How To Select Dropshipping Suppliers on AliExpress

You’ll find plenty of stories about fake AliExpress suppliers circulating around the web. Recently, AliExpress.com have spent a lot of resources into combatting this, so it’s quite rare that you would find an stories about dropshipping suppliers who scam.

Although the platform is taking care of fraudulent dropshipping suppliers itself, we still suggest that you perform a background check on your drop shipping suppliers. Not only will this help you to ensure that your customers will receive a high-quality service, but also to ensure that they will enjoy product satisfaction.

We’ve put this article together to show you how to find dropshippers on AliExpress, and show you the types of dropshipping suppliers you should avoid.

Don’t Always Go For the Lowest Price

Don’t get overly excited when you find the same product at a fraction of the price. Typically, the price of a product on AliExpress.com is comparative with the product’s quality. If you’re looking for dropshipping suppliers who offer high-quality goods for your store, you may need to spend a little more money when you’re sourcing products.

When you’re sourcing products, you’ll find that there are a lot of AliExpress suppliers offering similar products.  It’s a great idea to compare the prices which various different dropshipping suppliers have set. If a number of sellers have similar prices for the same product, but you find that one supplier has a drastically lower price, this could indicate that the product is of a lower quality. Another key point is to check out the AliExpress supplier’s reviews to determine if there has been any negative reviews about their quality — this will help you to find the best dropshipping suppliers for your store.

Although a lower price does not necessarily mean that the dropshipping supplier’s products are of a lower quality and vice versa, we highly recommend that you avoid the following situation:

Remember that drop shipping suppliers on AliExpress.com have very tight margins and understand them well, which is why a higher price normally means a better quality product.

Buy From AliExpress Dropshipping Suppliers Which Have 95%+ Positive Feedback

Two of the most important factors while evaluating AliExpress dropshipping suppliers are their Feedback Score and Positive Feedback Rate. The Feedback Score indicates the seller’s sales volume, while the Positive Feedback Rate represents the feedback rate which the dropshipping supplier has received. When you’re choosing AliExpress dropshipping suppliers you should always aim for 95% and higher positive feedback rate and at least a 2,000 feedback score. Always try to bare this in mind when you’re searching for dropshipping suppliers.

How To Select Dropshipping Suppliers on AliExpress

When you’re running your ecommerce business you’ll need to build up a foundation of reliable dropshipping suppliers. Take note that this doesn’t automatically mean that dropshipping suppliers with a lower feedback score can’t be trusted, but it’s a good general measure to go by.

Next, you should consider their individual product feedback and their order counts. It’s much safer to buy a product that has been ordered a few thousand times with a 90% positive feedback score, than a product that has only been sold twice but has a 100% positive feedback score. Look for any unhappy customers. Usually, the unhappy customers help identify possible products defects and issues. You’ll also be able to view customer reviews for individual products, which will likely include images for said item — it’s another great way to validate a dropshipping supplier.

However, if a certain product doesn’t yet have any feedback, look up the other products that the dropshipping supplier carries and check the feedback. If you notice that the other products which the drop shipping supplier is selling have good feedback then you’re good to go, it not then you may want to stay away from that supplier.

Be Careful With Dropshipping Suppliers Selling Brand Products

As a dropshipper, it’s imperative that you avoid dropshipping suppliers on AliExpress who are selling counterfeit or knockoff goods. Genuine designer products are rarely found on AliExpress.com — it’s always best to avoid popular brand name products in your store, as they’re likely fake.

If you find that a drop shipping supplier which you’re sourcing products from is selling counterfeit goods then you should avoid using them and report that seller to AliExpress. You could end up in legal trouble if you’re found to be selling copyrighted products, so it’s always best to avoid anything that looks suspicious.

You can also check out our guide to avoiding counterfeit goods on AliExpress 

Pay Attention to the Responsiveness of Drop Shipping Suppliers

Let’s say you have an emergency situation — a customer files a dispute on your PayPal account and insists on a reshipment for their order. In this situation, you’d want your drop shipping supplier to respond to you immediately, right?

In order to protect yourself against such situations, always check the responsiveness of AliExpress suppliers before importing any of their products to your ecommerce store. You can simply write them a message via AliExpress.com and see how quickly you receive an appropriate response. You can even create a fictional scenario where you say you haven’t received your order. Note how long it takes for your seller to reply and how they handle the situation.

A great dropshipping supplier will respond to you quickly, be understanding of your problem, and act fast to rectify it. Thankfully, you’ll be able to find lots of great dropshipping suppliers on AliExpress.

