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Maybe you only recently heard about AliExpress from researching how to run a dropshipping business and are wondering whether or not you can make money dropshipping from AliExpress?
Making money while dropshipping from AliExpress is fully possible. You need to ensure the product works and looks as expected, set a shipping expectation with purchaser prior to purchase, then ensure any advertising costs are all weighed in to your final price to ensure you profit from each item sold.
AliExpress is a good place for a dropshipper to start as they have a huge inventory of items to pick and choose from. The issue for many is the long shipping delays from China and finding a quality product that people want to buy online without seeing in real life.
Is AliExpress Good For Dropshipping?
AliExpress has grown in reputation as a solid option for dropshippers due to the excellent cost to purchase and mail items. This can help you increase the overall profit on a per item basis much higher than a similar item from the United States.
For many though this is a hard way to learn to sell as the shipping from China is typically at least 14 days to a month. This long time after a sale to delivery can mean a substantial amount of returns or chargebacks to your account.
Should you be willing to work on the site, build user confidence and express the long shipping time you can make a lot of money. Most of the difficulties comes with being unable to properly set that expectation of the buyer.
AliExpress is also helpful as it allows you to work with the shippers to be able to brand the items before shipping, this little thing can dramatically help you pick up repeat customers.
Is AliExpress Dropshipping Profitable?
A very familiar question for people who are looking to run a dropshipping website is around profitability. The problem with many new store owners is a failure to track their expenses properly and account for them.
AliExpress dropshipping can be very profitable with the right item and the right customers. You do need to keep costs down and understand that ads, item, shipping, returns, and similar all will count against your overall profit so they need to be accounted for in the item pricing.
So in the end can AliExpress be profitable, definitely, can it be a train wreck and cause you a huge loss, definitely. In the end you must learn how you can track expenses versus revenue and find the right mixture to make the store worthwhile.
Why is AliExpress so Cheap?
There are a great many options of where you can source your products from to sell when choosing to dropship. One of the big reasons why AliExpress is loved is due to the super low cost of almost all of their products.
AliExpress is a wholesale storefront where manufacturers come to list their goods for sale. Most merchants who are selling products on AliExpress are based in China with all of their merchandise directly from Chinese manufacturers. This keeps their overall costs significantly down while offering free or cheap shipping.
Being a wholesaler allows for AliExpress to get cut rate prices that are then passed onto you and other buyers. This helps them to move high volumes of content and continue to get excellent deals for their buyers.
Where Can I Find Dropshipping Products on AliExpress?
Almost all the items listed on AliExpress could qualify as a dropshipping capable item. The thing is that you need to find products that fit more criteria to become truly success and PROFITABLE items:
- Search AliExpress Manually: Find a Niche Item Of Interest With Low Cost but High Potential Price with Target Audience.
- AliExpress Best Sellers Area: This can help show you what are the current hit products, many of which may be currently dropshipping.
- Investigate Current Ads: Look at Facebook or Similar Ads for High Interest From Users.
- Rabbit Hole: Dig down further and further looking for something unique that you feel would be a perfect store item.
- AliExpress Dropshipping Center: This tool is specifically made for dropshippers who want some extra free tools to find awesome and trending products on AliExpress
Each of the above can help you to find good products and possibly additional ideas on how to market the product also. As with everything from AliExpress I suggest purchasing an item first to ensure quality and functionality.
Buying the product will allow for your own custom images to stand out from the crowd along with help you better speak to the item and its benefits and qualities.
Is AliExpress Standard Shipping Good for Dropshipping?
There are a lot of stories around shipping from AliExpress, most aren’t shown in a favorable light. With shipping being from China to another country you need to understand delays are impossible to skip.
Would AliExpress standard shipping can leave a lot to be desired, its average delivery time to the United States can be anywhere from 14 days to 60+ days. For many store owners this can lead to high returns and chargebacks for fearing they were scammed.
This is why you need to clearly take time to set expectations with your shoppers, you can then sell them on the product through free or the super inexpensive shipping cost and high demand.
How Do I Drop Ship on AliExpress?
The best way to start dropshipping is through starting a Shopify store with this free trial, then you can add Oberlo to help pull product information from AliExpress.
To set up your store we have a full comprehensive guide to starting Shopify in this post, it is 9 steps which will lead to a completely setup storefront that you can begin using for ads and building sales.
Once the store is set up you can start gaining traffic through organic blog and keywords, the long game here is a 8-12 month build up. While this is building you can use ads on Facebook or other platforms to get instant traffic and sales.
Is it Illegal to Dropship From AliExpress?
Since I can get inexpensive products and sell the for more than I paid would thins be considered illegal? If not what pitfalls can exist to this as to why more people aren’t building and selling goods from AliExpress?
While most products are legal and able to be sold without issue, there are goods that China creates as full replicas of trademarked items. These items can end in lawsuits against you. Lastly the safety of goods from China is at best lackluster so you are open to issues with injury, etc.
When you are investigating items from someplace like AliExpress you need to do yourself a favor and really look at the item and see if image match comes back to products and whether you need to get a license to sell them to keep yourself safe.
Final Thoughts on Can You Make Money Dropshipping From AliExpress
While many people will fail at dropshipping and will find something to blame your issue isn’t with AliExpress. AliExpress has shown time and again it is able to be sold for a profit reliably with the right skills and work.
What you want to do is to change how you approach selling when you are shipping from China, you need to let your customers know. Unfortunately, what happens is store owners try to hide this fact to get the sale.
Be honest with your customers and tell them that shipping is going to be 14-30 days and set this expectation. Then people who choose to purchase the goods know they will have a wait, not setting this clearly will amount to returns and chargebacks.
Tired of Failing Dropshipping Businesses? Get Started With Shopify Today!
There are many options available today to run a dropshipping business, I love and prefer Shopify due to the simple setup and configuration options versus other platforms.
Click here today to start your totally free trial and you can see if Shopify can be the perfect option to run your store. I promise once you try it you will see why it is perfect for those shop owners who don’t have IT degrees.
