My Dropshipping Journey with AliExpress

Hope you're not in the eCommerce industry.

The moment you start selling some counterfeit harry potter watches that only work for a couple weeks (at best) or some low quality printed posters and people start complaining and leave bad reviews all over the web, you are doomed!

 

Don't argue guys I agree with both of you. From the one hand, may be it is not the best niche to choose and it really breaks some rules. From the other hand, I will not be very dissapointed if someday I get a complaint from Warner Bros and my hosting company will suspend my site. It is just an experiment for me that I am sharing with you. My other dropshipping site built for other ('good') niche is on its way. WorldofHarry is created to try my new platform, test my theme and give trial runs to my marketing strategies. And I must admit that my Harry site has already sailed through many of these tasks with flying colors!

 

Not sure if you will keep logos from McAfee,Trustee and Norton but unless you really will get verification and pay for the products you got the logos on your site for you should remove them. It is an instant NO for me to using service from anyone using logos of these companies who haven't actually paid for them and passed the security/verification tests.

 

Its quite good

 

Yes, I know. I just reserved these places in my theme design for the seals (to give an example). But subscribing the site to such services now.

Meanwhile, got some more orders. Let's see now how fast the products will be delivered and if I get any complaints and refunds.

 

Starting from the last week, I began some promotion work, generally on social networks.

I want to share with you some of my stats from the last week (7th - 14th September).

Traffic:



Income:

Orders: 5
Items: 7
Total income: $181,39
Supplier costs: 79,91
Net profit: $101,48

What is more important, I got my first feedback!

 

Doing social media marketing for My 'Harry' site for the last two weeks, I found out one good strategy. Actually I knew about it before, but now I got added evidence that it works on my own experience.

ADVICE: When you are promoting your dropshipping site using social media marketing, don't forget to post ALL your products on your social pages which connected to your site.

Like here on my FB page: https://www.facebook.com/World-Of-Harry-1493637050927933/timeline/

If you follow this advice your products can be easily found on Google on top positios.

Let's take an example!

I am searching on Google for one of my keywords: 'Lord Voldemort Wall Sticker' and find this:



As you can see from this screenshot, AliExpress is not on the first position, as well as my site, but my Pinterest page (with a link to my site) is a winner! Check it here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/345018021431638330/

And I have the same results for many other products from my site.

It should be also noted, that this strategy works best for Facebook and Pinterest, but it does not mean that you should ignore Instagram and G+.

 

Hi, yaros, I do see you are very active on the forum. I am from India and currently affiliated with amazon..but not really happy with the conversion. I am pretty impressed with AliExpress plugin affiliate. Alibaba/Aliexpress will enter soon to indian market,..It does not mean that they don't ship to india now.but people are not aware of this when compared to flipkart and amazon. My questions are: When bulk Import the products from amazon through one of the plugins, My server space and CPU usage going for toss. I am with siteground host with gogeek package where 1000MB is the space allocated. Does the Aliexpress do the same thing? I am confused whether the products are updated on my server or their server? and also they have auto update does this impact any server issues on my side?
Final question is, they are also offering custom built site for $99. do you think it's worth buying custom site or just plugin? and also they $48 hosting, I am not sure that server will handle all the products...please let me know. Are there any coupon codes can we get before buying aliexpress plugin?

 

I don't know about Amazon but I recommend adding not more than 15,000 products per site. Not only because of CPU and space usage but because of WordPress databases which can be affected if they are huge. As for updating my plugin allows updating 10 items per cycle to avoid problems with servers and loading speed. But if you want to update all products at once, no problem, my Plugin has a special option/button (Update all products).

If you are familiar with WP, then it is better to buy the Plugin and create up to 5 stores. But if you want a done-for-you solution then a custom ready store service is a way to go.

Use coupon code STARTER25 to get 25% doiscount on AliPlugin.
Use coupon code CUSTOM30 to get 30% doiscount on Custom store.

 

Stats from the last week (14th - 20th September).

Traffic:



Income:

Orders: 6
Items: 12
Total income: $258,19
Supplier costs: 101,52
Net profit: $156,67

One order (from France) was really huge - $111 alone

 

Nice! Keeping watching your sharing!

 

Additionally I get some profit when ordering items from AliExpress for my clients using my affiliate link - 5% on average.

 

What about advertising expenses? 90% of the traffic seems to be non-social/non-organic.

 

Now I have sales from 2 sources - organic and social without advertising expences. However I am starting advertising campaign on FB now and going to use PPC as well. Direct and refferal traffic come from forum threads like this one, but of course this kind of traffic does not generate any sales.

 

Today I saw a same post on wickedfire, same topic, same picture, same sales, same article, is that you?

 

Yes, it's mine, I am sharing my journey on several forums.

 

Yep! I think so. I say hello to you on Wickedfire.

 

Good news.

Alibaba Group’s logistics affiliate Cainiao has signed an agreement with the United States Postal Service (USPS). The two companies agreed to work together to speed delivery of merchandise sold through AliExpress to consumers in the United States.

Source

 

Stats from the last week (21st - 28th September).

Traffic:



Income:

Orders: 4
Items: 7
Total income: $119,09
Supplier costs: 43,57
Net profit: $75,52

Last week got some drop in traffic. This week I am going to launch paid ads on FB, let's see how it will work out.

I am gald that my customers started getting their orders! No refunds so far.



And I am satisfied with social media accounts which give traffic, orders and some great reviews:

 

I am quick to share with you my stats for September:

Total income: $733,55
Supplier costs: $279,32
Affiliate commission: $13,17
Net profit: $467,40

Top 3 countries people purchased from:
United States
Germany
United Kindom

Best product of the month (7 items sold) - Hermione Granger Rotating Time Turner Necklace Gold Hourglass - free shipping worldwide

I think not bad for beginning, especially considering the fact that I did not spend anything on paid advertising in September. Most purchases came from organic and social media traffic.

This month I am going to try PPC, craiglist, paid FB ads and crowd marketing and share these startegies with you. And I have decided to develop another webstore for another niche. Starting designing a new theme for it right now.