Many people have been taken by the allure of dropshipping. The idea of launching an online store without much upfront cost is mesmerizing, to say the least. Most often, these ventures turn out to be multi-million businesses for the vendors.
What we’re presenting you with goes beyond the simplicity of setting up a shop. In this guide, we’ll give you everything you need to know to successfully navigate this business model. We want to see your Shopify store become a success story.
Stay tuned with this guide to learn more about dropshipping with Aliexpress and Shopify.
What Is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a distinct sales technique in which you don’t have to maintain any stock. Alternatively, you work with a retailer such as Aliexpress, which takes care of storage and transportation on behalf of your clients directly. Entrepreneurs have been able to start online stores without making huge investments mainly because of this less risky mode.
However, dropshipping has evolved from its primitive setup. Today, the best-performing stores concentrate on product curation, branding, and marketing their products in an overcrowded market.
What Is Aliexpress?
Aliexpress is a gigantic online shop that trades in a wide selection of products numbering more than 100 million. Launched in 2010, it is part of the Alibaba Group – an influential global e-commerce company. The majority of its merchants are offshore manufacturers who offer fashion, electronics, and home decor products at reasonable costs in diversified categories.
However, Aliexpress distinguishes itself from other platforms by designing its system to specifically facilitate drop shipping, unlike Amazon or eBay, for instance.
Some Trendy Products On Aliexpress:
- Beauty and Skincare Products (e.g., facial masks, makeup tools, hair care products)
- Home and Kitchen Gadgets (e.g., smart home devices, kitchen utensils, home decor)
- Tech Gadgets and Accessories (e.g., wireless earphones, phone cases, smartwatches)
- Fashion Accessories (e.g., sunglasses, watches, jewelry)
- Fitness and Outdoor Equipment (e.g., yoga mats, resistance bands, camping gear)
- DIY Crafts and Supplies (e.g., embroidery kits, diamond painting sets, resin molds)
- Baby and Kids Products (e.g., toys, clothing, nursery decor)
Keep in mind that the popularity of specific products may vary based on market trends, seasonal demand, and promotional activities varies at Aliexpress dropshipping Shopify.
Does Aliexpress Allow Dropshipping?
Certainly, Aliexpress does allow dropshipping. Numerous sellers on Aliexpress are habitual to drop-shipping arrangements, in which they fulfill orders directly to customers without the need for the retailer to hold any stock.
Below is a user-friendly starter pack for the new sellers to start dropship from Aliexpress to Shopify:
- Choose a niche: Research or find a specific market segment or product category to focus on.
- Set up a Shopify store: Create an online store using the Shopify platform.
- Find reliable suppliers on Aliexpress: Check out supplier profiles and find reliable ones with a high number of sales and reviews.
- Import products to your store: Use Shopify apps or tools to import products from Aliexpress to your store.
- Set pricing and product descriptions: You can set your own prices for the products and simple descriptions for the buyers.
How To Dropship From Aliexpress On Shopify?
Dropshipping with Shopify and Aliexpress means creating an online store on the Shopify platform and sourcing products from Aliexpress suppliers for customer shipping. Entrepreneurs can sell items without keeping stocks in this business model as they will be delivered directly to clients.
Below is the modern description of how to go through this entire process:
Step 1: Find Winning Products: To begin with, conduct market research to identify hot or trending products. Oberlo, Dsers, and Dropshipman are some of the tools you can use.
Step 2: Create Accounts: Create Aliexpress and Shopify accounts.
Step 3: Set Up Shopify Store: Set up your Shopify store by designing and customizing it. It should have a logo, product categories, payment gateway, and shipping policies.
Step 4: Add Products: Using a drop shipping app, you can import products from Aliexpress onto your Shopify store. In addition to that, these apps are able to automatically update product data, pricing, and inventory levels.
Step 5: Market Your Store: Dropshipping with Aliexpress and Shopify requires marketing strategies to drive traffic into your store. These may involve social media marketing, running ads, influencer marketing, or SEO optimization.
Step 6: Process Orders: A notification is sent once an order is placed at your Shopify store.
Step 7: Fulfill Customer Orders: Pay the supplier for the product and their shipping fee, which includes packaging costs. The supplier will then ship the item straightaway to your client.
Step 8: Provide Excellent Customer Service: Respond promptly to customer inquiries, address issues, and provide a positive customer experience.
The process is mandatory to have a good go at Aliexpress dropshipping Shopify.
Below is a visual representation of the workflow:
| Reasearch Winning Products | |
| Creat An Account Shopify ＆ Aliexpress | Add Inventory To Your Store |
| ↓ | |
| Inventory Management | |
| Process Orders(Shopify) | Fulfill Orders(Aliexpress Suppliers) |
| ↓ | |
| Deliver and Profit | |
| Customer Service to Clients | Earn huge profits via Dropshipping |
How to import products from Aliexpress to Shopify?