When you’re asking the question: ‘how to find dropshippers on AliExpress?’, it’s imperative that you keep the responsiveness of your drop shipping suppliers in mind. Combine their responsiveness with the quality and price of the products that they’re selling, and you’ll have a strong idea about the type of drop shipping supplier that you’re dealing with.

How to Find Dropshippers on AliExpress by Ordering Samples

When the primary due diligence of the drop shipping supplier is over and you’ve imported their products to your store you should place a couple of test orders to determine their quality. If your funds allow it, we suggest that you order 3–5 samples from different sellers.

Product samples are a great tool when you’re determining how to find dropshippers on AliExpress. Review your product samples and check which items have the highest quality — this will allow you to understand how reliable the dropshipping supplier is. You’ll also be putting yourself in the customers shoes, which will further help you to understand which are the best dropshipping suppliers.

It’s likely that you won’t be able to order samples of all the products which you’re planning to sell, but try ordering from as many sellers in your store as possible to see how long the delivery actually takes, the quality of the product, and the packaging which they use for shipping.

While it makes perfect sense to order samples before selling them in your store, it may also be useful to wait until you have already imported their products. If you’ve researched the dropshipping supplier carefully before you decided to import any of their products into your store, your first sale could be the final step for validating them as a supplier for your ecommerce business. There are plenty of drop shipping suppliers on AliExpress which you can test products from, so don’t be discouraged if your first drop shipping supplier doesn’t work out perfectly.

General Safety Tips — Buyers’ Safety Programme

AliExpress.com guarantees a full refund if a customer doesn’t receive the order and a partial refund if the item which you receive is not as described. So, if the order hasn’t arrived within the promised time, or if the product differs from what was described, simply contact the seller or submit a refund request by clicking ‘Open Dispute’ on AliExpress. From this page you can formally discuss possible solutions with the dropshipping supplier. If you’re not satisfied with the seller’s suggestions, you can escalate the dispute to AliExpress.com. They will then mediate between both you and the seller to resolve the issue

Choose the Right Drop Shipping Supplier for Your Business

Now that you’re armed with plenty of top tips for finding the best drop shipping suppliers on AliExpress, it’s time to start sourcing great products for your own ecommerce store. Here’s a quick recap just before you start sourcing your own products:

• Always try to use AliExpress products with 95%+ positive feedback.
• When dropshipping from AliExpress, low-priced products aren’t always the best option.
• Try to avoid branded products, they may be counterfeit.
• Check the responsiveness of the drop shipping supplier.

GoodLuck

Copy writter © 2018 John Freech

16 Dropshipping Tips for New Entrepreneurs You Need to Know

 Many aspects of a dropshipping business being automated, you’ll have  more time to focus on marketing. While tweaking a website, designing a logo, and creating graphics can be a lot of fun, marketing is the money maker. You’ll need to spend time learning how to master ads, grow your traffic, converting your store’s visitors.

Ads and search engine optimization can help drive more traffic to your store. Keep in mind that most ecommerce stores convert at a rate of 1-2%. That means if you have less than 100 visitors on your site you probably won’t be getting any sales. The more traffic you can get to your store the more likely you are to convert the sale. Most focus on ads as it’s instant gratification and can drive a lot of sales in a short time. However, SEO can help drive the long term sales by allowing you to rank high in search. Creating blog content and optimizing product pages can help you build an audience in search with minimal ad spend keeping your acquisition costs low.

Your website also needs to be optimized for conversions. Do you use scarcity and urgency to compel people to buy on your store? Have you added AliExpress customer reviews to your store to give it the social proof that it needs? Is your website presentable from a customer’s perspective? Are you missing images on your homepage? There are many actions you can take to ensure you’re optimizing your online store correctly.

2. Create an Amazing Offer – Dropshipping Tips

An important dropshipping tip is to create a compelling offer. Don’t be the store owner who fails to include sales or bundles. If none of your products are on sale people may lack the motivation to buy your product. However, if you present the right product with the right deal you’ll be more likely to convert them.

Bundle deals can also work really well. When creating a bundle deal, focus on selling more of the same product. For example, if you sell hair extensions your bundle would include more hair extensions. If people love the product, they’ll want more of it. The hard part is convincing your customer to pull out his or her credit card, but once it’s out – upsell, upsell, upsell.

