My Dropshipping Journey with AliExpress

I've been watching this thread for a while, and his site still running, so I think he is doing fine.
Yaros, other than Aliexpess, do you use any resources like DHGate, MinimumTheBox or GlobalSource.

 

I have not got any problems so far, but anyway you should understand the risks involved here before launching such a site.

I am working with AliExpress only, however probably I will try something new in future.

 

I was playing with pricing on my dropshipping sites for a long time and finally found a formula that works good for me. So, may be it will be helpful for other dropshippers.

My pricing formula is following:

0<x<1=$7.95 (if the cost of the product on AliExpress is between $0 and $1, my price is $7.95).

1<x<2=$8.99.

2<x<5=$9.95.

5<x<30=x*2.

30<x<50=x*1.75.

50<x<100=x*1.5.

x>100=x*1.35.

Here is how it looks like on my Plugin:

 

Excellent ! Thank you a lot Yaros !! I feel so lucky to have descovered your thread and to be learning a lot from you!

 

Awesome plugin, it was great pleasure reading on your thread. For the Aliplugin I tried to search on Google, I found it needs to pay, and the fees are costly from my perspective but in the long run if the business is continuously profiting then it will not be a problem.
That plugin is developed by you, Yaros? I see that site is Russian.

 

Yes, AliPlugin is developed by me as well.

 

Oh I see, I don't think people will quickly duplicate your success because you're good programmeer and website, designer. But it gives me some hint how to optimize my site and the how to get traffic for free as well.

 

Hey Yaros!

Great job with this journal! Technical question about the Aliexpress API. From what I can see on their API help site, you can only do requests for product lists. How are you parsing the actual item page to get all the images, options & pricing structure?

I have been scraping Aliexpress for my site using PHP, cURL, xPath & Regex for several years. But now that there's an API, I want to make the switch. But I need to make sure that I can parse the item options too.

 

The details I can't get through API I take by scrapping.

 

There any hint fo us how import reviews from Aliexpress?

 

Reviews option is integrated in my Plugin. I get them directly from AliExpress by scrapping content. It is interesting that these reviews are located on separate AliExpress server that is hidden from Google indexation. It means that when you add these reviews to your site you get some unique content loved by Google.

 

I see, it is possible to get CSV review from Aliexpress manually?

 

No, it's not possible.

 

Okay I'm using import.io to scrap the products, maybe I need to buy the plugin at somewhere

 

Aliexpress has blocked my server's IP because of me scraping their item page. I had no problems for over a year. But last week, they decided to block me. Oddly enough, they are still letting me scrape their listings. Just not their product pages.

Did you ask them to whitelist your IP? Or perhaps by signing up to their API, they automatically let your domain through. I will know soon enough, since I just signed up to use their API. BTW, I use their "m.aliexpress.com" version since their mobile site is much simpler to scrape. Are you scraping their full site?

 

An alternative way you can import the review from eBay from the simlar product, I did do this from my store, unless you want to make your review lively. Content scraping is a great tools for me as I was able to create mix and compare the price.

 

I am scrapping only reviews. All other things I take through their API.

 

It's able to get the xPath of Aliexpress for the shipping drop down menu?

 

Hi Yaros,
You said that you're losing 30% of sales in your website because you only offer paypal payment method, I'm wondering why you didn't included yet a direct credit card payment to the website.

 

Ok, cool! On their API documentation page, they only show the URL requests for their product lists. Do they provide more API references after you join? I guess I'll have to wait and see. Still waiting for them to approve me for their program. It's been 4 days. And Chinese new year starts next week, so if I don't get access before tomorrow, I will probably have to wait until the end of February to get it.