Dropshipping is a great business model for people with little experience and even less budget. All you need is a number of trusted suppliers, a web store and efficient promotion. No need for a warehouse to keep goods and no worries about shipment issues. But the question is where to get products for dropshipping? Or where do you find suppliers?
Many entrepreneurs have started dropshipping using AliExpress goods. Is it a good idea? Does it work? Why not choose eBay or Amazon?
Let’s just say that while many failed, some have succeeded. Just like in any other type of ecommerce business. Meanwhile, the platform does offer some really important advantages for dropshipping stores.
Benefits of dropshipping with AliExpress
Number of goods
Let’s imagine you’ve chosen a really interesting niche that’s showing high demand. But what if there are only like 8 products of this type on eBay? With such a small number of goods, your business will most likely fail.
Then how many products can you find on AliExpress? The answer is over 100 million!
Not only Chinese manufacturers sell stuff on AliExpress. There you can find goods from the USA, Germany, Russia and France to name a few. Simply speaking, you have high chances to find lots of goods for almost any niche.
Why is it so important? The more products you can dropship, the more choice you offer to your clients. Besides, you can always give up on certain items in your list and try similar products from other sellers, which means your business will be diversified to some extent.
Sellers eager to partner
Not all manufacturers or wholesalers want some 3rd party web store to sell their goods. As for dropshipping using AliExpress, there you’ll find lots of sellers who will be happy to work with you. Why?
All they want is sell their products. But their reach is limited. AliExpress does have international shipment options, but in order to sell goods abroad, you need to promote your product there first. And that’s what dropshipping stores are good for!
It’s simple division of labor. The seller gets the goods ready and manages shipment, while you promote the goods in the given country or region. And everybody’s happy.
Most sellers on AliExpress see dropshipping stores as loyal customers and wish to work with them on a long-term basis. They even offer special terms such as easier refund process.
Lower prices
The higher the original price of a product is, the more you’ll have to charge in your store, and that can ruin your business.
Just like most things made in China, products on AliExpress are cheap. What costs $1 on AliExpress can cost $3 on Amazon. It means you can sell it for the same price on your dropshipping store and still earn $2.
Shipment
Unlike Amazon and eBay, AliExpress offers much more shipment options. The platform uses a number of warehouses in different countries which makes delivery even cheaper. Besides, some destinations enjoy free shipment, and that’s another bonus for your customers.
However, shipment from AliExpress can take up to 2 weeks which seems too long for online stores. But the evidence from practice shows that most customers don’t mind waiting as long as they are warned about it. After all, people don’t buy something urgent at online stores.
Plugins for AliExpress
When dropshipping from AliExpress, you need to find good products, import them to your store, set prices, install images, etc. Such work can take a lot of time so a plugin or two for automating this process won’t hurt.
Different companies offer various solutions for such business. Most of them allow you to build a unique dropshipping store, find and import goods from AliExpress, edit images, analyze traffic and sales volume, etc. The most popular among them are WooCommerce, AliDropship, Ali2Woo, AliPrice and others.
Sellers’ rating
Despite a huge number of sellers on AliExpress, you need to find the best of them. AliExpress has an evaluation system that helps buyers and dropshipping store owners with it. Each seller has a rating formed by customer reviews.
It shows a seller’s average score, quality of communication, speed of delivery, etc. Using this tool, you can find the most trustworthy suppliers for your business.
Customer reviews
Finally, when dropshipping using AliExpress, you can use its product reviews to better understand what kind of product it is and what features it has. Based on buyers’ experience, you can decide whether you want to add this product to your store or not. Some plugins for dropshipping even allow you to import reviews from AliExpress to your store.