Dropshipping is one way to get started with e-commerce, and retailers don’t have to worry about inventory or shipping. But it can be very difficult for sellers to find a reliable supplier from the beginning, and in fact Oberlo can make it all simple. It is a delivery platform that can easily import AliExpress products or products from Oberlo suppliers to the Shopify platform, and AliExpress completes the delivery of Shopify orders.
What is AliExpress dropshipping?
With AliExpress, Shopify sellers can easily find products to sell in stores without having to worry about inventory or shipping issues. Add the products you want to sell from AliExpress to your store, and increase the price accordingly based on the wholesale price to set your selling price, and whenever you only pay the supplier at the wholesale price, the supplier will arrange delivery directly to your customers based on the order information.
Why choose AliExpress to do dropshipping?
It is relatively easy to choose to use AliExpress for direct sales, and there are no upfront costs or expenses. You can test the product without major financial burden. Many sellers on AliExpress have ready-made product maps that you can use directly in the store, and also provide basic product descriptions. However, when you are selling the product yourself, remember to further optimize these details, such as better photos and product descriptions to reflect differentiation.
With AliExpress for direct sales, your competitive advantage will not be your price or a unique proprietary product. Your competitive advantage will be to serve your customers faster and better than your competitors. In other words, marketing, operations, and customer service are the ways you win.
First, create your AliExpress dropshipping store
How to choose products suitable for direct sales?
The first part of setting up a store is choosing a niche product, or choosing the product you want to sell. If you don’t know where to start, start with AliExpress product category list and start listing options based on what you are most interested in or what you think are the most confident to sell.
Once you have a unique niche product, it’s time to start choosing some products you want to resell in your store. Take running shoes as an example. As with many categories on AliExpress, you have a large selection of products to choose from. If you don’t choose a quality product from a reliable supplier, you may have a headache.
When selecting products on AliExpress, you need to pay attention to:
1.Not an existing branded product, fake or counterfeit
Skip any existing branded products to avoid accidental resale of fakes and counterfeits. Unless you have a legal partnership with the relevant brand, you will not be a licensed reseller, and even if the product is legal, the risk of selling a product with any other person’s logo is not worth it. Therefore, you don’t actually need to be attached to the product’s distinctive logo, such as electronic accessories or clothing.
2.Free shipping with international e-packet
Try to choose resale products that can provide free E-packet shipping. Since most products on AliExpress come from China or Hong Kong, e-packet delivery is not only economical but also one of the faster ways to ship small items to the US and Europe.
3.More than 300 orders
Products with a large number of orders that means, first the market has demand for this product, Second, suppliers are more reliable than the industry average. When looking for new products, you can choose from products with large orders.
4.AliExpress rating above 4.5 stars
Resale products should have a high product rating (over 4.5 stars) and get positive feedback from most sellers. In order to obtain detailed evaluations of products and sellers, you can use the ‘AliExpress Seller Check’ Chrome extension. Third-party tools are much more reliable than just referring to the AliExpress rating system.
5.The product wholesale price is low but the profit rate is high
Products with low prices (such as between $ 1 and $ 20) can give you more room for marketing costs. Because the price of these products may be set between $ 20 and $ 50. For example, AliExpress running shoes for about $ 20 may eventually be sold for $ 50, so that the profit margin can reach 60%.
6.Provide a large number of high-quality, unbranded product photos
Be careful to make sure that the photos really come from your manufacturer and not from other retailers. For example, you can quickly perform a Google image search to see if the product image comes from a real brand and retailer, or if it is a manufacturer ’s own brand.
7.Find sellers who are good at communicating and helpful
Don’t be afraid to ask questions before placing an order with a supplier. A good and reliable seller will answer all your questions quickly. If the Aliexpress seller does not respond to your message, it is a Red flag.
Adding products to the store
After you have created your Shopify store and confirmed your product categories and suppliers, it’s time to start adding products to your store. This step is very important because it is not as simple as putting pictures and product descriptions of AliExpress listing on your website. Instead, pay attention to these things:
1.Write your own product description
Because many listings on AliExpress are not written by professional advertising staff, nor can they fully reflect the advantages of the product. Therefore, having your own unique content can better serve your business in the long run and increase conversion rates, avoiding the risk of any content duplication.
