If you want to start your eCommerce business or want to change up your business style, you might want to learn about dropshipping. Here is a complete guide for you about dropshipping with the help of AliExpress.
What you will see?
AliExpress
With more than 100 million products available for purchase, AliExpress is one of the most well-known online marketplaces. You can easily find goods for dropshipping there. Moreover, you can get everything there for a reasonable price, from jewelry and women’s clothing to baby clothes and children’s toys. The majority of AliExpress suppliers are foreign manufacturers and wholesalers who sell their products at lower prices. This is because AliExpress is under the China-based eCommerce company Alibaba. You may drop-ship things from AliExpress to any location in the world. With millions of options at your fingertips, you can import the product content from AliExpress.com directly to your store. Additionally, you’ll be able to choose your own markups and price points.
The best thing is that after you sell a product, you may buy it from a supplier on AliExpress and have it delivered to your buyer right away from their warehouse. Moreover, you can use the AliExpress Dropshipping Center to determine which products are popular with drop shippers. The original Alibaba website is for bulk purchases. Sellers typically have minimum criteria for large orders. Orders can be placed directly with Chinese producers, and payment is typically made via bank transfer. AliExpress is for smaller vendors that don’t have the items they’re selling in stock and accepts credit card payments. The primary distinction is that AliExpress allows you to buy from third parties who then resell to you. Whereas Alibaba is utilized to make direct purchases from manufacturers. Although the price won’t be the lowest, the buyer protection and availability of single purchases make it ideal for drop shippers.
AliExpress vs. Alibaba
Since there are no minimum order requirements on AliExpress, it is more suited for drop shippers looking for single items. Alibaba, on the other hand, focuses on buying in bulk. This is also reflected in the payment options. For newcomers, AliExpress’ tactics are much more appealing. Alibaba, on the other hand, concentrates on payment options for wholesale marketplaces and large-scale purchasing. Alibaba works directly with manufacturers, so their costs are lower and they can modify things. Organizing what you can obtain and working out licenses take extra time, which adds to the administrative burden. Some drop shippers begin their business on AliExpress and switch to Alibaba as their sales volume rises. Maybe this is the greatest choice.
AliExpress for Dropshippers
The vast majority of users on the AliExpress platform are resellers, despite the fact that AliExpress suppliers are retailers themselves. As a result, dropshipping on AliExpress is quite easy because suppliers are happy to accommodate your needs and have experience working with drop shippers. There are no fees or upfront costs associated with dropshipping from AliExpress. Thus, allowing you to test out products risk-free. With Shopify and the Automizely app, you can easily locate, import, and sell AliExpress products in your store.
How does Dropshipping with AliExpress work?
Dropshipping simply refers to the practice of ordering an item from your Chinese supplier and having it delivered to your consumer once they make a purchase on your website. You don’t have to keep any inventory or stress about shipping or packaging. To drop ship from AliExpress, you must first create a store or establish a marketplace where you may sell your products. You place the order with the seller on AliExpress when a consumer makes a purchase. You keep the price difference as profit while the seller ships the goods. When the product is delivered to your consumer, they assume it is from you.
There is no reason to be aware that it is a dropshipping scenario. You can send these vendors large orders for better rates and terms as your store grows and scales. Because of this, it’s critical to select the best suppliers up front and cultivate a relationship with them.
How to Dropship With AliExpress?
Although there are many advantages of dropshipping from AliExpress, it can still be challenging to understand how it works. Here is how you can dropship using AliExpress:
- Firstly, you need to build up your online store before you start using Shopify.
- You may then begin importing items from the AliExpress Marketplace using an app like Automizely.
- Autoizely will not only inform you of any inventory or pricing changes from your supplier but also assist you in giving tracking codes to your clients after their purchases have been sent. This makes it easier for you to streamline and sync your imports from AliExpress with your Shopify storefront.
- Finally, you will go to your supplier and request the exact same item to be supplied to the customer once they place an order with your store.
Find Suppliers for Your AliExpress Dropshipping Store
Since the goods are transported directly from your supplier’s warehouse to your customer when you use AliExpress dropshipping, it’s easy to lose control over the consumer experience. Dropshipping could become a burden if you’re trying to deliver excellent customer service, which is essential. So, you are advised to exercise extreme caution when choosing your dropshipping providers, even if AliExpress is a marketplace that does its best to handle untrustworthy vendors. Here are some of the recommendations for choosing the top vendors:
Don’t Always Go for the Lowest Price
An illustration of how the AliExpress dropshipping marketplace operates is given below:
When you go to the marketplace, you could find a product starting at $40 from a vendor as their premium item. When the same product is then produced by a different vendor, to lower the lower price they would use cheap quality raw material. In turn, when a businessperson like you looks for this product, you will find two that are similar but one is priced less. You will typically choose the less expensive option. This will impact the sales of the original vendor and they will try to reduce their price by using cheaper raw materials. This will simultaneously lower the price to remain competitive.
