the suppliers or by the products.
Probably the easiest way to find products to sell and contact the suppliers is to search by ‘Products.' From there, you can see the list of all available products and still contact the suppliers.
You probably want to know how to contact the supplier to start selling the products.
I'll show you in the next section!
3. Contact the SaleHoo Directory suppliers
Because the SaleHoo Directory doesn't have integrations with ecommerce platforms, you have to contact the suppliers yourself to discuss how you can sell their products, what shipping methods are available, how expensive it is, and so on.
It's quite easy, actually, so don't worry!
To contact the supplier and start selling the product, click on the product you want to sell from the SaleHoo Directory search.
This will get you to the product page, where you can also see the supplier's profile.
For the suppliers, you have three options for contacting: messaging them by email through SaleHoo, calling them, or filling in a contact form from their website.
Usually, the call is the fastest, and you can find their number from the contact box.
Not all suppliers have phone numbers added, so you can also click on the ‘Send email' to contact them by email.
This will open a form where you can contact the supplier.
The third option is going to the supplier's website, where they usually have a contact form.
To do that, click on the ‘View website' from the supplier page.
Once you are on the supplier's website, head into the footer section.
Usually, there is a page called ‘Become a Seller', ‘Wholesale', ‘Contact Us' or something else related to selling their products.
Once you click on the page, you can usually see a contact form where you can contact the seller.
Those are the three different ways to contact the suppliers!
When you contact them, you should show your interest in selling their product, and if you have an existing online store, introduce yourself. During your conversation, you can discuss how their integrations, shipping, and order management works.
Also, if you look at the description of the supplier inside the SaleHoo Directory, you can usually see requirements and policies for retailers (if there are any).
That's it for contacting suppliers through SaleHoo Directory! Even though they don't have direct integrations with ecommerce platforms, it's quite easy to get started.
Getting started with SaleHoo Dropship
Next, let's go through the process of getting started with SaleHoo Dropship!
If you want to integrate products from AliExpress into your Shopify store, then SaleHoo Dropship might be the right solution for you.
1. Select the SaleHoo Dropship plan
The first step of signing up is almost identical for the SaleHoo Dropship and for the Directory, so we will not go through it again.
You just have to choose the SaleHoo Dropship plan instead of the Directory.
After you select it and go through the sign-up process, you're ready to jump onto the next step!
2. Integrate SaleHoo with Shopify
After you have access to the SaleHoo dashboard, you can integrate it with Shopify (the Shopify integration is only possible with the ‘SaleHoo Dropship' plan).
To do that, head into ‘SaleHoo Dropship' from the dashboard.
If you haven't linked your SaleHoo account with Shopify, you will see a tab indicating that your store is not yet connected. It will appear similar to the image shown below:
Click on ‘Connect Store.'
Next, SaleHoo asks you to fill in your Shopify Store name.
If you don't have a Shopify store at this point yet, you should go ahead and create one. If you need help with that, we have a comprehensive guide on how to create your Shopify dropshipping store.
Once you add your store name to SaleHoo, you will be redirected to Shopify.
This is how it should look on the side of Shopify:
After you click ‘Install app,' SaleHoo will be automatically added to your Shopify store.
You should see this green checkmark on the SaleHoo Dropship dashboard, indicating that the integration has been successfully completed.
3. Import products to your online store
After you have successfully linked SaleHoo with Shopify, you can start importing the products!
To do that, head to SaleHoo Dropship from the header.
Once you access the SaleHoo Dropship dashboard, you can import dropshipping products to your Shopify store.
At this point, you should define what you want to achieve with your store. Is fast shipping the only option for you? Then, you should check the ‘Ships from United States' tab from the left:
If you are comfortable with a shipping timeframe of 15-30 days and you want to save on shipping costs, then you can choose to keep the ‘Ships from China' option.
If you already have a specific category in mind, you can easily select it from the left sidebar.
If you don't know your dropshipping niche, you can select the ‘All' option.
Once you find the product you want to add, click the ‘+' icon at the top of the image, and the product will be added to your import list.
After this, scroll back to the header section, where you will find the ‘Import List' tab.
From this page, you will see all the products you added to the import list.
From here, you can edit the product title, type, collection, and description and add shipping options, pricing, and images.
You can change all of these later from Shopify too, so it doesn't have to be perfect here.
Once you're done adding the product information, click ‘Upload to Shopify.'
After completing these steps, the product will automatically be visible on the Shopify side, and you're ready to start selling!
4. Manage upcoming orders
Once orders start coming in, you can manage and fulfill your orders directly inside of SaleHoo on the ‘Orders' page.
When a customer places an order, the details will be visible here, and they are automatically passed to the supplier, so you don't have to worry about manually transferring the order details.
