Oberlo Shutdown: Discontinued in 2022, Still Around? (FAQs)

Oberlo is gone.

Shopify shut the app down on June 30, 2022, and it never came back.

The confusing part? The oberlo.com website is still online.

These days it's only a blog with a few free business tools on it, and every button on it points you to Shopify.

Below, you'll find the full story of what happened and why. We'll also walk you through Oberlo's history and point you to the best Oberlo alternatives, so you can get your store moving again!

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The Oberlo Shutdown: Key points (The short version)

Oberlo let you import products from AliExpress and fulfill orders in a few clicks, so if you were running your store on it, the shutdown hit you hard.

Here are the most important things to know about this Oberlo sunset:

• On May 12, 2022, Oberlo was pulled from the Shopify App Store. From that day on, you couldn't install it anymore.
• On June 30, 2022, Oberlo shut down for good. Existing users could keep working until that date. After that, the app was removed from Shopify stores, and the historical data in it was lost. (Shopify first set this date to June 15, then moved it to June 30)
• Shopify (the owner of Oberlo) picked DSers as the recommended replacement for Shopify merchants who dropship.

What happened to Oberlo? (Why did it shut down?)

In short, Oberlo shut down because Shopify decided to discontinue the app.

Shopify acquired Oberlo in 2017, and it quickly became one of the most popular dropshipping apps on its platform.

There was a lot of speculation about why.

One theory was that Shopify no longer needed Oberlo now that it had its own fulfillment network.

This product deprecation, which is a routine occurrence, is in pursuit of providing merchants with the best solutions to reach their customers wherever they are.

Source

At the time, Shopify was investing in other areas, like the Shopify Fulfillment Network.

It had also just acquired Deliverr for $2.1B, which looked like a sign that Shopify wanted to handle fulfillment itself instead of leaning on platforms like AliExpress.

Shopify Fulfillment Network (SFN) and Deliverr are combining to remove supply chain complexity for merchants of all sizes, on and off Shopify, democratizing access to end-to-end logistics for independent brands for the first time.

Source

But that plan didn't last either.

In June 2023, Shopify sold its entire logistics business, Deliverr included, to Flexport.

Here's another possibility mentioned by sm4h on Reddit:

Most important thing AliExpress is a nightmare to work with, they didn't have an API until recently, and it's very limited and weird compared to other APIs.

Oberlo didn't use the API a lot, they rely on browser automation using a Chrome Extension, which is a complete nightmare, they constantly change stuff around, show changes to only few users (like gradual release) and in general require a lot of maintenance and things a big company like Shopify won't do.

The reason they use automation is it's the best way to get affiliate revenue. Oberlo generates most of its cash from the AliExpress Affiliate program, that's why they didn't move to the API.

DSers had some close contact with AliExpress, they were the first to get an exclusive access to their API, they were just starting and didn't care about revenue.

Dropshipping in general is not a trend like it used to be when Shopify acquired Oberlo, so it's a hassle for Shopify to continue this venture.

Source

Whatever the real reason was, Shopify wanted to move in a different direction, and Oberlo was no longer part of the plan.

What did this mean for Oberlo users? (The impact on dropshipping businesses)

If you were using Oberlo, you had to move to another dropshipping app before June 30, 2022. After that date, the app stopped working completely, and your products, orders, and customer data went with it.

If that was your store, it was a rough few weeks.

So the only real question left was which app you moved to.

The good news? You still have plenty of solid dropshipping apps to choose from, and we'll walk you through them below!

If you're reading this years later and still see Oberlo sitting in an old Shopify store, there's nothing left to recover from it. You can safely remove it and start fresh with one of the apps below.

The history of Oberlo (2015 - 2022)

Oberlo was founded in September 2015 in Lithuania by a group of entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity in the ecommerce market.

Oberlo started as a dropshipping app startup that allowed users to import products from AliExpress into their Shopify stores.

In 2017, Shopify acquired Oberlo for $15M, and it quickly became one of the most popular apps on the Shopify App Store, thanks to how easy it was to use. (And, of course, by having Shopify itself behind the app now)

On July 15, 2019, Oberlo shut down their 'Oberlo verified suppliers' (Oberlo Supply marketplace), which let their users use suppliers that Oberlo verified:

In 2020, Oberlo went through a full rebrand, going from this:

To this:

Then, in May 2022, Shopify announced that Oberlo would be shutting down on June 30, 2022. This surprised many Oberlo users, who were left scrambling to find an alternative solution.

Fortunately, plenty of other dropshipping apps picked up where Oberlo left off, and you can still use them today.

