How to Connect CJ Dropshipping to Shopify and Sync Orders

CJ Dropshipping's Shopify App Store listing sums up the deal in its own name: "You Sell - We source and ship for you!" Its app moves CJ products into your store and your Shopify orders into CJ, the supplier-integration setup Shopify's dropshipping guide points merchants to: "take advantage of Shopify's ecosystem which supports integration with suppliers through third-party apps."

This guide follows the order you meet the steps in: connect the store, connect each product, then pay for orders and get tracking back. Already installed the app? Jump to the setup checklist and check each step before your first real order. Every CJ step below carries the date of the CJ page it comes from; the Shopify side comes from Shopify's Help Center as of November 2026.

If your products come from AliExpress rather than CJ, the connector is a different one: see how to connect DSers to Shopify.

What the CJ App Handles, and What You Still Do

Shopify sorts dropshipping apps into two kinds, and the kind decides how much of each order you still handle. Its Help Center page on fulfilling orders with an app puts it this way:

By CJ's own description, you order and pay for each item in CJ, as in the second kind, and CJ's 2019 tracking post adds that with Sync Before Dispatching the number shows on your Shopify store and "the order will be marked as fulfilled quickly."

A 2020 CJ guide puts the merchant's part plainly: "After your customers made orders, all you need to do is paying us for the products." CJ's 2018 connection guide adds that tracking numbers then sync to your Shopify store automatically. The table maps each job to who does it, with the year of the CJ guide it comes from.

What You Need Before You Connect

The account comes first. CJ's August 2020 Q&A post answers the most common question directly: "anyone can register as a CJ user for free, even you don't have a single order yet." It adds: "No start fee, no monthly fee, our platform is open to everyone for free."

The app on the Shopify side is published by CJ itself. Its App Store listing names the developer as CJDropshipping and states: "App support provided by CJDropshipping." Questions about the app and its settings therefore go to CJ, through the FAQ and tutorial links on that listing.

What Does CJ Charge For?

The pricing section of CJ's App Store listing reads: "Free to install, but product fees among other service fees will be charged accordingly," as of November 2026. The top of the listing shortens this to "Free to install. Additional charges may apply."

On each order, the bill is simple: CJ's November 2020 post on paying for orders says "The total dropshipping price of the product is equal to the product price plus its shipping cost."

CJ's March 2021 guide to working with CJ splits its services into free and charged. There is no setup or monthly fee, and these are free, among others: order synchronization, sourcing requests, product listing and connection, and storage for CJ products. Charged:

• private inventory;
• processing fees for the fulfillment service;
• more sourcing limits;
• video and image shooting;
• custom packaging.

Neither the listing nor the guide gives amounts, so take the cost of a product from CJ, and of its shipping from CJ's Shipping Calculation, before you set your price.

How to Connect Your Shopify Store to CJ

CJ's 2018 guide to connecting Shopify stores opens with the choice: "There are two ways to connect your Shopify store to CJ." One starts on the Shopify App Store, the other in your CJ account.

Install the CJdropshipping App From the Shopify App Store

1. Open the CJdropshipping listing on the Shopify App Store. Its full name is "CJdropshipping: Much Faster - You Sell - We source and ship for you!"; the top of the listing shows the short form, CJdropshipping: Much Faster.
2. Check the developer, CJDropshipping, and the pricing line, "Free to install. Additional charges may apply."
3. Click Install and approve the app (Install app) in the admin of the store you will sell from.
4. Sign in to your CJ account, or register one, so the store and the account are linked.

Shopify App Store listing for CJdropshipping

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Authorize the Store From Your CJ Account

CJ's guide to connecting a Shopify store, last edited June 29, 2026, lays out the route from CJ in these steps:

1. In CJ, click Apps in the left sidebar, then Shopify, and click Add Store.
2. In the Shopify Authorization dialog, click Authorize. CJ redirects you to the CJ Dropshipping page on the Shopify App Store; make sure you are logged in to your Shopify account.
3. Click Install, then Install app.
4. CJ then shows a store authorization page with your logged-in CJ account. Check Please read and agree and click Authorize.
5. Go back to Apps > Shopify in CJ. Your store appears in the connected stores list with the status Activated.

