What was Oberlo and how did it work?

In 2026, a large number of people are still searching “is Oberlo a scam” or “is Oberlo legit” – often because they came across a tutorial or recommendation that is years out of date. The short answer is that Oberlo was never a scam. It was one of the most widely used dropshipping apps in the world. But it no longer exists, and understanding what happened matters if you are planning to start a dropshipping business today.

Oberlo was founded in 2015 in Vilnius, Lithuania, by a team of five co-founders including Tomas and Andrius Slimas. It started as a Shopify app that allowed online store owners to import products directly from AliExpress and fulfill orders automatically – no inventory, no warehousing, no manual order processing. The app grew rapidly within the Shopify ecosystem, eventually reaching over 100,000 active store installs and helping merchants process millions of orders.

In April 2017, Shopify acquired Oberlo for approximately $15 million, integrating it as one of the flagship dropshipping tools recommended to new merchants. For several years after the acquisition, Oberlo held the position of the go-to AliExpress dropshipping app for Shopify users. Then, in May 2022, with almost no public explanation, Shopify delisted the app and confirmed it would be permanently shut down.

Is Oberlo legitimate? What the evidence shows

As of 2026, Oberlo is not a scam – but it is not a platform you can use either. During its active years (2015 to 2022), Oberlo was a legitimate, Shopify-owned dropshipping tool with strong ratings and a massive user base. The reason people still ask whether it is a scam today is mostly due to outdated content across YouTube, blogs, and course materials that still reference Oberlo as if it is an active option.

Before the shutdown, Oberlo held a 4.3-star rating on the Shopify App Store and a 4.1-star rating on Trustpilot. More than 100,000 stores were actively using it at the time of closure, and the app had helped process over 85 million product orders during its lifetime. These are not the numbers of a fraudulent platform – they reflect a tool that genuinely worked for a large number of dropshippers for many years.

The concern that it might be a scam typically comes from two directions: people who signed up for courses that promised Oberlo was the path to ecommerce success (without the results materializing), or people who found Oberlo accounts inaccessible and assumed the platform had defrauded them. Neither is accurate. Oberlo itself was a functioning product. The income results varied widely based on the individual seller’s effort, niche, and marketing. And the inaccessibility since 2022 is simply because the app was closed by Shopify – not because any funds were taken.

Common complaints and red flags with Oberlo

While Oberlo was a legitimate app, it was not without its genuine problems – and understanding those complaints helps explain why so many people question whether it was worth using, and whether the category as a whole is trustworthy.

The most consistent complaints from Oberlo users on Reddit and Trustpilot fell into a few recurring patterns. Shipping times from AliExpress suppliers were the most common frustration: orders from Chinese suppliers regularly took 15 to 45 days to arrive, which led to customer disputes and refund requests. Product quality inconsistency was another persistent issue – what looked like a certain item in AliExpress listing photos did not always match what the end customer received. Oberlo itself had no control over either of these issues, since the app was simply a connector between the Shopify store and AliExpress suppliers.

A second misconception worth addressing is around the shutdown itself. Some users assumed Oberlo was shut down because of fraud or regulatory action. That is not the case. Shopify described the closure as a routine “product deprecation,” and publicly redirected users to DSers as the supported migration path. The most widely cited reason is that Shopify was investing in its own fulfillment network (including a $2.1 billion acquisition of Deliverr in 2022) and no longer prioritized maintaining a separate AliExpress-focused app.

What do real users say about Oberlo?

The experience of Oberlo users was genuinely mixed, and that mix is worth understanding if you are now evaluating alternatives. Here are two representative stories that reflect the range of outcomes Oberlo produced during its active years.

How does Oberlo compare to the alternatives in 2026?

Since Oberlo no longer exists, the real question for anyone researching it today is: what should you use instead? Several platforms have emerged as the main alternatives. The key differences come down to how much of the business is handled for you, how much Shopify dependency is involved, and what the total cost looks like over a year.

Is Oberlo worth it – honest verdict

In 2026, the question “is Oberlo worth it” has only one factual answer: there is nothing to evaluate because Oberlo does not exist anymore. What is worth evaluating is whether the approach Oberlo represented – AliExpress-powered dropshipping through a Shopify app – is still viable, and what platform carries that model forward most effectively today.

The honest assessment of Oberlo during its active years: it was a useful, legitimate tool that lowered the technical barrier to dropshipping. But it left too many parts of the business unaddressed. Product research, store design, marketing, and traffic generation were entirely on the user. That gap is exactly why so many people who tried Oberlo did not see the results they expected – not because the app was fraudulent, but because it was a single piece of a much larger puzzle, and users were often not told what the other pieces were or how to find them.

What should you use instead of Oberlo in 2026?

The dropshipping landscape has shifted considerably since Oberlo shut down in 2022. The main lesson from Oberlo’s limitations – that a product import tool alone is not enough – has shaped what the better platforms now offer. Here is how to think about your options depending on what you need.

Why AliDropship is the Oberlo alternative worth looking at in 2026

Oberlo left a clear gap when it shut down: it was a tool that handled one step of the dropshipping process, leaving everything else to the user. AliDropship was built around a different premise – that people starting an online business need a complete system, not just a product import connector. Founded in 2015 (the same year as Oberlo), AliDropship has since launched over 1.5 million stores in 150+ countries and earned a 4.7-star rating on Trustpilot.