Dropshipping is a great way to start a business in e-commerce without worrying about inventory or shipping. It's quite straightforward – you just need to make a list of products you choose to sell on your site and email your supplier to ship products on your behalf every time you receive an order.
Starting a dropshipping business is a great way to get involved in e-commerce. A few years ago, it was necessary to dig deep into many online databases to find a reliable supplier, which sometimes seemed quite a difficult task but still achievable. However, when it comes to Oberlo and AliExpress, everything is much simpler. Both suppliers offer direct shipping services.
AliExpress makes it easy to supply products for sale in your store without worrying about inventory or shipping. You can pay for products at wholesale prices, after which the products will be shipped directly to your customers.
Why AliExpress is convenient for dropshipping
AliExpress is a huge marketplace with a wide selection of products that you can sell in your store. Since most AliExpress sellers are foreign manufacturers, their prices are very competitive.
Although AliExpress positions itself as an online store, most sellers understand that the majority of their customers are resellers and are much more interested in direct deliveries.
Dropshipping with AliExpress is quite simple.
There is no initial cost or fee, so you can test products without any financial investment. Using AliExpress or Oberlo, you can start your dropshipping today completely free.
Many sellers on AliExpress have excellent product photos that you can use on your website, as well as detailed product descriptions that will help you describe the product in your store.
Finally, using dropshipping with AliExpress is as easy as ordering a product for yourself.
Let's take a closer look at this functionality, how it all works, how to find products and sellers, and how to position yourself for success. No need to worry – it's actually quite simple. Dropshipping using AliExpress is a great way to start working online when you have good guidance.
Why will people buy from your store if they can buy the same products on AliExpress?
With dropshipping from AliExpress, your competitive advantage will not be price or unique patented products. Your competitive advantage is direct delivery of the product to the customer, ahead of competitors.
This is retail arbitrage.
For you, the main competitive advantages are the right marketing moves and constant customer search. You can always increase the number of customers by offering new deals, products, brands, creating content, and providing excellent service.
Store setup
Now that you understand the essence of dropshipping from AliExpress and have created your store, before placing your first order, let’s set it up first.
Choosing your niche and products
The first step in setting up your store should be choosing a niche. If you don’t know where to start, look at the existing product categories on AliExpress and try to decide what interests you most or which product sales will bring you not only satisfaction but also profit.
Once you’ve chosen the product category to sell, it’s time to move directly to the products themselves. Try selecting a few products you’d like to resell in your store. This guide focuses on sneakers.
By exploring the AliExpress store in more detail, you’ll realize there is a huge selection of products for every taste, and this choice can be overwhelming. It can also lead to headaches if you don’t choose quality products from reliable suppliers.
There is a certain list of criteria for selecting products. There is no scientific basis for this, but this list really helps to choose reliable sellers. Here are a few things to consider when selecting a product on AliExpress for dropshipping:
No brands, fakes, or counterfeits: avoid any branded products to prevent reselling fakes or counterfeits. Look for unbranded items. If a product has any logo, it’s best to exclude it from consideration, even if it might be genuine. Don’t take risks by choosing products from unlicensed resellers because you really have no way of knowing if the product is authentic. This may limit your options, so choose product categories where branding doesn’t matter, such as electronic accessories or clothing.
Free shipping with ePacket: whenever possible, try to resell only those products that can be shipped with free ePacket delivery. Since most products on AliExpress come from China or Hong Kong, ePacket shipping is not only the most economical but also one of the fastest options for small package shipments.
Over 300 orders: a product with a large number of orders can tell you a few interesting things. First, it indicates demand for the product. Second, the supplier is quite reliable, as some of these orders are likely repeat purchases. When looking for a new product, try sorting by the most orders.
Rating above 4.5 stars: it is also important that the products you plan to resell have a high rating (over 4.5 stars) and their seller has positive reviews. To find all reviews about a product’s seller, you can use a Chrome extension called AliExpress Seller Check.
This extension opens a detailed review of feedback and ratings left by other buyers, and using it is much more reliable than just the AliExpress rating system.
Low price with a high profit margin: depending on the product you want to resell, try to stick to a purchase price range from $1 to $20. This makes the deal less risky in case of loss when selling. These products can usually be priced from $20 to $50 or more. For example, you can find sneakers on AliExpress for about $20 and resell them for $50. This will give a 60% profit.
A large number of colorful unbranded product images: be cautious and attentive when reviewing photos to ensure the images are original from the original manufacturer. Nowadays, the chances that photos were stolen from another retailer are quite high. Doing a quick image search via Google will help you see if the product photos are real and the brand is not a fake from the seller or another manufacturer.
