Dropshipping is a great way to start an e-commerce business without having to worry about inventory or shipping. It is quite banal and simple - you only need to make a list of goods that you will choose for sale on your website and send an e-mail to your supplier so that he sends the goods 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 Internet databases in search of a reliable supplier, which sometimes seemed a rather difficult task, but still feasible. However, when it comes to Oberlo and Aliexpress, everything is much simpler here. Both suppliers provide their services on a direct delivery basis.
AliExpress makes it easy to ship items for sale in your store without having to worry about inventory or shipping. You can pay for the goods at wholesale prices, after which the goods will be sent directly to your customers.
Why is it convenient to use AliExpress for dropshipping?
AliExpress is a giant 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 bulk of their customers are resellers and are much more interested in direct deliveries.
Dropshipping from AliExpress is quite simple.
There is no upfront cost or fee, so you can test products without any financial investment. Using AliExpress or Oberlo, you can start your drop shipping today, absolutely free.
Many sellers on AliExpress have excellent product photos that you can use on your website, as well as detailed product descriptions to help you describe the product in your store.
Finally, using AliExpress dropshipping is just as easy as ordering an item for yourself.
Let's take a closer look at this functionality, how it all works, how to search for a product and seller, and how to position yourself for success. Don't worry - it's actually quite simple. Dropshipping using AliExpress is a great way to get started online when you have good guidance.
Why will people buy in your store, if they can buy the same products on AliExpress?
With dropshipping from AliExpress, your competitive advantage will not be price or unique proprietary products. Your competitive advantage is direct delivery of goods to the client, before competitors.
This is retail arbitrage.
For you, first of all, the main competitive advantages are the right marketing moves and the constant search for customers. You can always increase the number of customers through new offers, products, brands, creating content and providing excellent service.
Store settings
Now that you understand the essence of AliExpress dropshipping and have created your store, before placing your first order, let's set it up first.
Choosing your niche and products
The first part of setting up your store should start with choosing a niche. If you don't know where to start, look at the already created categories of products on AliExpress itself and try to decide what interests you the most or from the sale of which product you will get not only pleasure, but also profit.
When the selection of the area of products for sale is made, it is time to go directly to the products themselves. Try to choose several products that you would like to resell in your store. In this guide, the selection is stopped at sneakers.
After getting to know the AliExpress store in more detail, you will understand that there is simply a huge selection of products for every taste, and this selection can be overwhelming. It can also lead to headaches if you do not choose a quality product from a reliable supplier.
There is a certain list of criteria for selecting goods. There is no scientific basis for this, but this list really helps to choose reliable sellers. Here are a few things to consider when choosing an AliExpress product to dropship:
No brands, fakes and fakes: avoid any brands so as not to fall for the resale of some fake and fake. Look for unmarked items. If there is any logo on the product, it should be excluded from consideration, even if it may be original. You should not take risks when choosing goods from an unlicensed reseller, because in reality you have no idea whether the product is really real. This can greatly limit your choices, so choose a product area where the brand doesn't matter, such as electronic accessories or clothing.
Free shipping with ePacket: whenever possible, try to resell only those items that can be shipped with free ePacket shipping. 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 when it comes to a group of small items.
More than 300 orders: a product that has a large number of orders can tell several interesting things. First, it indicates the presence of demand for the product. Second, the supplier is quite reliable as it can be assumed that some of these orders are repeat orders. When you are looking for a new product, try to sort it by most orders.
Rating more than 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 out all reviews about the seller of goods, you can use the extension for Chrome called AliExpress Seller Check.
This extension will open a detailed overview of reviews and ratings left by other buyers, and its use is much more reliable than just the AliExpress rating system.
Low price with a high guaranteed profit ratio: depending on the product you want to resell, try to keep the price range from $ 1 to $ 20 when buying products. This makes the transaction less risky when there is a loss of funds during the sale. These items can usually be valued at anywhere 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 60% profit.
Lots of colorful unlabeled product images: be careful and attentive when reviewing the photos to ensure the originality of the images from the original manufacturer. Nowadays, the chances that the photo could have been 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 with him. A good reliable seller will quickly answer all your questions. If the seller does not respond to the message, this is the first thing you need to pay attention to, and move on to choosing another seller.
Adding products to your store
Once you've set up your store, for example using Shopify, it's time to add a product. This step is very important, because it is not so easy to do - copy the image and description of products from AliExpress and place them on your site.