There are tons of products with good prices above Aliexpress, Dropshipper usually chooses dropship from Aliexpress to Shopify, so how to import the products from Aliexpress to Shopify store? There are two ways, let’s have a look!
1. MANUAL IMPORT (Aliexpress TO Shopify)
Manual product import is recommended for beginners to learn and get to know more about dropshipping with Aliexpress and Shopify, but it also has some hurdles in the long run. Here are a few disadvantages:
It takes time: This can be extremely boring, especially when dealing with a large inventory where you have to copy-paste product descriptions, titles, images, and variations manually.
Errors: Using manual data entry processes increases the likelihood of typographical mistakes, pricing or stock-level errors, and inconsistencies in your product listings. This can result in a poor customer experience and lost sales.
Updating is challenging: If Aliexpress changes any information about its products, such as prices or descriptions, you need to change them on your Shopify store pages as well since they were entered manually.
Cannot scale up fast: It becomes harder to use manual importation when a business expands while adding more merchandise to your business.
No automation: No automated systems like an inventory manager will be available.
2. QUICK TIP
There are many dropshipping softwares available on the Shopify App Store which are dedicated to helping dropshippers work more efficiently. In this section, we will cover 4 dropshipping tools.
DSERS: DSers have a very large range of products, are excellent at finding products, and importing products from Aliexpress is fast and efficient. But they can’t provide fulfillment and can’t help dropshipper with the whole process.
ZENDROP: Zendrop is a company that values the user experience and is committed to helping novice dropshippers familiarize themselves with dropshipping. Compared to Dsers, Zendrop offers fewer products, which means that dropshippers need to spend time to find the right products again. And which happens to be one of the keys to dropshipping success.
ALIDROPSHIP: AliDropship is a WordPress plugin that enables users to create a dropshipping store with Aliexpress products.
DROPSHIPMAN: Dropshipman is a one-stop platform for comprehensive dropshipping solutions, offering seamless order automation and management. It offers blazing tools to facilitate Shopify dropshipping with Aliexpress, and is certainly feature-rich in contrast to its competitors.
Now we will discuss Dropshipman.
Dropshipman can help dropshipper import products from Aliexpress in a simple and convenient way. In addition, Dropshipman provides a large number of goods and sourcing services. Surprisingly, it can help dropshippers to place orders from Aliexpress, package for shipment and start updating shipping information as soon as the package is ready, which all means that Dropshipman can complete the dropshipping process.
Pros And Cons Of Aliexpress Dropshipping To Shopify
Dropshipping from Aliexpress to Shopify offers both advantages and disadvantages; below, we will discuss the pros and cons for the readers:
SOME PROS ARE:
Low Startup Costs: You don’t need to hold inventory upfront, minimizing financial risk. Products are billed only when customers buy from you.
Wide Product Selection: Aliexpress offers a huge variety of merchandise across different categories, enabling you to serve diverse customers.
Easy to Set Up: Shopify provides easy-to-use tools for building your online store, and apps are available for smoothing the importation of products from Aliexpress.
Scalability: Add or remove products as your business changes without being stuck with stock.
Low Maintenance: You don’t have to deal with product storage, packaging, and shipping—the supplier does that for you.
SOME CONS ARE:
Low-Profit Margins: Competition is stiff, resulting in price wars and difficulties in establishing high-profit margins.
Limited Control: For quality control of products, packaging materials, and delivery times, for example, one depends on charges made by Aliexpress suppliers. At last, customer care problems impact your brand name.
Long Shipping Times: Shipping often takes place from China, hence a long time before arrival, which may affect clients’ satisfaction.
Brand Identity Challenges: Many sellers use similar suppliers to dropship from Aliexpress to Shopify, so distinguishing your brand becomes difficult.
Inventory Issues: There is little control over stock levels; therefore, a situation where a customer orders an out-of-stock item may happen.
TOP Aliexpress Alternatives:
Undoubtedly, Aliexpress is a popular choice for the masses due to its intuitive features, but other players are in the game. Here’s a quick look at some other dropshipping brands to consider:
General Dropshipping Suppliers:
Spocket: The titan of dropshipping mainly majors on US and EU suppliers, providing quicker shipment time and probably better products than Aliexpress. It combines well with Shopify.
SaleHoo: A list of verified niche-specific drop shippers. Some benefits include product data feeds and useful information.
Doba: This offers a wide range of dropship suppliers and assists in automating order fulfillment and inventory control.
Dropified: An all-in-one product input platform for automation, order fulfillment, and tracking.
Conclusion
Dropshipping with Aliexpress and Shopify offers a low-cost entry to e-commerce, but be prepared for hard work. While product choice is vast, competition is fierce, and margins can be tight. Success requires a keen eye for products, a brand commitment, and top-notch customer service. This guide lets you navigate the dropshipping landscape and build a sustainable business for Shopify dropshipping with Aliexpress.
