AliExpress Dropshipping Guide

Dropshipping is a great way to start an eCommerce business without worrying about inventory or shipping. It's a simplified business model for selling products on your website. A customer places an order, you email your supplier, and they ship the product on your behalf.

Starting a dropshipping business is a great way to get started in eCommerce from scratch, but finding a reliable supplier may not be as easy as it seems.

What is AliExpress?

AliExpress is a huge marketplace with over 100 million products. It was founded in 2010 and is owned by the Alibaba media group. It is one of the world's largest e-commerce companies and is based in China.

Since most sellers on AliExpress are overseas manufacturers, you can find trending products at lower prices there. AliExpress has products in a variety of categories, from women's clothing and jewelry to electronics and home decor. It's a great place to find products if you want to sell products online.

Is dropshipping possible on AliExpress?

Yes! AliExpress makes it easy to find products to sell on your store. You don't have to worry about inventory or shipping. By using DSers to find and add AliExpress products to your store, you can start dropshipping today for free in just a few clicks.

Here's how it works:

1. You add products you want to sell from AliExpress to your online store.
2. Then you set the price with the markup you need.
3. When you receive an order, you pay the wholesale price for this product to the seller from AliExpress.
4. The AliExpress seller ships the order directly to your buyer.

Why Use AliExpress for Your Online Business?

Although AliExpress positions itself as an online store, most sellers on AliExpress understand that many of their customers are resellers and are interested in dropshipping.

Many AliExpress sellers have photos and basic product descriptions that you can use in your store. However, when selling a product, remember the importance of presentation and how you highlight small details - it's usually worth investing time in better photos and product descriptions.

In other words, dropshipping with AliExpress is simply buying a product from the site and entering your customer's address once the order is received.

Below we will go into more detail about how to properly search for products and suppliers, as well as how to properly present information so that your business is successful.

Why would anyone buy from your store when they can buy the same products on AliExpress?

In the AliExpress dropshipping business, your competitive advantage will not be the price or uniqueness of the product. Your competitive advantage will be serving your customers faster and better than your current competitors. In other words, marketing, responsiveness, and customer support are what will help you become a sales leader.

Good marketing is a competitive advantage in itself. Marketing is how you help customers find, evaluate, and buy your product. It is designed to improve the customer experience of your store, which will significantly increase profits. Marketing is also the set of actions you take to build your brand (for example, choosing the right domain name and creating useful and interesting content).

Last but not least, customer support is a key factor (especially if your competitors provide poor service or frequently disappoint customers). You can significantly improve your service by responding quickly to customer questions and making it a priority to help with any issues they encounter while shopping at your store.

Is it possible to redirect products from AliExpress to Amazon?

Technically, dropshipping products to Amazon from AliExpress is possible if you follow Amazon’s dropshipping seller policies. But in reality, it’s not practical. This is because in order to sell dropshipping products on Amazon, you have to make sure that your AliExpress supplier is dropshipping according to Amazon’s policies, which is not an easy task. However, if you are interested in this option, you can try the following:

1. Find a dropshipping supplier that allows you to source products from AliExpress.
2. Contact the supplier of the item and ensure that they can comply with Amazon's dropshipping policy to remove any third party identifying information.
3. Create a Shopify store and connect it to the app (selected in the first step) that allows you to receive products from AliExpress.
4. Add products to your Shopify store via the app.
5. Add Amazon sales channel to your store.
6. Create a personal account and manage your Amazon product list from the Shopify admin panel.

Setting up a dropshipping store on AliExpress

Now that you know how AliExpress can help you get products as a dropshipper and why it's important to position your store correctly, let's move on to setting it up.

How to Choose Products for Dropshipping on AliExpress

The first part of creating your store is choosing a niche in the market and choosing the dropshipping products you are going to sell. If you don’t know where to start, start with the product categories that AliExpress has. Consider all the options carefully based on what interests you the most.

Once you have decided on a dropshipping niche, it is time to start choosing the products you want to list in your store. Start small, add a few products. You need to choose quality products from a reliable supplier to avoid headaches and unnecessary problems in the future.