CJ's 2018 guide had you enter the store's default Shopify address under My CJ > Authorization; its June 2026 guide sends you to the Shopify App Store to install the app instead. One of CJ's current guides, last edited July 23, 2026, names the menu where you add a store Authorization > Add store, not Apps > Shopify > Add Store.

What CJ Can See and Do Once Connected

Before you connect, know what the connection hands over. CJ's 2018 connection guide spells it out:

The same guide lists what that opens up: you can "easily post sourcing requests regarding the existing items in your Shopify store," connect the items in your store to products sourced on CJ, and sync your Shopify orders to CJ automatically. The rest of this guide takes those three in turn.

To watch the App Store route on screen, one practitioner's walkthrough, uploaded by the Shopioso channel in January 2025, installs the app at 0:54, creates a CJ account at 1:33 and imports a product at 6:56. It is one creator's setup; apart from signing in to CJ after the install, which the video shows from 1:33, every step and limit on this page comes from CJ's and Shopify's own pages.

Getting Products Ready: List, Connect or Source

Every route ends in the same place: a Shopify product tied to a CJ product. Which route you take depends only on where the product is now. Find your row.

List CJ Products to Your Store

CJ's 2018 guide to listing products puts it first: "Listing products to your store is the first step to start your business after connecting your Shopify store with CJ." In that guide, you either list a product straight away with List It Now or adjust it first with Edit Before Listing. CJ's guide to listing CJ products to a Shopify store, last edited July 7, 2026, names the buttons List and List It Now.

The 2018 guide adds one setting worth reading twice: "Remember to select the shipping method and destination country for the estimated shipping cost." CJ's July 2026 listing guide says the shipping method you set while listing, with the Shipping From warehouse and the country you ship most to, is "the method used by default when orders come in," and CJ's 2019 guide says you can still change the method on Imported Orders after the order syncs, as the shipping section below explains.

Connect Products You Already Sell

This step decides whether CJ can ship anything at all. CJ's November 2020 guide to placing orders states it as a precondition:

CJ's 2019 post on automatic connection says "There are 2 situations to connect your products with CJ": products CJ already carries, which you connect to their CJ match, and products CJ sources for you. For products CJ already carries, its note reads: "You need to choose the warehouse, shipping method, and sync inventory or not."

Ask CJ to Source a Product It Doesn't List

"If you couldn't find the goods you want through CJ searching engine, you can post a sourcing list," says CJ's March 2021 guide, which lists sourcing requests among its free services.

Two current CJ guides give different turnarounds. CJ's guide to posting a sourcing request, last edited September 7, 2026, reads: "CJ states requests are handled within 24 hours." Its guide to creating an automatic order, last edited April 28, 2026, reads: "Your request will be handled within 2 days," as did CJ's November 2020 order guide.

A product CJ sources for you is still a product you haven't seen. Before customers order it, a test order to a real address shows what a listing can't, as laid out under samples and test orders in our supplier vetting checklist.

How a Shopify Order Moves Through CJ

CJ's March 2021 guide lists six order statuses: Awaiting payment, Pending, Processing, Dispatched, Completed and Closed. Paid orders, it says, "will be listed in Pending before the tracking numbers are generated within the next 24 hours." One order's path, from sync to close:

When Orders Sync on Their Own, and When You Pull Them In

CJ's November 2020 guide on syncing sets the two conditions: "Orders will be automatically synced to CJ if you have authorized your store to CJ and connected your products with CJ's." Skip the authorization and orders don't sync to CJ; skip the connection and CJ can't fulfill them.