Communicative seller: don’t be afraid to ask the seller questions before placing an order. A good reliable seller will quickly answer all your questions. If the seller does not respond to messages, this is the first thing to pay attention to and move on to choosing another seller.
Adding products to your store
Once you set up your store, for example using Shopify, it’s time to add products. This step is very important because it’s not as simple as copying product images and descriptions from AliExpress and placing them on your site.
For a store to be successful, it needs to be positioned as such. To do this, consider a few things, which we will review.
Write your own product descriptions. Many product descriptions on AliExpress were not written by copywriters or to clearly explain the benefits. So it’s not worth relying on them. Having your own unique content will serve your business well in the long term (Google ignores duplicated content) and help improve the value of your product pages.
Inform customers about delivery times. It is recommended to place on the product page (or elsewhere in the store) that customers may need at least 20 days (depending on the supplier) to receive their order. Since most suppliers on AliExpress are located in China, delivery time may be more than 20 days.
Use an order tracking app. When delivery times are longer than most people are used to, customers often send emails asking about the location and delivery time of their ordered goods. Use an order tracking app from the Shopify App Store to be able to update the purchase status.
Offer free shipping. This can become a competitive advantage, so it is recommended to offer free shipping to your customers by using the free or low-cost shipping offered by many sellers on AliExpress.
Price lists. Consider increasing product markups by about two times. Exceeding a 50-percent margin will make the business viable and cover marketing expenses.
Add products to your store using Oberlo. Instead of manually adding products from AliExpress to your site, you can use Oberlo to quickly add products to your store.
How to use dropshipping with AliExpress
Now that the store filled with products is ready for sale and delivery, what should you do once the first order arrives?
Dropshipping with AliExpress works similarly to any regular dropshipping. When an order is received, purchase the product on AliExpress and enter the customer’s name and address. The AliExpress seller handles everything else.
It’s a good idea to create a small table listing all products on the site, showing the sale price, purchase price on AliExpress, and a link to the AliExpress listing. This way, whenever an order is received, it will be much easier to find the supplier on AliExpress and track price changes.
Additionally, you can use Oberlo, which helps easily manage all this, including simplifying orders on AliExpress and tracking price changes.
It’s a good idea to inform the seller on AliExpress that you are a dropshipper. This way, the supplier will not include any invoices or promotional materials in the package sent to the customer.
When placing an order, you can simply leave a message for the seller. A typical short message: "I am doing dropshipping. Please no promotional materials or invoices!" This will be more than enough for the seller.
As mentioned earlier, if the supplier is in China – try to choose ePacket shipping if this option is available as a delivery method. Many suppliers will offer this shipping option completely free of charge.
As soon as the seller processes the order, an email with the shipping report will arrive.
Click the link in the email to view the order, which will allow you to see the tracking number.
Go to your Shopify store website and place the order. Be sure to enter the tracking number.
And that’s it! Now you just need to wait for customers to receive their orders. When it arrives, AliExpress will send an email asking to confirm that the order was received. Be sure to wait for the customer’s confirmation of receipt. After that, you can confirm everything. This is done to avoid any accidental delivery issues – all questions and problems can be clarified directly with the supplier through AliExpress and ways to fix them can be found.
What is product and refund return?
Many AliExpress suppliers do not offer returns or refunds. This means you will have to handle product and refund returns in one of several ways. Problems with purchasing goods in the store occur in several cases – either the product was not delivered at all, or the buyer is dissatisfied with their purchase.
In the first case, an order that did not arrive to the buyer must be returned to the AliExpress supplier. If any issues arise, contact the supplier to resolve the problem or reach out to AliExpress for "Buyer Protection" support.
If a customer is simply dissatisfied with a product, offer them some compensation for the confusion and ask your customer to send photos of the damaged product. Then forward them to the AliExpress seller and try to determine the cause-and-effect relationship as soon as possible.
Growing a dropshipping business
After successful initial sales, it’s time to start learning how to grow your business and earn more money.
To start, it’s important to learn how to find and distinguish which supplier is reliable with quality products and which is not. It’s better to build your business relationships with reliable suppliers; otherwise, all efforts will be in vain. This will allow you to get better prices and priority order processing.
Most AliExpress suppliers use Skype. If orders are regularly placed with the same seller, it is recommended to ask for their Skype username to develop business relations. Once the seller sees consistent repeat orders and successful sales, they may even allow you to place your own logo on their products and include various invoices or branded inserts in the shipping packages.
Become a dropshipper
The best part about dropshipping with AliExpress is the ability to test a product for sale in your store. Not sure if a certain product will sell? Just add it to your store and test it out! Not working? Simply remove it from the store and try another. To get started, Oberlo will be a great helper.
Thanks to the absence of an initial deposit and constant inventory of goods, anyone can start their own business.