My Dropshipping Journey with AliExpress

1. Yes, I can add my own products (not from AliExpress) and the listings will look the same.
2. You never know until try yourself. Generally I stick to narrow niches but going to try broad niches as well.
3. Both options are good, but I would prefer the second one.

 

There are some questions that I am asked regularly, so I decided to create some kind of FAQ about dropshipping with AliExpress and post it here.

1. First, what exactly is drop shipping?
Drop ship, “pack and ship”, “direct fulfillment” – they all mean the same thing. A supplier will ship the item to your customer for you, and you never have to handle the product. Drop shipping allows the reseller to focus on marketing the business and eliminate the hassle, time, and cost of dealing with the actual products they are selling.

AliExpress dropshipping works the same way as the traditional dropshipping business model. You copy the product from AliExpress to your own store, set your own prices/markups, and after you sell a product, you purchase it from AliExpress and have it shipped directly to your customer.

2. How exactly does the buying and selling process work?
Once you have your website up and running and filled with products from your chosen suppliers, it is time for business. When a customer buys a product from you, you will accept payment for the product for your retail price and shipping costs. Once you have received the funds, you place the order directly with the seller from AliExpress.com. This is typically a usual online order at AliExpress.com. The seller will then charge you for the cost of the item and ship the item directly to your buyer. That’s it! You have just sold an item at your set retail price and processed the order for your customer.

3. Why should I decide to go with my own site instead of using eBay and Amazon?
When you have your own webstore you are not sticked to any rules and requirements of other marketplaces. Besides owing your site gives you more opportunities for promotion and marketing strategies. Furthermore, building your own site is a wise investment, because you can easily sell this business one day. Such established dropshipping websites are always a very marketable product.

Here is an example of a site that I sold on Flippa: https://flippa.com/5838845-goprostuffmarket-com

4. What kind of profit margins are there with dropshipping?
It much depends on what kind of products you are selling. It’s often a good idea to stick to low price with a high margin potential. Such products usually cost within a $1-$20 price range and these products generally can be priced at $20-$50 or more.

I recommend having a profit margin of 40%-70%. You can also try this formula that works well for my own Dropshipping projects:

$0<Supplier Price<$1=Your Price: $7.95

$2<Supplier Price<$5=Your Price: $9.95

$5<Supplier Price<$30=Your Price: Supplier Price x 2

$30<Supplier Price<$50=Your Price: Supplier Price x 1.75

$50<Supplier Price<$100=Your Price: Supplier Price x 1.5

Supplier Price>$100=Your Price: Supplier Price x 1.35

5. I am concerned about the long shipping times from AliExpress
There were complaints about AliExpress regarding its delivery time before. But it should be noted that AliExpress has improved delivery time for the last year seriously and continue working on this signing agreements with major local and international postal service companies, including in US. Besides you can always use the strategy of selling not very expensive products and with free shipping option only (there are loads of such products at AliExpress). In this case customers are more willing to wait longer.

ePacket delivery:

When possible, try to only resell products that offer ePacket shipping that’s free or very cheap. Because a majority of products on AliExpress come from China or Hong Kong, ePacket delivery is not only the most economical, but one of the quickest for small goods to get to the United States, as well as other countries.



6. When my customer receives the package, does it have any reciepts or AliExpress signs?
Sometimes sellers from AliExpress include their business cards in the package. Anyway you can always send a comment with your order asking your seller not to include anything. The sellers on AliExpress have a clear idea about a dropshipping business model and will be happy to assist you. As for other signs on packages like price, address, etc. I have never got any complaints from my customers. So, I think there is nothing to worry here.

7. How will I handle refunds?
AliExpress has a good protection system with full money back guarantee. So, if your customer is not satisfied with a product and asking for refund you should dispute the purchase with AliExpress seller. If you are selling not expensive products your AliExpress suppliers usually refund you quickly without having to return the items because they don’t want the headache of disputes and receiving returns for relatively low value items. This enables you to give a full or partial refund to your customer through PayPal without them having returns either. The reputation of the wholesaler is rather exposed and they are willing to do anything to maintain their feedback rating.