2.Let customers know the delivery time
It is recommended that you better inform your customers on the product page (or elsewhere in the store) that it may take up to 20 days (depending on the supplier) to receive the information.
3.Use the order tracking APP
Due to longer shipping times, you may receive emails from customers asking them about their order location. It is recommended to use the order tracking app in the Shopify app store to let your customers know the status of their orders.
4.Provide free shipping
Competitive shipping can be one of your advantages, and it is recommended that you take advantage of the free / low-cost shipping offered by many AliExpress sellers to provide your customers with free shipping.
5.Appropriate product pricing
Consider pricing your product at about twice the cost. Because operating with a 50% profit margin will make your business profitable and can afford a series of necessary expenses such as marketing and customer service.
6.Add products to your store with Oberlo
You can use Oberlo to quickly add items to your store instead of manually adding AliExpress products to your website.
How to do dropshipping with AliExpress
Similar to other dropshipping, when you receive an order, please purchase the product on AliExpress and fill in your customer name and shipping address. AliExpress sellers take care of the rest.
If you want to do this manually, it’s best to use a spreadsheet that contains a list of all products on your site, the selling price, the AliExpress purchase price, and links to the pages of AliExpress products listing. This way, whenever you receive an order, you can easily find suppliers on AliExpress and track price changes.
Alternatively, you can use Oberlo to help you with all of these tasks, including placing orders on AliExpress and observing price changes. This method not only saves a lot of time, but also allows you to easily expand your business without worrying about having to manually order dozens (or more) products on AliExpress.
Oberlo will buy your product from AliExpress and insert customer details for you. When AliExpress suppliers change prices or are out of stock, Oberlo will even tell you and recommend you other suppliers. In addition, Oberlo can serve as a dashboard for your AliExpress direct sales business, allowing you to track all orders and monitor delivery status.
When ordering on AliExpress, it is recommended that you better let the seller know that you are selling directly. This way, the supplier will not include any invoices or promotional information in the package sent to your customers. You can leave a message to the AliExpress seller at the checkout: “We are dropshipping, please do not send me leaflets and invoices!” This can also be done by Oberlo.
Based on the seller’s processing time, you will soon receive an email informing you that your order has shipped. Click the link in the email to see the tracking number for the order.
Then go to your Shopify manager to complete the order. Be sure to enter the tracking number.
If you use Oberlo, the order will be completed automatically, including the tracking number, and your customers will know that their order has been shipped.
When the order arrives, AliExpress will send you an email requesting confirmation that the order has been received. Set aside some time so that customers can contact you if there is a problem or delivery of the product. In this way, you can ask questions to suppliers through AliExpress and hope that such problems will not occur in future orders.
About refunds and returns
Many AliExpress suppliers do not offer returns. This means you have to process returns and refunds in one of several ways. If a customer has a problem placing an order at your store, it is usually because the order never arrived or your customer is not happy with the purchase.
For cases where the first order never arrives, you need to report the problem to AliExpress supplier and try to get buyer protection to resolve or use AliExpress.
If your customers aren’t happy with the product, they usually fail to meet their purchase expectations. It is recommended that you provide a refund and see if you should make marketing changes accordingly to customer feedback issues (in many cases, customers may not fully understand what they are ordering). If the product is damaged, ask your customers to take pictures and send them to AliExpress sellers.
Expand your AliExpress direct sales business
Once you have completed the first few sales, it’s time to start researching how to grow your direct selling business and make more money, and in the end you will clearly identify which are reliable suppliers. You should consider establishing a reliable partnership with it, which will allow you to get better prices and order priority.
Most vendors on AliExpress use Wechat or Skype. If you have a supplier you often work with, it’s best to get their Wechat or Skype username to build further business relationships. Once you prove that you can bring stable orders on a regular basis, some sellers will allow you to put their logo on the product, or include custom invoices and brand inserts in the package.
Start your dropshipping road with Oberlo
The outstanding advantage of doing AliExpress dropshipping is that you can quickly verify whether the store’s creativity and products have the potential to meet market demand. If you are unsure whether you have the ability to sell a product, add it to your store and test it. If the response is mediocre, you can simply remove the product from the store and start testing other content. Because you don’t have any inventory pressure and no upfront costs, the risk of investing is minimal.