In the next section, we'll show you some of the best Oberlo alternatives that you can give a try:

What are the best Oberlo alternatives? (Other dropshipping apps)

There are plenty of other great dropshipping apps out there that can help you with your business. Here are some of our top recommendations for dropshippers:

• DSers (Recommended by Oberlo)
• AliScraper (A free tool from Spocket)
• Dropified
• AutoDS
• Sell The Trend (Yes, they are more than a product research tool)
• AliDropship (If you want to use WordPress/WooCommerce)

For more information about these Oberlo alternatives, check out the full article here!

That article will also include a few Oberlo alternatives if you no longer want to do dropshipping with AliExpress.

And below, you'll find how the migration to the most popular dropshipping apps worked at the time:

How do you migrate data from Oberlo to other apps?

While Oberlo was still running, this is how you got your data out. We're keeping the steps here as a record of the shutdown, so keep in mind that you can't follow them anymore.

If your dropshipping app wasn't listed below, you couldn't export your Oberlo data to it manually.

Order data was the exception. You could export it from the Oberlo Orders page as a CSV or XLSX file.

How to migrate from Oberlo to DSers

Oberlo chose DSers because it provides all the features you need to expand your business.

DSers integrates tightly with AliExpress and handles bulk order fulfillment.

These days it says more than 4.5 million merchants use it, and Oberlo worked closely with the DSers team to make the switch as simple as possible.

Here are the exact steps you had to follow to migrate from Oberlo to DSers:

1. From your Oberlo admin, click Home.
2. Click Migrate to DSers now.
3. Click Continue to DSers.
4. If you don't have the DSers app installed in your Shopify admin, then click here to install it.
5. Create your DSers account or log in to an existing one:
   • If you don't have a DSers account, then create one.
   • If you already have a DSers account, log in and select your data preference. Your Oberlo account might not match your DSers account data, such as product pricing rules. Choose which app's data you want to use as a reference.
6. Click Start migration. This step begins the data migration process from Oberlo to DSers.

Once the move is finished, DSers shows a success message, and the Oberlo account switches to read-only. You could still log in to Oberlo, but you couldn't do anything in it.

Note: Only the Oberlo account admin can begin the migration process; staff accounts can't do this.

The migration duration depends on how much data you have in Oberlo, such as products and orders. For small businesses, the data migration can take minutes, but for very large businesses, it can take multiple hours.

So what changed once you migrated to DSers?

• Your Oberlo settings, products, orders, and import list moved over to DSers.
• Your product inventory location in Shopify changed from Oberlo to DSers.
• Your Oberlo account switched to read-only mode, so you couldn't do anything in it anymore.
• Your subscription plan moved to a free plan on DSers, and from there you could subscribe to a paid DSers plan.

Your shipment tracking data didn't come across to DSers, but you could still find the status of your historical orders in your Shopify admin and your AliExpress account!

If you're looking for more information, check out this article from DSers.

How to migrate from Oberlo to AliScraper (Spocket)

You could also move your data from Oberlo to AliScraper, a free AliExpress tool made by Spocket.

Simply go to this page here, and follow their instructions after installing AliScraper!

And take a look at Spocket if you're no longer interested in dropshipping from China!

How to migrate from Oberlo to Dropified

Wondering how to move your data from Oberlo to Dropified?

The video below walks you through it:

Plus, check out this article from Dropified here!

How to migrate from Oberlo to Sell The Trend

Next up is for those who want to use Sell The Trend for their fulfillment part.

If you're not sure what Sell The Trend is, check out our in-depth review here!

For the migration progress, just follow this video here, and you will get up and running in no time:

Oberlo's Shutdown: FAQs

Before shutting down this article (see what I did there?), let's go over the questions we still get about Oberlo's shutdown:

Conclusion

That's it!

That's the full story of Oberlo shutting down, from the 2015 launch to the day the app stopped working for good. If you came here wondering whether it's coming back, now you know.

We hope this article helped clear things up for you, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below!

If you're looking for more Oberlo alternatives, be sure to check out our full list here.

What are your thoughts on Oberlo shutting down? Let us know in the comments below!

Want to learn more about dropshipping?

A few we'd point you to:

• 12 Tips to Increase Dropshipping Sales in 2026 (Quick Wins)
• 12 Best US Dropshipping Suppliers in 2026 (Fast Shipping)
• How Does AliExpress Work? (What You Should Know in 2026)

New to dropshipping? We cover what it actually takes in our guide on how to start dropshipping here.