It may seem easy to choose the product with the lowest price, but it’s important to keep in mind that intense competition might result in a decline in the quality of market goods. Each product typically has a lot of very similar versions. Often these products have low pricing, as suppliers attempt to remain price competitive. You must conduct research and contrast the pricing provided by various suppliers if you want to build a successful eCommerce business. When several vendors charge comparable costs for the same item but one source charges much less, this typically means that the vendor has compromised on the product’s quality.
Buy From Suppliers With 90%+ Positive Feedback
The amount of favorable feedback a dropshipping supplier has on AliExpress can help you evaluate them generally. Every marketplace places a great deal of importance on the rating systems for sellers and products. Pay attention to what other retailers have to say about each supplier and take advice from their comments. In essence, find the vendors with the greatest ratings to determine which are the most trustworthy.
By going to a specific supplier website on AliExpress.com and selecting the feedback option, you may find the feedback ratings. Positive Feedback is the feedback rating the provider has received, whereas the Feedback Score measures the seller’s sales volume. Always strive for 90 per cent or more favorable feedback when choosing products from AliExpress to drop ship for your store.
Be Careful With Branded Products
You will rarely find well-known premium brands on AliExpress.com. You should file a report here if you come across a copyright violation or a fake product being sold on AliExpress. This could apply to products with questionable design similarities to well-known companies or with logos that resemble those of more recognizable businesses. It’s crucial to remember that not all branded goods are knockoffs. AliExpress frequently arranges joint marketing campaigns with companies like Lenovo and others. Just keep in mind to be cautious and apply your best judgment in this situation to prevent any costly errors. Products with brand names like Nike and Chanel are the products to avoid.
Pay Attention to the Supplier’s Responsiveness
You can even make up an urgent problem to test this; just message a provider about it and see how they reply. The supplier’s response time, grasp of English, aptitude for comprehending your issue, and capacity to give you clear information are all important factors to consider. You can cross that source off your list if they merely give you a generic, useless response. After all, there’s a considerable possibility you’ll encounter an actual circumstance similar to the one you imagined at some point, and you’ll want to be sure your supplier will handle it appropriately. Your suppliers are crucial when you’re attempting to build a successful eCommerce business using AliExpress dropshipping, so always choose wisely.
ePacket Delivery (AliExpress Premium Shipping)
Make sure to consider your delivery options while dropshipping with AliExpress. It is true that this is a typical challenge that you must learn how to overcome. To do this, start by constantly keeping an eye out for dropshipping suppliers on AliExpress who can provide the greatest delivery alternatives for your eCommerce store. The ideal compromise between affordability and expediency is AliExpress Premium Shipping. The best shipping option is ePacket, commonly known as AliExpress Premium Shipping. With ePacket, the majority of deliveries arrive door-to-door within 30 days and come with a tracking code that your clients can use to find out where their product is.
How to Choose AliExpress Dropshipping Products?
It might be beneficial to acquire samples of all of your products to make sure they are exactly as stated online if you want to succeed with eCommerce. However, this might not be the best idea. It is not cost-effective to order each and every item to be inspected for quality if you are importing more than 100 products into your store. Instead, simply order samples of the goods you intend to promote through advertising. Smart eCommerce business owners would order samples of these products to guarantee the greatest level of quality. Your store will speak volumes if your best-selling items are of excellent quality. Moreover, you’ll have a greater chance of obtaining some worthwhile social proof. Pick Express Delivery as you’re only ordering a few things, and you’ll get them in a few days.
AliExpress Refunds and Returns
You will need a strategy and a dropshipping returns policy since suppliers on AliExpress typically don’t offer returns for orders. The following are the two most common uses for returns:
- Customer’s order was never delivered: To address this situation, you must speak with your AliExpress supplier directly. This situation cannot continue. This problem might be solved by selecting a different delivery method. If this does occur, you can decide with your customer whether a refund or return is the best course of action for them.
- Shipment resulted in product damage: It is preferable to obtain pictures of the damaged items and give a refund to the consumer in the sad event that a product is damaged while being shipped to a customer. If you believe the packing is inadequate for the product, you should once more speak with your AliExpress supplier.