In order for the store to be successful, it must be positioned as such. For this, it is worth considering several things, which we will consider.
Write your product descriptions. The descriptions of many products on AliExpress were not written by copywriters or to explain the benefits in detail. So don't rely on them. Having your own unique content will serve your business well in the long run (Google ignores duplicate content) and will help improve the value of your product page.
Notify customers of delivery times. It is recommended to post 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 of the suppliers on AliExpress are located in China, the delivery time may be longer than 20 days.
Use the order tracking app. When it comes to a longer delivery period than most people are used to, customers will often send emails with questions about where and when the item they ordered will be delivered. Use the Shopify App Store order tracking app to be able to update the status of your product purchase.
Offer free shipping. This can be one of the competitive advantages, so it is recommended to offer free shipping to your customers by taking advantage of the free/low cost shipping offered by many sellers on AliExpress.
Price lists. Consider increasing the markup on goods by about two times. Going beyond a 50 percent margin will make the business sustainable and cover marketing costs.
Add products to your store using Oberlo. Instead of manually adding products from AliExpress to the site, you can use Oberlo to quickly add products to the store.
How to use AliExpress dropshipping
Now that the store is full of products, ready to sell and ship, what to do as soon as the first order arrives?
AliExpress dropshipping works similarly to any regular dropshipping. When the order is received, purchase the item on AliExpress and enter the customer's name and address. The AliExpress seller handles everything else.
It is good to have a small table with a list of all products on the site, where the amount of the sale, the amount of the purchase on AliExpress, and a link to the AliExpress listing will be indicated. This way, whenever an order is received, it will be much easier to find a supplier on AliExpress, as well as track price changes.
In addition, you can use Oberlo, which will help easily with all this, including simplifying orders on AliExpress and monitoring price changes.
It is a good idea to inform the AliExpress seller that you are a dropshipper. Therefore, the supplier will not include any invoices or promotions in the cost of the goods sent to the customer.
When placing an order, you can simply leave a message to the seller. A simple short message: “I'm a dropshipper. Please, no promotions and invoices!". This will be more than enough for the seller.
As mentioned earlier, if the supplier is located in China - try to choose ePacket shipping if that feature is available as a shipping option. Many suppliers will offer this shipping option absolutely free.
As soon as the seller processes the order, you will receive an email about the shipment report.
Click on the link in the email to view the order, which will allow you to see the tracking number.
Go to your Shopify store and place your order. Be sure to enter a tracking number.
And that's all! Now it's just a matter of waiting for customers to receive their orders. When it arrives, AliExpress will send an email to confirm that the order has been received. You must wait for a response from the customer about receiving the order. After that, you can confirm everything. This is done in order to avoid any accidental problems in the delivery of goods - all questions and problems can be clarified directly with the supplier through AliExpress and find ways to correct them.
What is a return of goods and means?
Many AliExpress suppliers do not offer returns of goods and funds. This means that you will have to process the return of goods and funds in one of several ways. The problem with the purchase of goods in the store appears in several cases - either the goods were not delivered at all, or the buyer is not satisfied with his purchase.
In the first case, the order that did not arrive to the buyer must be returned to the AliExpress supplier. If you have any questions, please contact the supplier to resolve the issue or contact AliExpress Buyer Protection.
If the customer is simply not happy with the product, offer some sort of compensation for the confusion and ask your customer to send photos of the damaged product. After that, forward them to the AliExpress seller and try to find out the cause and effect relationship as soon as possible.
Dropshipping business growth
After successful first sales, it's time to start learning how you can grow your business and earn more money.
To begin with, it is worth learning to find and distinguish which supplier is reliable with a quality product, and which is not. It is better to adjust your business to relationships with reliable suppliers, otherwise it was all done in vain. This will allow for more favorable prices and priority order processing.
Most AliExpress suppliers use Skype. If orders are made repeatedly from the same seller, it is recommended to ask for a Skype username to develop a business relationship. After the seller sees consistent repeat orders and successful sales, he may even give permission to place his own logo on his products, as well as include different invoices or branded inserts in the shipping packages.
Become a dropshipper
The best part about dropshipping with AliExpress is the ability to test the product for sale in your store. There are no guarantees that a certain product will sell? Just add it to your store and test it for sale! Does not work? Just delete it from the store and try another one. To get started, Oberlo will be an excellent assistant.
Due to the absence of an initial security deposit and a permanent inventory of goods, anyone can start their own business.