How To Dropship from AliExpress

Dropshipping is an exceptional way to start your own ecommerce store without having to worry about inventory or shipping.  It is as easy as putting a product up for sale on your store, and sending your supplier an email to ship the item on your behalf every time you get an order. While dropshipping business is an excellent way to start an online business, scouring the internet for a reliable supplier can be quite daunting. That’s why learning how to dropship from AliExpress can be quie profitable for you.

With Aliexpress, there is a convenient platform you can use to dropship anywhere anytime.

What Is AliExpress Dropshipping?

AliExpress is one of the largest online retailers available on the World Wide Web. It’s a Chinese company owned by the AliBaba group and provides numerous products at very affordable rates.

Dropshipping is a new type of business where the business owner foregoes inventory and fulfillment. The business owner uses a supplier for all their fulfillment needs.

For example, if you have a dropshipping business selling clothing. You will not keep any inventory, and when a customer places an order, you will send the order to your supplier and they will take care of the packaging and delivery of the order.

This way all you have to worry about is the marketing of your online store while everything else is taken care of by the supplier.

AliExpress Dropshipping is exactly what the name suggests. You list some products (from AliExpress) on your own store and when you get an order, you have AliExpress (the supplier) fulfill the order for you.

This way you make a profit as a markup on the original price. For example, the original price of the product is $5 on AliExpress and you sell it for $10, you make $5 profit every time you get a sale.

You could start a dropshipping store TODAY using Shopify, which lets you set up a store with AliExpress products within minutes. Get a free 14 day trial for Shopify by hitting the button below.

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Why Dropshipping?

Why Not?

You don’t need any capital to start a dropshipping business.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it is totally legit and thousands of people are getting into dropshipping everyday now.

You don’t need any investment except for a domain/hosting investment. Everything else is mostly free unless you want to use specific tools/software to make your dropshipping journey even smoother.

AliExpress standard shipping is mostly free and if not, it costs around $1-$2 for different countries.

How AliExpress Dropshipping Works

As mentioned above, dropshipping is all about when customers make a purchase from your site, you place the order on your Chinese supplier’s site (AliExpress) and they will ship the product to your customer. You don’t have to stock any inventory or worry about fulfillment at all.

AliExpress dropshipping requires you to have your own online store or have another ecommerce marketplace to sell your products, like eBay or Amazon.

When a buyer purchases from you, you place the order on AliExpress. The seller then ships the products, and you get to keep the difference in prices as your share.

Your customer doesn’t know if the item has been shipped from somewhere else. They will mostly believe it’s shipped from your store.

Once your store gets bigger and you get large number of sales, you can order in bulk from your suppliers and negotiate for better rates and terms.

Dropshipping from AliExpress to eBay

If you don’t have your own store setup then it’s much better to find an ecommerce marketplace where you can drop ship products from AliExpress.

eBay is one of the leading online marketplaces out there and you can make a good profit dropshipping from AliExpress to eBay.

You need to setup a seller account on eBay and list the products you want to sell. eBay does charge you a slight fee for selling so you need to take that fee in account when deciding the final price.

You also have to list the products manually from AliExpress to eBay since there are no free tools available to automate the process.

eBay offers multiple ways or you to list the item for sale. You can either set them up for auction or a “Buy it now” price.

This way you give the buyers the ability to bid on your products should they want a better price or pay the “Buy it now” price if they want to buy the product as soon as possible.

Dropshipping from AliExpress to Amazon

Amazon itself is one of the biggest online retailers. It caters to millions of people from around the world and provides the best online shopping experience.

The benefit to selling or dropshipping on Amazon is the fact that you instantly get a huge exposure and also get the trust that comes with being an Amazon seller.

Buyers trust Amazon which means when you sell on Amazon, you gain some of that trust as well. It’s a great head start for new entrants.

You can use Shopify which allows users to add Amazon as a sales channel ultimately making it easier for you to manage orders on both platforms.

You also need a seller account which costs a monthly subscription fee. Keep these costs in mind when setting your product prices to keep your profits in the green.

AliExpress Dropshipping with Shopify

If you want to build your own store with your own brand name then it’s much better to choose Shopify.

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that lets you setup your own online store without much hassle.

You can start your own online store within minutes using Shopify. It offers different pricing plans so you can choose the one that suits your needs.

You need to start listing your products on Shopify store. You can just copy/paste the products from AliExpress to your store, but it’s a better idea to write your own compelling descriptions and titles.

You can also write SEO-rich titles and descriptions to make it easier for your store to rank higher in Google searches.

