What is AliExpress?
AliExpress is one of the most common suppliers for dropshipping, as it is easy to find products for sale in your store without worrying about inventory or shipping. Only add the items you want to sell from AliExpress to your shop. Then just set a price and whenever you receive an order the seller will ship the order directly to your customer.
Most AliExpress sellers have existing product pictures that you can use in your shop, as well as basic product descriptions. However, it’s better to differentiate these details by trying to find better photos and create handwritten product descriptions.
Instead of buying directly from the manufacturer, the sellers are actually third-party individuals or companies who are reselling to you. Not only will you get a great price, but the buyer protection and ability to make single orders makes it perfect for dropshippers.
There has been a lot of publicity for AliExpress dropshipping in recent years. In this article you will understand how to dropship by using AliExpress as a supplier, the advantages and disadvantages that are coming with it.
Now let’s get straight to the insights.
Pros and Cons of dropshipping from AliExpress
Pros
- AliExpress has a huge variety of products, which makes it easy to start of with.
- You can manage your own profit margins. Compared to Amazon, AliExpress has extremely low prices which allows you to make more profit.
- Aliexpress sellers also have the option of providing free shipping worldwide. In that way you don’t have to calculate shipping costs for your products.
Cons
- In some cases the shipping can take more than a month. However, with the invention of ePacket the delivery takes around 14 business days door-to-door, including a tracking number that allows your customers to track their order.
- You cannot bundle items. If a customer orders a couple of items from different suppliers, the orders won’t arrive at the same time.
- Return requests may be harder to handle
Finding profitable items
Dropshipping businesses offer a lot of freedom to e-commerce entrepreneurs, but there are some key points you will need to take into account when you choose products for your store’s inventory.
Once you understand the types of products that are ideal for a dropshipping shop, you will be ahead of your competition and ready to start selling more. Wish.com or Google Trends are websites that could help you in finding products that are currently trending or likely to become popular in the near future.
Perhaps the most critical element of running an eBay store is to stay on top of your research about best-selling products. It is very important to see what your competitors are doing. In that way you are able to find their best-sellers, and come up with new ideas for product to upload
After you’ve done your research you can then undercut the price and list the item in a more creative way. You can also upload a similar product to the ones that are already selling well, which will differentiate you from most dropshippers. All of this will allow you to gain an edge in order to find more profitable and hot selling items.
One way of doing that is by using a market research tool that will help you find items in high demand. The software will scan the sellers on Ebay, find which products have sold the most within a specific time range and then extract all the information for you.
A great example for such marketing research tool is ZIK Analytics
Comparing dropshipping from Amazon and AliExpress
Usually, when sourcing items from Amazon you might typically make around a 10% profit margin, but by using AliExpress as a supplier you can expect to maintain 30% or more profit margin. Compared to Amazon that’s a huge boost to your profit, which means that you can save a lot of time listing products and still get the same result.
Using Amazon to dropship is a great way to drive traffic and sales to your business, and these are essential to being successful. EBay’s algorithm brings more visits to your store once they see you have a high sell-through rate, so selling high-traffic goods from Amazon is still one of the best way to do that. This gives you an increase in visibility for all your eBay store listings, including those from other suppliers such as AliExpress.
Even though there are a lot of advantages when dropshipping from AliExpress, you should have in mind that the shipping time is significantly longer compared to Amazon’s same or one-day deliveries.
Shipping details
There are multiple shipping options on AliExpress, but as mentioned ePacket delivery offers the best balance of price and shipping time.
Previously, items shipped from China were sent by sea, requiring up to 2+ months for delivery in some cases. As a dropshipper, you can’t keep your customers waiting that long. If you do, your customers are likely to cancel their order or leave a bad review, neither of which is good for your online business.
Thankfully, ePacket shipping has been introduced for China and Hong Kong, allowing your customers to get their goods in 12-14 days. ePacket delivery is available for items up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) and cheaper than $400.
Meeting your customer’s shipping needs will be one of your customer’s biggest priorities as a dropshipper. That’s why it’s especially important that you spend the time to find a good supplier and change suppliers if they aren’t using ePacket delivery.
