My Dropshipping Journey with AliExpress

Profit?

 

I think it depends on the country you are based in. I did not register it separately but it works under the name of my main company registered in my country. I give receipt, because I receive payments and then I get receipt from AliExpress seller.

 

Personally I want to feel a closer connection to Harry Potter. Going from that website it seems that you aren't really into Harry Potter at all. I prefer to buy items I care about from vendors who live and breathe their product (ok so obviously this doesn't apply to everything e.g. petrol, but if I was buying something I was into like cheese I'd want to know the cows feed on the finest fresh green grass in Switzerland).

Harry Potter is a religion. The converts want to feel more connected to the world of Harry Potter (without infringing copyright of course). At the moment it looks like a drop shipping website. Why not get some feedback from some real Harry Potter fans and ask them how the website makes them feel?

 

Very good point!! Thank you!

 

As a part of my marketing strategy I decided to promote the site by video content as well. I have created a promo clip and added it to YouTube channel.

It would be great if you watch this video and share your opinions about it.

 

A nice slick video, well made. May I ask how you made it?

However in spite of this video, I think your strategy is way off. IMO your strategy is not appealing to impulse buying and it still comes across as (yet another) drop shipping site. The wording made me cringe and it comes across as money grubbing. I'm not sure how this will rise up the Google rank.

I think you should find other ways to attract people to your site besides just the hard sell. Can you connect to a loyal community of Harry Potter lovers? Can you add value to their lives if they visit?

Of course, hard sell can indeed work but with this kind of product I'm less convinced.
Also I'm curious as to why you chose Harry Potter wands for your strategy. I don't see serious statistical evidence as to trends. Have you done any further evidence/research?

 

Thank you for your valuable comments!

I created this video using Adobe AffterEffects and pre-made theme bought on videohive.com for $21.

This Harry's site is the first one in my drop shipping portfolio. I am going to try various products building such websites for different niches. I quite agree with you that it is not an easy trick to bring great value for Harry Potter lovers with such website (especially if you are not one of them. However, according to my marketing experience (that is rather solid IMO), any niche can take a shot, even if you are not expecting much from it. I did a research, check trends, compared prices, reviewed competitors and decided why not to try Harry Potter - interesting challenge for me! I am going to try a lot of marketing mehods and promotion strategies. I think, using the right techniques and working hard on the project should bring results.

btw, I got my first sale!!!



I am quite glad with it considering the fact that I have not startred promoting the site yet.

Another good news is that some keywords already appeared on the first page of Google without any SEO effors - http://i.imgur.com/lG8JOhO.png

 

Congrats on your first sale.
It will be interesting to see where you get traffic from. Good luck!

 

Finally, I added reviews to my site directly from AliExpress. It was a difficult task because AliExpress API does not return this data and I had to invent my own module.

 

Thanks for the info, I will be following. Couple questions...

Do you contact the manufactures first and ask about dropshipping? Or are you just finding a product and then ordering it and put your customer address? Aliexpress is the retail version of Alibaba right?

Also, how do you handle returns? You wouldnt want them to return to your home address.

Thanks!

 

Yes, AliExpress belongs to Alibaba Group.

I don't contact suppliers in advance. With the help of my plugin and special filtering options that based on AliExpress API I select only popular and higly demaned products offered by the most trusted sellers. Such filters include:
- Purchase volume in last 2 months
- 5-star rating of a product
- Average feedback score for a product
- Average feedback score for a seller
etc.

After someone makes purchase from my site I click on a special link on my WP admin area that redirects me to this product on AliExpress. I make an order stating shipping address of my customer. Besides I get commission (from 3% to 50%) for my purchase becuase of using my affiliate link.

As for returns, I have to open dispute with AliExpress seller myself to get my money back and make refund for my customer. A package is returnt to AliExpress seller.

 

Hi Yaros,

First of all thanks to share all this secret knowledge with community.

Are you using any wp theme or plugin for shopping cart ? Also Is there any plugin to fetch products from Aliexpress and add them in WP ?

Thanks,
Rahil

 

Hi Rahil,

I developed the plugin and this theme from scratch myself. I am not sure if there are any solutions in the market which are suitable for creating webstores for drop shipping business with AliExpress. However, there are some WP affiliate plugins for building stores to earn with AliExpress affiliate program. You can check my solution here.

 

bsml first of all thanks for sharing such valuable contents with others I do really appreciate it !!!!!! and I do like a lot the video above of your site
please I want you to answer the following qs if possible
what would be your advise for someone who does not know lot of things about ecommerce but he want to start in this field ?
what are the advantages of using aliexpress as your suppliar ......and what do you think about opening a shop whith shopify since as you know it is impossible to take care of a whole web site without knowing programming and sucurity ?
what is the minimal capital that one should have to start in such a field ...................?
finally if you are shipping directely from your suppliar to your customer .......what would you do if your customer claim that he did not receive his item when actually you don't know do reality weather he did or didn't ..........either you answer or not thank you so mach for sharing "knowledge is great"

 

Thank you for your questions!

I would like to start the service soon of developing and promoting such websites based on my solutions for others. I think it should become a perfect choice for beginners as well as for veteran marketers.

