Last Updated on December 24, 2023 by Ewen Finser
Dropshipping is not a new business model, so I’m always interested to see new dropshipping tools hit the market. I’ve also seen a lot of “snake oil” type products over the years, so I’m quite skeptical of “easy money” dropshipping blueprints.
That said, when I heard about Trendsi, it stood out because it was tailored very specifically to a sub-niche within dropshipping: fashion.
It reminded me of how the T-shirt (Teelaunch) and print on demand (Printful, Printify) platforms have explored in growth by providing more specific value propositions for subsets of the no inventory ecommerce model.
With this context, I’ll dissect the workings of Trendsi, an upstart player, specifically catering to online fashion boutiques.
I’ll delve into its features, advantages, and areas of improvement, based on what I could personally test out in my attempts to stand up a fast fashion dropshipping operation.
Introduction to Trendsi
Trendsi is a comprehensive supply chain solution for businesses, simplifying product sourcing, manufacturing, and logistics.
With Trendsi, businesses can easily find and add products to their store to sell without buying inventory.
Trendsi sources quality US brands and trusted overseas products with higher margins, packs and ships directly to customers with a branded invoice, and even handles returns.
Comprehensive Features of Trendsi
These are the core features I evaluated in my test of Trendsi (there may be “other” features, but these were the core ones to orient around):
Inventory and Product Selection
Trendsi offers access to a vast assortment of more than 10,000 on-trend women’s fashion products. It guarantees stable inventory with an out-of-stock rate of only 0.9%. Moreover, it offers an open-pack option for inventory flexibility.
Advanced Supply Chain Infrastructure
Trendsi boasts a next-gen supply chain infrastructure that connects suppliers and sellers in real-time. This system ensures that nearly 100% of orders are ready to be shipped from warehouses in less than 24 hours.
Shipping and Returns Handled
Trendsi promises fast shipping with 2-10 days delivery time and free returns from the US warehouse.
The company has several warehouses across the US, enabling super-fast shipping and handling of returns.
White-Label Products and Custom Branding
Trendsi fulfills restock requests for white-label products quickly. It also provides custom white labeling for top sellers, which includes shipping with custom packaging that includes personal branding inside the order package.
Tech and Product Sourcing
Trendsi has a robust technological and product sourcing system that makes managing daily operations easy for its users. It also provides easy product search by category and one-click merchandise for online stores.
Community and Analytics
The platform prides itself on its highly engaged community of sellers who support one another. It also offers a data platform and analytics for data-driven decisions about what to produce and sell.
Photography and Content
Trendsi provides in-house photography with clean stock photos, descriptions, and measurements. It even has a Trendsi Luxe line with beautifully produced images, flat lays, and video content for marketing needs.
Pricing of Trendsi Services
The beauty of Trendsi is that it’s completely free to install, with no MOQs (minimum order quantities), and you only pay the list cost for items WHEN they sell.
This is a refreshing approach as even some of the more popular print on demand services have started pushing recurring “membership” plans.
Trendsi Integrations
For most operators, WHAT platforms integrate is a key consideration. It’s quite the learning curve to adopt someting new, so here’s how Trendsi integrates with others currently.
Trendsi Shopify Integration
The main and most popular Trendsi integration is with Shopify. The app is easily available via the Shopify marketplace, with plenty of support and documentation:
TikTok Shop Integration
While Trendsi doesn’t offer a DIRECT integration with TikTok shop, Shopify DOES and this is the best way to leverage Trendsi for TikTok sellers.
CommentSold Integration
Similarly, you can leverage CommentSold with a similar Shopify integration.
My Personal Note: In fact, you can integrate Trendsi with pretty much ANY platform that also integrates with Shopify. However, this was a bit disappointing for me as these “double integrations” can get a bit wonky at scale. It would be better if Trendsi could integrate directly with eBay, WooCommerce, Wix, etc… and I suspect this is on their product development roadmap.