How to Pick the Right Product to Sell?
Awareness of how to dropship with AliExpress requires an understanding of how to choose the appropriate dropshipping products. To help you get started, here are a few things that can help you. Come up with a sizable list of product concepts and then add a few other comparable things to your store to give it a sizeable assortment that makes it appear natural. These are the top three places to look for product inspiration:
Brainstorming
Consider your personal interests, favorite brands, and the fashions you see in the world. Spend some time jotting down everything that comes to mind throughout your brainstorming session. Don’t worry too much about whether you believe a product will be a bestseller at this point in the process. Put it on your list for the time being.
Other Online Stores
Don’t forget to look in other stores for ideas. Peruse their selections, bestseller lists, and highlighted goods. The largest online retail sites have loads of data to pull upon, and they often employ entire departments of people dedicated to picking their products and managing sales. Use this information to your benefit as well. The AliExpress Most Popular Products (Weekly), Amazon Best Sellers, eBay Daily Deals, Lazada Top Sellers, and LightInTheBox Top Sellers List links are all worthwhile checking out frequently.
Social Shopping Sites
Never undervalue the influence of social shopping platforms like Wanelo, Polyvore, Pinterest, and Polyvore. Hundreds of millions of unique products are available on these marketplaces. Although you might not think to check here first for product ideas, they are quite helpful as social media in general becomes a more active part of our lives. Create an account on each site, and subscribe to interest-specific categories and lists. Keep a watch on popular product feeds to get the most out of using them. Try to determine what individuals enjoy the most, and then include these things on your list.
Filter AliExpress Dropshipping Product Ideas
Once you’re happy with the length of your product list, it’s time to edit it so that only the greatest concepts remain.
- Look for specialized products that are harder to get in stores or on popular e-commerce websites. By doing this, you can make sure that the products you use are in high demand and build a successful eCommerce business. Choose your dropshipping niche wisely.
- Several distinct product categories have expanded significantly over the past few years. Odds are a mixture of large-scale marketplaces and local retailers have already grasped the opportunity to sell these things. To avoid markets that are already saturated, cross off some categories from your concept list. This includes jewelry, books, apparel, and electronics. To find a profitable niche at this point in the eCommerce game, you’ll need to be more precise.
- The sweet spot for pricing is between $40 and $60. The lower the price, the better the conversion rate. Simultaneously, the higher the price, the more customer support you will be expected to supply.
- Go through your list of potential products and enter each one, along with any name variations, into the Google Keywords Analysis tool. Check the number of searches each Low Competition Keyword receives by selecting “Keyword Ideas.” Avoid product categories with low or no search traffic when performing e-commerce SEO for your store. The trick is establishing the correct balance between keyword competition and search traffic.
- Next, go to Google Trends, search for each product idea, and look at the trends. Check if there is an upward or downward trend and if there are any additional trends worth noting. Mark off seasonal items and products whose trends are waning.
You’ll be left with a few possible winners after eliminating any concepts that don’t merit further investigation.
Will the customers know if the products are dropshipped from AliExpress?
AliExpress offers a very special infrastructure that is best suited to dropshipping, unlike other marketplaces. Using AliExpress, you can speak with dozens of suppliers. Since they are all drop shippers, you may find a lot of dependable suppliers who are familiar with this business model and their part in it. Thousands of new merchants take up dropshipping every month, illustrating the growing popularity and feasibility of the eCommerce business model.
Although entrusting your order fulfillment to suppliers can be a leap of faith. You can be confident that your clients won’t frequently receive parcels with discounts or invoices. You can even instruct your supplier not to include any of these materials to be on the safe side. Additionally, you can arrange for personalized packing and the ePacket premium delivery service offered by AliExpress. Do keep in mind that the shipping labels on the products your customer receives will be in Chinese.
Where does AliExpress ship from?
Your purchases will be shipped from China since the majority of AliExpress vendors are headquartered there. However, AliExpress may not always indicate the origin of your cargo in the shipment information. Even if glancing at the shipping company can reveal the country from which the item was transported. Additionally, some tracking numbers just display “Departed from the country of origin.” On AliExpress, you can also register as a Non-Chinese Seller, thus not all sellers will ship goods from China.
Why would someone buy from you if they can buy the same product from AliExpress cheaper?