I am choosing AliExpress for obvious reasons - more than 200 millions of products + cheap prices that ideally suit a dropshipping business model.

In my opinion Shopify is a great solution, but the point is that their system does not use AliExpress API. It means you don't have a chance to search for products using different filters like purchase volume, price, product rating, sellers feedback score, etc. Besides you can't import and update products on your site automatically and have to do everything manually. Furthermore, you can't add automatically customers' reviews,auto translate content to other languages, change currency quickly and so on. My solution solves these issues.

As for the minimal capital it all depends on how much work you are ready to devote to the project and on what kind of promotion strategies you are going to use. It can cost you from $100 to 10,000 to start.

If I get claim from my customer I usually refund money and ask for a refund on AliExpress. AliExpress has a rather good buyer protection system.

 

Let's continue the Journey.

First of all, I am very satisfied with organic traffic coming to my site. It means that all the hard work done for on-site SEO was not pointless and now starts bringing results.

Secondly, I am starting the promotion, finally!

And I decided to begin with social media marketing. Today I would like to share with you my strategy of creating social media presence for my business and tell you how I was preparing my social media pages for WorldofHarry.com website.

1. I registered social pages for my dropshipping website on 5 main social networks:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/World-Of-Harry/1493637050927933
twitter.com/world_of_harry
plus.google.com/u/0/113670590631272147483/posts
pinterest.com/World_Of_Harry/
instagram.com/world.of.harry/

2. I designed avatars and covers for my pages:

Facebook: Avatar – 180x180, cover 851x315
Google +: Avatar 250x250, cover 928 * 523
Twitter: Avatar 250x250, cover 520x260
Pinterest: Avatar 250x250 (the main part of your image should fit into a circle)
Instagram: Avatar 250x250

3. I created two descriptions of my webstore:

a. First short description (max. 160 symbols) that suits Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
b. Second description (several sentences) with more attractive details about my business.

First one: Find everything you ever wanted on World of Harry!

Second one: Harry Potter fans! Here you can find all sorts of Harry Potter costumes, clothing, posters, stuff for gadgets, and other things. For adults and kids. For holidays, costume parties, and cosplay.

4. I completed the creation of social pages:

• Placed avatars and covers
• Added descriptions
• Setup links
• Confirmed website on Pinterest
• Created Call to Action button on Facebook:





5. I integrated «Pin It» button to my products’ images on the site. To do it, you need to generate a code using widget editor here https://business.pinterest.com/ru/widget-builder#do_pin_it_button and place it on your site.



6. I uploaded created social pages to special software for future auto posting.

For Facebook, Google+ and Twitter I use HootSuite (https://hootsuite.com)
For Instagram I use OnlyPult (https://onlypult.com)

7. I selected 10 top products from my store and published first 10 posts on Facebook and Google+.

It works great when you combine different product images and use such wording like:

Which you like best?
Which one is your favorite?
Love them?
Different styles, wanna try?
Lovely?
Nice, right?
Which one do you prefer?

Example: https://www.facebook.com/1493637050...050927933/1515413695416935/?type=1&permPage=1

On Pinterest I am posting using following way:
a. Find necessary product on my site
b. Click button «Pin It»,
c. Get a new window to put a title, price, hashtags and then publish it.

Example of a published pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/345018021431368402/

In Twitter I create a standard post (max. 140 symbols): product title + price + link + image. If I have some more space left I also add hashtags.

Example: https://twitter.com/world_of_harry/status/632140752462704640

In Instagram I create posts with a product title + link to this product (shorten with the help of goo.gl service) + Price + Free Shipping Worldwide! + hashtags (about 10-20). Hashtags are important, especially for Instagram and Pinterest. I usually use these services to select the best hashtags (Iconosquare - All Instagram online or Websta - the best Instagram web viewer online (Webstagram)).

Example: https://instagram.com/p/6XUWqWjyaG/

8. To promote my social pages and give them a boost on the beginning stage, I am using following software:

For Instagram – SocialHammer
For Pinterest – FollowLiker
For Twitter – Twidium

9. Using automated software mentioned in p. 6, I am going to publish 2 posts a day, using such templates like:

[attractive text or question]
Price
Buy now - [product link]
Image (in high resolution)


10. I am also going to start a paid advertising campaign on Facebook:

Budget: $50

Targeted countries: English-speaking countries + Europe + Asia

There are many other things to consider of course, but I tried to make a long story short. If you have any questions or have some valuable recommendations, please feel free to contact me!

 

Started getting orders! Already thinking about creating new sites for other niches

 

Today got the first order from UK!

 

What I don't see discussed are the legal implications. Some of the products could fall in the counterfeit products area. Warner Bros is known to have sued quite a lot of people selling such goods on Amazon for example.

Just because you are "reselling" them, doesn't make you less guilty, especially since you take the money directly from the customers.

Any thoughts?

PS: Speaking of legal implications, what about of the 700+ customers you advertise on the page and the TRUSTe, McAfee and Verisign Norton Secured certificate logos which you misleadingly use? You cannot use those seals on your website as none certify your website.

 

Tell it to thousands of sellers at AliExpress and worldwide who are selling these items everywhere without any rights. I think there is nothing to discuss here. Before Warner Bros pays attention to this site, Yaros will make a fortune