Things I Love About Trendsi
There are some really innovative and compelling aspects of Trendsi that I liked a lot.
No Upfront Inventory Cost
One of the key advantages of using Trendsi is that there is no upfront inventory cost and no need to store your own inventory. This reduces the financial burden and risk for businesses, especially startups and small businesses.
No Minimum Order Quantities
Since you only pay for what you sell, when you sell it, there’s no minimum order quantities. This is virtually unheard of in the fashion ecommerce ecosystem.
Quality Checks and Direct Shipping
Trendsi performs quality checks before shipping products directly to customers. This ensures customers receive high-quality products, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Support and Customer Service
Trendsi offers customer support via email, ensuring businesses can easily reach out for assistance or inquiries.
Dedicated Fashion Focus
In a sea of “me too” dropshipping platforms and apps, Trendsi stands out as a dedicated option serving the fashion and beauty markets. Their product inventory is fairly deep here, likely because of this specialization.
My side note: Because fashion can be a typically difficult market to plan inventory around (trends are hard to forecast), having a dedicated, high-quality DROPSHIP solution is an excellent way to reduce risk in an otherwise risky business genre.
Things I Didn’t Love
Despite its impressive features and advantages, there are areas where Trendsi could improve its services, based on my personal experience and from some of the comments I’ve seen from other operators.
Inventory Management
One of the main pain points reported by users is the issue of low and out-of-stock items. There have been instances where products go out-of-stock within a short span of time after being added. This leads to wasted effort in creating marketing content for those products.
Fix: An advance notification system about restocking to manage this issue more efficiently.
Time-Consumption in Collection Creation
Users have reported that creating a collection for bulk adding to the store can be time-consuming. A multi-select option to bulk delete or add items to the collection could make the process more efficient.
Shipping Times
Although Trendsi promises fast shipping, there have been complaints about the actual shipping times exceeding the promised timeline. A more accurate estimate of shipping times, including processing time and shipping time, would help businesses manage customer expectations better.
Faster Shipping for Overseas Products
Currently, Trendsi does not offer options for faster shipping for overseas products specifically. Given the high demand for these products, introducing such an option could significantly enhance customer satisfaction.
Trendsi Alternatives & Competitors
How does Trendsi stack up to the competition? I couldn’t immediately think of a direct competitor, but after doing some research I think these are the real alternatives most sellers consider:
- Spocket: Spocket doesn’t compete directly in the fashion vertical, but Trendsi feels similar in that Spocket only lists high quality, vetted dropship suppliers (mostly US and EU based). Spocket has inventory in pretty much every niche, making it a good option for more general stores, although they have some decent fashion suppliers.
- Dsers: Dsers is another general dropshipping integrator, but unlike Trendsi has direct integrations with all of the major ecommerce platforms, including Wix and WooCommerce. They’re also a great option for sourcing and selling AliExpress products. A bit more of a “wild west” adventure, but potentially more margin for the right relationships.
- Print on Demand Companies: This isn’t a direct alternative, but many nascent fashion sellers start with the similarly easy to launch print on demand (POD) ecosystem whereby you also only pay when you sell items, but instead source or create your own designs for t-shirts, mugs, and a wide array of other apparel. Top names I’d recommend here are Printful and Printify (but there are MANY platforms).
Conclusion: Is Trendsi Legit?
Overall, Trendsi offers a comprehensive solution for businesses looking for a reliable dropshipping partner.
While there are areas for improvement, the platform’s vast product selection, advanced supply chain infrastructure, fast shipping and returns, and robust tech and product sourcing make it a promising choice for online fashion boutiques.
Bottom Line: If you are looking to get started in the fashion ecommerce game, Trendsi is one of the best dropshipping partners to start with. Even if you already have a store and products, Trendsi can instantly expand your inventory, cross sells, and options for your existing customer base. Best of all, it’s very low risk relative to the option of holding inventory on your own.