A missing order can be pulled in by hand with Sync Store Orders, either from all stores or for one store by date; for one store, the same guide says: "the date should be no more than 15 days and the Shopify store can be synced by Time only." As of 2020, it added, "the Shopify store cannot be synced by order number."

How Do You Pay for CJ Orders?

CJ's November 2020 guide to placing orders walks the payment flow in six moves:

Sync Store Orders > Add to cart > Cart > Submit > Confirm > Pay

Timing matters. CJ's guide to creating an automatic order, last edited April 28, 2026, notes: "If orders are not paid right away, they can be found in Store Orders > Awaiting Payment. The inventory can be reserved for 24 hours." CJ's November 2020 guide gave the same note with the path Orders Fulfillment > Awaiting Payment.

Budget each order at the product price plus its shipping, as set out under what CJ charges for.

CJ's Cart Orders Auto Payment guide, created November 2, 2026, adds an opt-in Auto Payment: "With Auto Payment on, the system submits and pays the orders in your cart (Orders Picking) every day at your scheduled time, using your wallet balance or a Stripe bank card." It is for primary accounts only ("Sub-accounts can't see or use it."). A store order is handed to Auto Payment when you add it to the cart from Store Orders > Imported after the switch is on and saved; orders already in the cart before then are not.

Where You Choose CJ's Shipping Method

• While listing a product (2018): a method and destination country "for the estimated shipping cost"; CJ's guide to listing CJ products, last edited July 7, 2026, calls the method set here "the method used by default when orders come in."
• While connecting a product (2019): the warehouse, the shipping method and inventory sync.
• After the order syncs (2019): "You could change the shipping method when the order is synced to CJ on Imported Orders."
• With default rules (2026): in My CJ > Settings > Default Shipping Method Settings, per CJ's guide to default shipping methods, last edited November 2, 2026: "Set up rules once and the system automatically fills in the Shipping Method for each new order"; the same guide adds, "You can still change the method on the order yourself."

CJ's App Store listing says "The optimized shipping method will be automatically applied to your orders" and points to its tool: "Use the Shipping Calculation feature to measure shipping methods & costs." For the delivery time and cost of your own route, run that calculation for the method and destination you plan to use. For parcels from China, CJ's March 2021 guide adds: "CJPacket provides insurance for packages from China to most countries."

What to Check on the Shopify Side

Everything above happens in CJ's dashboard. These two checks happen in your Shopify admin, and their rules come from Shopify's Help Center as of November 2026.

Give CJ Products Shipping Rates

Shopify treats apps that stock inventory for you as locations. Its locations setup page says "Inventory apps include dropshipping apps, third-party logistics services, and custom fulfillment services" and that "Location apps are listed in the Locations settings in the App and custom fulfillment locations section." After connecting CJ, open Settings > Locations and look in that section: whether CJ is listed for your store is something to check, not assume.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Locations

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Whether such a location gets rates on its own depends on your shipping setup. Shopify's page on fulfilling orders with an app: "If your shipping settings use only the general shipping profile and don't have different rates per location, then any fulfillment app is automatically added to your shipping settings. Otherwise, you need to manually add the app to your shipping settings."

The cost of skipping this shows on your storefront. Shopify's shipping-rates troubleshooting page: "If you're using a dropshipping app and products are displaying as out of stock on your online store, then your app location might be missing shipping rates." Its fix: open the shipping profile you want to update, find the dropshipping app location in the Not shipping from this location section, click Add rates, choose a rates option and click Save.

Shopify's guide to fulfillment locations in shipping profiles adds that a location created after a profile "is automatically added to all shipping profiles in the Not fulfilling from section." To move a location into a group that has rates, its steps are below, with the section heading and button name our test admin showed as of November 2026 added to step 3:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
2. In the Shipping profiles section, click the profile you want to update.
3. In the Fulfillment locations section, click Add location. In the admin we checked in November 2026, that section is headed Fulfill from and the button reads + Location.
4. Select the locations to add to the location group, and then click Add.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Shipping and delivery

Zoom

Shopify notes that shipping profiles are gradually moving to shipping options by market; as of November 2026, most stores still use profiles and keep their setup until they are upgraded; Shopify's developer changelog says all merchants will be on it by July 1, 2027, and the Help Center says existing rates are migrated for you. Why an app's location needs rates of its own, and the two ways to give it some, are covered in our guide to giving the app's location its own rates.