 

Hello, yaros,

Your thread is awesome!! Thank you so much for sharing your valuable experience.

Before jump into taking actions for my new dropshipping biz, I'd like to peep into your experience on the price transparency in internet.

As you posted above, there are quite big price gaps among one seller to another, one site to another. It'd be wonderful if I use this price gap to source low and sell high, but I always imagine that a prospective buyer would also know all the various range of price available in internet, and easily go to the lower end of price. In your example above, you sound like not worrying about your dramatically higher price than the one in eBay! eBay is a very common place among consumers to search for their wanting products. My scared heart wouldn't sell a product listed on eBay, or Amazon, if it's priced lower than my own price.

Question : Still does your site sell Snow Jon Doll well? If yes, what do you think the driving force is that goes against the price transparency in internet? I'm so so curious.

Thank you so much again!

 

When you deal with cheap products offering a free shipping worldwide people usually make impulsive purchases. They just like the product you are selling, are satisfied with the price and don't want to spend more time on searching.

 

Gotcha!!

 

Would you select products for these dedicated websites only based on the past selling record within the previously operated dropshiping sites? Or do you already have an almighty guidelines on the product, i.e. the price level, niches, possible target audiences etc.?

 

For this moment I rely only on previous selling records.

 

Yep! The ever best choice. I'll follow you!

 

Hi yaros,
I been through most of your websites facebook fans page and also instagram.

i would like to know:
when you first launched your facebook fans page and instagram, how do you gain followers in such a short time?
did you buy the followers ?

thanks

 

Thank you yaros, i will try to make my own store, because i have a really popular Social Media profiles about some niches, it will be amazing Love you and your dropshipping, wish you big big luck!

 

You have multiple websites, Do 'you' setup a specific new Business license for each one? or can you use the same license for the multiple website.

I am also interested in what website hosting service you use? So I can determine if they are cheaper than mine,

And finally Two quick things if you would be so Nice and answer my questons yaro, How do you import comments from aliexpress - & with your plugin does it automatically send the other persons orders straight to aliexpress or do you still do it manually?

 

@yaros hello!
How do you fetch Harry's related products from Aliexpress? Do you parse or use XML product feed?

 

Greetings everyone - I have just tried a test purchase/sale on Ali and eBay. I am beginning to see that maybe eBay doesn't want this kind of transaction on their site. So far, I have had a few problems:
1) the sellers on Ali all list a 30 to 45 day shipping period, but eBay's max is 21 days.
2) PayPal put a 21 day hold on incoming $ from sales (this one isn't such a big deal, just have to have sufficient $ on hand to pay each seller for whatever would have been sold).
3) Most of the sellers on Ali state that they have a 5 day handling period. EBay considers anything over 3 days excessive.
4) After selling my item on eBay yesterday, and placing an order on Ali to cover it, I rec'd a notice from Ali this morning saying that my order was cancelled for security reasons. I have never heard of this happening. They also said that I can appeal the order, by sending in my driver's licence, and credit card info, and a few other things. I hate to do this, but it looks like I'm going to have to refund the buyer, and either start over, or ? Maybe this is happening because I've never bought on Ali before ?

 

Hi @knobhill78 !

Do not worry, buying on Ali is easy. I have never had any issues there.
Just come over all their checks in the beginning and everything will be ok after!

 

There are items which have fast shipping. Always check shipping options in the item.

 

What kind of license do you mean?

I am using a dedicated hosting solution - http://alipartnership.com/hosting/

I import reviews with the help of the Plugin. As for orders I place them manually.

 

I am using AliExpress API for this purpose.

 

Hi,

Great article. I'm looking at several plugins for Aliexpress myself, and was wondering what plugin did you use yourself.
Hope you get to see this message.

Regards,

Nicholas
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

I am using my own AliDropship plugin.

 

I have just a short Question maybe you can help me with it.

How do you calculate sales tax ? For example your Company is in Russia, you order from Aliexpress (China) and send it to other EU countries or even US or Mexico how do you know which salex taxe you have to use for your item, or do you just have to use the sales tax from the Country where your Company is ?