We have compiled our own list of parameters for choosing the right product. There is nothing scientific in it, but it really works. Here are a few things to pay attention to when choosing a product on AliExpress for dropshipping:

• No Brands or Counterfeits. Since you won’t be a licensed seller unless you have a legal partnership with the brand in question, selling a product with someone else’s logo could cause problems with the copyright holder. Yes, this may limit your choices, but you can choose from categories where the brand doesn’t matter much, such as electronic accessories or clothing.
• Free ePacket shipping. Whenever possible, focus on items that offer free ePacket shipping . Since most items on AliExpress are shipped from China or Hong Kong, ePacket shipping is not only the most economical, but also one of the fastest options for shipping small orders.
  It is important to note that if a seller offers ePacket delivery even for a fee, buyers will still most likely choose this delivery method. Because it is the most economical and reliable option currently available for shipping goods from China to America and Europe.
• More than 300 orders. A large number of orders for a product from a seller indicates several things. First, that there is demand for it. Second, that the supplier is reliable, since such a number of orders means that some of them were placed repeatedly by the same buyers. Taking this into account, you can start searching for a new product to sell by sorting by the largest number of orders.
  
  
  
  
• Rating over 4.5 stars. Make sure that the products you plan to sell have a high rating (over 4.5 stars) and that the seller has mostly positive reviews. To get reviews of product sellers, we use a Chrome extension called AliExpress Seller Check.
  This tool allows you to get a more unbiased review of the seller. We believe it is much more reliable than just using the AliExpress rating system.
• Low price with high profit margin. We bought products to sell in the $1 - $20 price range. This gives us more wiggle room to save money for marketing, as these products can cost anywhere from $20 to $50 or more. For example, we found sneakers on AliExpress for $20 and sold them for $50, which brought in 60% profit without taking into account marketing costs.
• Lots of high-quality photos of the product. Make sure the photos are actually from the manufacturer and not taken from another online seller. A quick Google image search will help you determine whether they are from the manufacturer or from a real brand or retailer.
  
  
  
  
• Sociable and responsive seller. Don't be afraid to ask questions to the seller before you place an order with him. A good, reliable seller will quickly answer all your questions. If the seller does not respond to messages, then this is an alarm bell.

Adding Products to Your Store

Once you have set up your Shopify store and have decided on a product category and supplier, it is time to start adding products. Pay special attention to this step, because it is not as simple as taking the images and description from an AliExpress listing and placing them on your site.

If you want to make your store successful, there are a few things you need to consider:

• Create your own product descriptions . Many product descriptions on AliExpress were not written by copywriters and were not intended to fully explain the product's benefits. Having your own unique content will be a plus for your business in the long run and will help you better attract customers to your product pages. This way, you will avoid the risk of duplicate content if you write original texts on all pages of your store.
• Warn customers about shipping times. Since most suppliers on AliExpress are based in China, shipping times can be longer than average. So, indicate on the product page (or elsewhere in your store) that your customers may have to wait up to 20 days, depending on the supplier, for their order to arrive.
• Use an order tracking app. With shipping times longer than most people are used to, you may be getting emails from customers asking where their packages are. Use an order tracking app from the Shopify App Store to keep your customers updated on their order's progress.
  
  
  Tracktor is an app from the Shopify App Store that helps you track your order in real time and view its status.
  
  
• Offer free shipping. Great shipping can be one of your competitive advantages, so we highly recommend offering free shipping to your customers. To do this, take advantage of the free or cheap shipping offered by many AliExpress sellers.
• Price your products correctly. Price your products at about twice the cost price. A 50% profit will allow you to make your business profitable and also cover necessary expenses such as marketing and technical support.
• Add products to your store with DSers. Instead of manually adding products from AliExpress to your site, you can use DSers. It will be much faster and easier.
  
  You can also download the DSers Chrome plugin to add products you find on AliExpress to your store. This will help automate the import of products while you search for new ones. The DSers app can do the work for you, you only need to review and confirm the actions.

How to Use AliExpress for Dropshipping

Now your store is filled with products ready for sale and dropshipping.