This is simple since you can complete it more effectively. You might be a superior marketer who reaches potential clients first. Additionally, you might develop a more reliable brand that people feel more secure purchasing from. Moreover, you can offer customer service in a style that fosters a bond with your clients. Keep in mind that the idea of retailers purchasing items from suppliers at lower costs and putting them in their stores predates dropshipping itself by a considerable amount. Most shops in your neighborhood probably operate similarly. Pick your battles properly when it comes to dropshipping. There are some tactics that are more likely than others to make you stand out from the competition. Don’t try to compete at a price where you can never be the cheapest, to start with.
The price is not at all the deciding factor, especially with things that cost less than $100. Examine the identical item on a number of well-known websites. This includes Milanoo.com, LightInTheBox.com, DHgate, and AliExpress. Each of these enterprises has a multimillion-dollar revenue. These businesses are not competitive in price. Instead, concentrate on developing a fantastic brand and your marketing techniques.
What can you do about the long shipping duration?
You’re basically making an assumption there. Many buyers are willing to wait, provided that you make the shipping periods clear on your website so they know what to anticipate. Although you shouldn’t try to compete on price, it is possible that you’ll be able to give clients a decent deal on goods obtained through dropshipping from AliExpress even with a markup. If waiting results in a discount, people are patient. Long delivery terms don’t appear to be a worry for customers of the other companies either.
It is your responsibility as an eCommerce business owner to set clear expectations. You need to specify your shipping policy and post it where it applies to your online store. You’d be shocked at how many consumers don’t care whether they leave your website after seeing your price. Offering free shipping on all of your products is another strategy. This way you can allay client resentment regarding prolonged shipment timeframes. This alone will frequently let customers know that their product delivery time will probably be a little longer. The markups on your products can include the cost of shipping.
AliExpress Premium Shipping
Most shipments arrive in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and many other developed nations with thriving economies in just 15 to 30 days when using the AliExpress premium shipping ePacket delivery option. When possible, it is advised to choose ePacket. When dropshipping from AliExpress, it’s the ideal shipping choice to support your eCommerce success and improve customer pleasure.
AliExpress offers a variety of shipping choices, but ePacket delivery strikes the ideal balance between cost and delivery time. In the past, goods from China were delivered by sea, sometimes taking more than two months. You can’t keep your consumers waiting that long if you dropship. If you do, clients may choose to cancel their orders or post unfavorable reviews. This isn’t advantageous for your online business. However, with ePacket shipping for China and Hong Kong, your customers can now receive their drop-shipped items in 12–14 days. For items weighing up to 2 kilos (4.4 pounds) and costing less than $400, ePacket delivery is an option.
The ability to offer end-to-end tracking to your consumers is one of the advantages of using an ePacket cargo in addition to the shorter transit time. Customs fees have already been paid, enabling faster delivery to your customers. Over 30 nations are now able to use ePacket shipping, which was previously exclusively offered to customers in the United States. Moreover, it’s crucial that you take the time to select a reliable source and switch suppliers if they don’t use ePacket delivery. Moreover, remember that your clients are accustomed to overnight delivery options through Amazon and other providers. Your ability to reduce shipment times will have a direct impact on how satisfied your customers are. Therefore, be sure to pay the additional costs for ePacket delivery and guarantee that your clients receive their orders on time.
Is AliExpress safe and reliable?
Working with AliExpress has many advantages for customers. This includes extensive protection for customers throughout ordering, delivery, and return situations. Every aspect of the site’s functionality has been created with the buyer in mind. Thus, ensuring that its vendors are trustworthy and provide the goods as promised is in AliExpress’ best interests. However, it’s crucial that you consider the company’s ratings and the volume of products sold when selecting a seller on AliExpress. There will be numerous sellers of the same item, so study the reviews and only buy from those that have the highest ratings. Moreover, one thing you should always do is get in touch with the vendors directly. Make sure you’re working with a trustworthy partner by striking up a dialogue with them and discussing the product.
Conclusion
Dropshipping is a great way to launch an online store without having to deal with inventory or shipping. It’s as easy as putting a product up for sale on your website and asking your supplier to ship the item whenever you receive an order by sending them an email. While beginning a dropshipping company is a fantastic way to launch an online store, it can be challenging to sift through the internet for a dependable provider. With drop shipping, you don’t need to worry about inventories, delivery fees, or little capital. It makes no difference if you just have a one-bedroom apartment and no place to store your stocks.
You may set up your dropshipping business with little investment for your domain name and a Shopify account. Additionally, dropshipping has become the principal method of order fulfillment for 22–33% of online merchants. Dropshipping is thus a tried-and-true business concept that has shown to be successful.
If you have any doubts, ask us in the comments section below.