What Shopify Shows if CJ Works as a Fulfillment Service

These rules come from Shopify's page on fulfilling orders with an app and cover fulfillment services that integrate with Shopify through an app. They apply to a CJ order when that order is assigned to a fulfillment service location.

Requesting fulfillment, the In progress status and cancelling a request are covered step by step in our guide to requesting fulfillment from an app service.

Getting Tracking Numbers Back to Shopify

CJ's 2018 connection guide: "Once the order has been paid and processed, tracking numbers will be automatically synchronized to your Shopify shops." On the Shopify side, its page on fulfilling orders with an app says that "If your fulfillment service provides tracking information, then it's automatically added to the order."

CJ's 2019 post on tracking sync adds a choice you make before paying, at what it calls DropShipping Orders - DropShipping Center - Awaiting Payment (CJ's guide last edited April 28, 2026 lists unpaid orders under Store Orders > Awaiting Payment): a checkbox "for you to choose to upload tracking numbers before or after dispatch."

• Sync Before Dispatching: "The tracking number will be synced into your stores before orders dispatched in this way." A number reaches the Shopify order before the parcel has left.
• Sync After Dispatching: "The tracking number will be synced into your stores after orders dispatched in this way." The Shopify order waits without tracking until the parcel ships.

Pick one before your first payment. Choose Before if you want a number on the Shopify order as soon as CJ has it; choose After if you'd rather the order carry a number only once the parcel has left.

Returns, Refunds and Disputes With CJ

A customer who wants to send something back goes through you, and you go through CJ. CJ's March 2021 guide: "please contact agent first for the products can be returned to China warehouse only." The request itself is filed in My CJ > Dropshipping Center > AS Service Center > Return.

Your refund policy should say where returns go, so settle that route with CJ before you publish it.

The same 2021 guide says "CJ will make a refund, resend, or accept the return for any of the following cases":

• order delayed;
• orders not received;
• products damaged;
• incorrect or missing products;
• orders cancellation.

CJ's current Refund, Resend and Returns Policy, last edited May 6, 2026, lists the same five cases, with exceptions, and says "Products can be returned to CJ China warehouses only."

CJ's 2018 guide sets where and how: Dropshipping Center > Dropshipping Orders, in four sections only, Pending, Processing, Dispatched and Completed; its September 2026 guide lists the same four statuses. The 2018 guide required "screenshots of buyer complaints (email address is A MUST) and images of the parcel"; the September 2026 guide requires a dispute reason, an expected solution and a message, and makes attachments optional. CJ's refund policy, last edited May 6, 2026, says: "You cannot open a dispute if the order status is closed."

Per CJ's 2018 dispute guide, a refund goes to your CJ Wallet if you choose a balance refund, or back to the original payment method, and can pay for other dropshipping orders.

CJ Dropshipping Setup Checklist

Steps one and two connect the accounts, steps three to five prepare products and shipping before a customer can buy, and the last three ride on your first order. Your progress is saved in this browser, so you can come back once that order arrives.

When CJ Orders Don't Sync or Ship: Symptoms and Fixes

A paid Shopify order never shows up in CJ. Another lands in Invalid Orders. A customer writes that the parcel holds the wrong product. Find your symptom; each cause names its source, a dated CJ page or Shopify's Help Center.

A declined request is a Shopify-side event with its own rules. What happens to the order next is answered in what happens if your fulfillment service rejects a Shopify order.

The Bottom Line

CJ does the sourcing and shipping; the connection work is yours, and it happens in two dashboards. Most of it is a one-time setup, and the rest repeats with every order.

Frequently Asked Questions