AliExpress dropshipping works just like any other regular dropshipping. Once you receive an order in your store, you need to buy the product on AliExpress and enter your customer’s name and shipping address. The AliExpress seller does the rest.

If you want to sell without using a special app, you need to keep a spreadsheet with a list of all the products on your site; the price you sell them for; the price they cost on AliExpress; a link to the product on the AliExpress website. This way, when you receive an order, you can find a supplier on AliExpress, as well as track price dynamics.

Alternatively, you can use DSers, which can do all this for you. It will simplify the process of buying on AliExpress and give you information about price dynamics. This approach is not only easier, it saves a lot of time, which is your most valuable resource. It saves you from having to worry about manually ordering dozens (or more) of products from AliExpress.

How does it work? It's simple: install the DSers app on your Shopify store. Once a customer places an order on your site, go to DSers and click the "Order Product" button. After that, DSers will do the rest. It will buy the product on AliExpress for you and insert your customer's details into the AliExpress order.

DSers will even let you know if a supplier on AliExpress has changed their price or is out of stock, and will suggest other dropshipping suppliers.

In addition, DSers allows you to track all your orders and monitor delivery status.

If you are ordering from AliExpress, it is a good idea to let the seller know that you are a dropshipper. This way, the supplier will not include any invoices or promotions in the package they send to your buyer. You can leave a message for the seller when you place your order. We recommend leaving a simple message, such as: "We are a dropshipper. Please, no promotions or invoices!" By the way, DSers can do this for you when you make a purchase on AliExpress.

Try choosing ePacket shipping if the supplier is based in China and offers it as an add-on. Many suppliers offer it for free. DSers allows you to automatically choose ePacket shipping for all orders on AliExpress.

Once the seller has processed your order, you will receive an email notifying you of this.

Click on the link in the email to view your order, where you will be able to see your order tracking number.

After that, go to your Shopify admin and mark the order as shipped. Don't forget to enter the tracking number as well.

If you use DSers , the order will be processed automatically for you, including marking the order as shipped and entering the tracking number. Your customer will know that their order has been shipped.

That's it! Now all you have to do is wait for your customers to receive their order. Once the order is delivered, AliExpress will send you an email asking you to confirm receipt of the order. Allow some time for the buyer to contact you if there are any issues with the product or delivery. This will give you a chance to discuss the issue with the AliExpress supplier to find a solution and prevent similar problems with future orders.

What about returning the product?

Many AliExpress or Alibaba dropshipping suppliers do not offer return policies. This means that you will have to deal with returns and refunds through one of the other methods. When there are problems with an order, it is usually because the order did not arrive or the customer is unhappy with their purchase.

In the first case, when the order does not arrive, you will need to discuss this issue with the AliExpress supplier. In this situation, contact the supplier to resolve the issue or use the buyer protection on AliExpress.

If your buyer is simply unhappy with the product, it is usually due to unrealistic personal expectations- what they received was not what they expected. We suggest refunding the money and asking if there are any requests from the buyer to take their opinion into account for your marketing (in many cases, the buyer simply did not fully understand what they were ordering). If the product is damaged, ask the buyer to take photos, send them to the AliExpress seller and move on.

Growing Your Dropshipping Business on AliExpress

Once you've made your first few sales, it's time to think about how to grow your dropshipping business and make more money.

Eventually, you will begin to get a better sense of who is a reliable and quality supplier and who is not. One of the best dropshipping tips is to maintain good relationships with reliable suppliers. This will ensure that you get the best prices for your products and priority processing of your orders.

We noticed that most of the suppliers on AliExpress use WeChat or WhatsApp. If you often order from the same seller, ask for their number in one of these messengers to establish business relations with them.

If you demonstrate that you can place repeat orders, sellers may allow you to place your own logo on products or include customized invoices and branded inserts in packages.

Start Your Dropshipping Business With DSers

The best thing about dropshipping on AliExpress is that it allows store owners to quickly test and validate business ideas and products. Not sure if you can sell a certain product? Add it to your store and test it! And if it doesn’t work out, you can simply remove the product and start testing something else.

Since you don't have a warehouse or upfront costs, the risk of starting a business like this is minimal. And as we've said, you can start for free with DSers.