To pay the supplier, you need to add a payment method to SaleHoo. They support all the main payment methods, including PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, and more.
That's it for the SaleHoo Dropship setup.
After this, you still need to complete your Shopify store setup, finalize standard pages, adjust settings, and start doing some advertising.
What do other users say about SaleHoo?
We all love reading honest reviews before making a decision, right? Let's explore what users say about SaleHoo on review apps.
SaleHoo has a good 4.5/5 star rating on Trustpilot, which is one of the most popular review platforms.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the user reviews we found on Trustpilot:
- As we previously mentioned, SaleHoo's customer service is great. Here are a few reviews related to that:
In today's age where you normally have to wait so many ‘working days' for any kind of response, this experience was a breath of fresh air. I was pleased to receive a very prompt reply along with all my questions answered in full.
We are just starting a business relationship with this company, and I was impressed with prompt and polite replies.
- Dropshippers appreciate the good selection of suppliers and products. Here are two reviews related to that:
If you are looking to create a successful business online SaleHoo should be your #1 spot! They have the best selection of traditional and dropshipping wholesalers you can find.
No need to call a supplier, buying their Salehoo directory will be it, all you do is pick the things you want and import into your website, and that’s it, then you sell in your website.
FAQs about SaleHoo
To help you understand SaleHoo better, let's go through a few frequently asked questions about the platform.
Is SaleHoo Dropship compatible with Shopify?
Yes, you can integrate SaleHoo Dropship with Shopify by using their app from the Shopify App Store.
How does SaleHoo work?
SaleHoo provides you with both suppliers and dropshipping products. You can integrate these directly into your online store and start selling the products.
Is SaleHoo legal to use?
Yes, SaleHoo is fully legal to use. In fact, it's one of the leading dropshipping supplier platforms and provides dropshippers with millions of products.
3 SaleHoo alternatives
SaleHoo has more pros than cons, but it also has some alternatives that are better at certain things.
What are those platforms?
Let's go through each one!
1. Spocket
First is Spocket.
Spocket is a dropshipping platform that gets you access to thousands of high-quality suppliers.
The standout feature of Spocket is that over 80% of the suppliers are located in the EU and US, which means that the products can be shipped pretty quickly.
When compared to SaleHoo, Spocket has more generous pricing plans. The cheapest one is free, allowing you to browse the platform and get familiar with the features.
For more information about Spocket, check out our in-depth review here!
2. Syncee
Second on the list is Syncee.
Syncee is a global B2B dropshipping platform that aims to help dropshippers source, manage, and sell products from suppliers all over the world.
While SaleHoo has 2.5 million products in its catalog, Syncee has over six million products, which is even more.
And what's best about Syncee is that they have a 14-day free trial for all of their plans, plus a completely free plan that allows you to browse the platform.
For more information about Syncee, check out our in-depth review here!
3. Modalyst
Third on our SaleHoo alternatives list is Modalyst.
Modalyst is an all-in-one dropshipping fulfillment platform offering millions of products or dropshippers worldwide.
It's a platform for Wix fans, as Wix has recently acquired Modalyst. Additionally, Modalyst offers integration with Shopify for those who are interested.
The biggest benefit of Modalyst is its pricing model. You can get started for free with a 25-product limit, which we think is a great deal.
For more information about Spocket, check out our in-depth review here!
Taking action
Reading and absorbing information and knowledge is great (definitely if it’s free!), but do you know what’s even better?
Taking action!
So, to help you with taking action with what you have learned in this article, take a look at the bullet points:
- Compare SaleHoo and its alternatives. Before deciding, you should compare SaleHoo's plans and what they include. We also went through three solid alternatives for SaleHoo, so you should also compare those.
- Select one of the plans. If you choose SaleHoo, the next step is selecting one of their plans. As we went through, their plans were divided into three sections. The ‘SaleHoo Dropship' plan is the best solution for most people.
- Integrate SaleHoo with Shopify. This is the exciting part! You can integrate SaleHoo with Shopify once you have selected one of their plans. We went through this process also, so scroll up a bit to see how to do that (it's easy!)
- Start scrolling for products. After the integration, you can get directly into scrolling products. SaleHoo has 2.5 million products divided into different categories, so you can be sure to find something for you.
- Import products into your Shopify. Once you find a product, you can easily import it into Shopify. Just make sure your Shopify store is connected before this, or it doesn't work.
Conclusion
That's our take on SaleHoo, its pros, cons, customer service, and features.
Overall, we believe that it's a great tool for dropshippers who want to access a large number of products and sell them in their online store.
The support team of SaleHoo is top-notch, the suppliers are qualified, and many of them are located in the US.
If this sounds good to you, then we recommend going with SaleHoo!
And don't forget, if you have any questions, you can always message their support or leave us a question below!
Good luck.
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