Keep in mind that most of the buyers are used to purchasing from Amazon and similar stores where they can get their goods overnight. This is one of the biggest reasons they’re so successful.
AliExpress refund and return policies
AliExpress’ Buyer Protection Program has been designed to favor buyers over sellers. The company ensures that you get exactly what you ordered and protects you at every stage of ordering to delivery. However, be aware that many suppliers will not offer refunds. You will have to factor that in as a cost of your business.
When there is an issue, it will probably be because an order didn’t arrive or it didn’t match the description. If the order never arrives, AliExpress will refund the entire purchase. You’ll have to wait for the end of the delivery period, which is around 45 days, to receive your money back.
Here are some important cases that you should be aware of.
How can I protect myself from late deliveries?
Always check the seller’s On-time Delivery guarantee time and to make sure the set delivery
date falls within that time-frame.
What can I do if my order doesn’t arrive within the seller’s guaranteed delivery time?
You are eligible to submit refund requests up to 15 days after your order has been completed. This can be done by opening a dispute on the details page of the order. Please note that only one dispute can be opened per order.
The items I received were not as described by the seller. What can I do?
Any item that does not match the description of the seller is eligible for a refund. You can also find a solution that is appealing to both you and the seller.
How To Use ‘Free Return’ Service?
Open a dispute within 15 days of receiving the order, then print a free return label, go to the designated return point and wait for your refund.
Who pays for the shipping costs when making the return?
In case you are returning multiple items from the same seller, you have to return them together so you can enjoy a Free Return on all items. If you return the goods one by one, you may have to pay an additional shipping fee.
In any case, there are many options for you as a dropshipper. Just be aware that your business needs to have some cash reserves to continue making orders in case there are a lot of return requests.
After you have done everything and made your first few sales it is time to start looking at how you can expand your dropshipping business and make more money.
Automating the dropshipping process from AliExpress
Time is your most valuable asset. If you’re running your business by yourself, you’ll have more than enough responsibilities to keep you busy. By automating your dropshipping business, you can use technology to help you spend your time on what really matters.
Trackerbot is an Ebay certified tool which automatically uploads your trackings, has auto messaging system for purchased and shipped items as well as a feedback reminder, which is another important part of delivering exceptional customer service.
For those concerned by using the API version, there is also a NON-API, where the uploading of trackings is done in a bulk by a single click through a Google Chrome Extension.
Tracking Uploading
As your dropshipping business grows you will have more and more sales where you need to upload the tracking numbers within the handling time you have offered. Doing so manually can get very tedious with time and that’s why you need a dropshipping tool to automate your process.
Trackerbot’s comprehensive algorithm easily pulls out your orders from many suppliers including AliExpress, and then automatically matches the tracking numbers and uploads them to eBay.
Auto-Messaging
Providing an exceptional customer service is a key to a successful business model. This feature allows you to send automatic messages when the item has been:
- Purchased – the template will be sent immediately after your client purchases
- Shipped – the buyer will be notified once Trackerbot receives the tracking number, which means that the item has just shipped.
- Delivered – Here the client will receive a message once the item is delivered.
All of these templates are customizable and you can include special codes like {name} or {address}, where Trackerbot will replace the code with the buyer’s name or address.
Auto-Feedback & Feedback Reminder
Trackerbot has the option to leave an automated positive feedback to your customers. The message is selected randomly from an array of different options.
The feedback reminder will help you enhance your feedback score by asking your customers to share their feedback.
When using Trackerbot, you can also easily track your sales and get an effective overview of the growth of your store by looking at your daily, monthly and yearly sales.
Even though it is really easy to set up and use Trackerbot, there is a Live Chat Support everyday from 16:00 until 24:00, so feel free to drop a line.
Since the industry is changing regularly it’s essential keep finding creative ways in order to grow and sustain your business. Dropshipping from AliExpress is definitely worth, given the positives it has for you and your business. Of course there are few things that you should have in mind before you start, but that seems to be the case with a lot of other suppliers out there. Before you start, make sure that you’ve done all the necessary research in order to decrease the risk you are taking. This will allow you to do the correct steps from the beginning and experience the success of dropshipping from AliExpress right away.