Once, you know which products you want to sell, it’s a great idea to keep an excel sheet of the products and the links to their AliExpress page so whenever you get an order, you can go to the link and order it for your customers.

Alternatively, you can use a Shopify app like Oberlo to do all of that automatically for you. It will automatically import the products, let you write custom descriptions and title, set the prices, etc.

It will also put the orders on AliExpress without you having to worry about all the minute details at all.

AliExpress Dropshipping Shipping Time

Since most of the times, AliExpress suppliers will be based in China and they will ship their products from China or Hong Kong, it will take quite a bit of time, if you are dropshipping in the States.

However, you should know that ePacket is the best shipping option available on AliExpress. It costs $0 or at most $2 while the shipping time for ePacket is somewhere around 15-20 days.

You should also let you customers know exactly how many days it will take to deliver their orders. It’s a great idea to show the same shipping times as available on AliExpress, or add a few extra days just to be safe.

You can also use other shipping methods like FedEx or DHL, but those are very expensive and might chew into your profits. You can give the customers an option to pay for premium delivery if they want to get their products quicker.

AliExpress Returns and Refunds

AliExpress suppliers are not very big on returns. They rarely accept returns so you should clearly define your returns policy keeping these in mind.

If a product is damaged or not as described then you can always opt for a refund. AliExpress does have a very strict buyer protection policy in place which covers your purchase.

If you run into any problems regarding your order then you can open a dispute and have AliExpress issue you a refund for the order.

There needs to be legit excuse for the refund like order not delivered, items damaged or broken, fake products, not as described, etc.

Once you provide the proof, you can get your refund without much hassle.

You can offer the same refund policy on your dropshipping store. So, when your customers don’t get their items, you can issue them a refund while getting a refund yourself from AliExpress.

It’s always a great idea to have a clear refund policy available on your store so customers know exactly what they can do when they run into any problems.

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AliExpress Dropshipping FAQ

All newbies AliExpress dropshippers have plenty of questions they need answered before they delve into this business. So, we have compiled a list of frequently asked question regarding dropshipping and AliExpress.

Why would people buy from me, If they can buy from AliExpress for cheaper?

It’s all about how you market your store. You don’t have to be cheaper to get more sales, you just have to be better.

If you build a trusted store, offer seamless customer support, provide customers with an overall great service, they would just keep buying from you.

Don’t worry about price, the cheapest doesn’t always equal better, you just have to set yourself apart from the competition and resonate with your customers to boost your sales.

Will it show that my products are delivered from AliExpress?

Simple answer? No. Most of the suppliers send plain packages with no promotional material of their own, so there’s no way your customer will know you are dropshipping from AliExpress.

However, to be safe, you can just ask your suppliers to never include any of their promotional material in the packages.

Better yet, if you have a lot of sales, you can ask the suppliers to add your branded material in the package, so your customers see your brand which builds trust for your store.

How do I deal with AliExpress’ shipping times?

There’s nothing you can do about the shipping times unless of course, you are willing to shell out big bucks for premium shipping options like FedEx, DHL, etc.

However, shipping times don’t have any effect on your sales as long as you make it clear to your customers.

If your customers already know the estimated shipping times and still make the purchase, then they are OK with those times.

Just be clear with your shipping details and times so your customers know when they can expect to receive their orders.

Also, if you offer free shipping then people are more likely to ignore shipping times to avail free delivery.

How much do I charge my customers?

That solely depends on your costs. If you are buying an item for $5 on AliExpress, and selling it for $10 then you are already making $5 profit.

But, there are also other costs associated with your store which range from monthly subscriptions, advertisement, software/tools, etc.

So, keep all your costs in mind when setting a price so you don’t end up losing money from your pocket. It’s always a good idea to double the original price of the item.

What products to sell on my store?

This is a very difficult question to answer since there are different trends at different times. A product that might have sold like hotcakes in the previous year might not fare well right now.

So, you need to do your research in terms of products to sell. In addition, here’s a list of top trending products to sell in 2018 so you can also choose one or multiple products from this list.

Conclusion

Dropshipping is a lucrative business as it requires almost no investment and anyone can do it with little to no capital.

AliExpress provides a great service with a wide range of products and cheap prices which works great for all drop shipping businesses out there.

Tools like AliDropship, Oberlo, Dropified, etc help users setup their dropshipping stores within minutes and automate the entire order process.

Retailers like eBay and Amazon also provide a great platform for dropshippers to sell their products.

If you are looking to get into AliExpress dropshipping then these are the things you need to keep in your mind.

We are also looking forward to hearing from you regarding your Aliexpress dropshipping experience. Let us know in the comments below.

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