3. Avoid Underpricing Your Products – Dropshipping Tips

Dropshipping products from AliExpress or Oberlo Supply allows you to keep your product costs low. The cost of goods are usually relatively close to wholesale price, allowing you to sell products at market value and make a profit. The goal of a dropshipping business is to be profitable. If you’re selling a five dollar product, you should be charging around $19.99 for it. You need to consider the cost of goods, marketing, business expenses, and eventually hiring a team.

If other brands are undercutting their prices, don’t undercut yours. As long as your prices are fair and within market value, you should maintain a profitable price point. You should also work to increase average order value so that you make a higher profit from every order. Create strategies that will allow you to make more money overall.

4. Remove Bad Suppliers Quickly – Dropshipping Tips

While most AliExpress suppliers are easy to work with, reliable, and offer good products, sometimes a bad apple or two slip through. With thousands of AliExpress suppliers, you can easily replace a bad supplier. Many suppliers sell similar products, allowing you to sometimes even sell the exact same product but from another manufacturer.

If you notice suppliers don’t use the shipping delivery method you’ve chosen or consistently ship faulty products, then you can easily remove their products from your store. Again, this isn’t very common. Suppliers know that by offering quality service you’ll continue bringing them more sales.

5. Automate More of Your Business – Dropshipping Tips

Using dropshipping tools like Oberlo, many aspects of your business will be automated. However, if you have a full-time job or are looking to create a more passive income, figuring out how to automate more aspects of your business will allow you more freedom to pursue your passions.

Ecommerce automation tools can help you grow and scale your business quickly. Buffer allows you to automate social media posting. Kit automates marketing tasks like advertising, retargeting, emails, and more.

6. Ensure Your Website is Presentable – Dropshipping Tips

One of the most important dropshipping tips is to make sure your website is customer friendly. By that I mean your website shouldn’t scare off a customer. Many new store owners start marketing their stores when their home page is missing images, has placeholder text and all of their products are lumped together in one big category.

Before launching your store, take a look at other websites in your niche. What does their home page look like? What’s the format of the copy on their product page? Do their images include logos on them? What types of pages does their website have? Which features or apps does the store include on their website?

After taking notes about the look and layout of different stores in your niche, browse through the Shopify app store to find apps that allow you to model your store after other successful brands. You might include countdown timers, shoppable instagram galleries or affiliate programs. You can also add pages to your website such as refund policies, FAQs, shipping information, and more.

When it comes to banner images for your homepage, feel free to use relevant stock photos from Burst. You’ll be able to find images for a range of niches and they’re free to use and modify on your store.

7. General Vs. Niche Store – Dropshipping Tips

If the goal of creating a store is purely for experimentation and to find the right niche, create a general store. You’ll still need to create separate product categories for each product type to allow for easy browsing. While most successful stores start with a specific niche focus, the idea behind the general store would be that it’s your starter store.

If you’ve already done your research or have validated your business idea, you should work on building out a niche store. Your niche store allows you to have a focus making finding the right audience for your products easy. The running niche would be an example of a niche within the general fitness category. You don’t need to include your niche name in your domain if you plan to expand into other product categories as you grow. Brands like Amazon started as a niche store (online book store) and eventually expanded to become a store that sells everything.

8. Prepare to Pivot – Dropshipping Tips

While a dropshipping business is easy to startup and great for new entrepreneurs, it’s still a business. You’re going to experience challenges and obstacles that’ll require you to find a way to overcome adversity.

You’ll be required to pivot several times as you grow your store. Your supplier might remove all of their inventory, forcing you to find another way to get products to your customer. A new trend might pop up within your niche that you need to add to your store immediately to capitalize on sales. A product you really like might not be liked by your customers requiring its removal from your store. An ad might perform really well and require you to scale quickly resulting in you negotiating with your bank for a business loan.

A pivot isn’t good or bad, it’s a requirement if you want your business to last for years to come. You’ll need to have the intuition to know when to take action in your business to ensure its continued growth.

9. Offer Exceptional Customer Service – Dropshipping Tips

There are ways to stand out when selling the same products as everyone else. One of the best ways is to offer great customer service. Offering refunds and responding to customer inquiries is important but it doesn’t really separate you for many of the big brands out there.

Joke around with your customers. Write them thank you cards if they order from your store multiple times. Run monthly giveaways exclusive to customers who’ve ordered from you in the past. Do whatever it takes to make each customer feel valued and appreciated. If it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t become a success. Start these customer appreciation habits from your very first sale.

Customers might not always remember what they bought from your website but they’ll always remember how you treated them.

10. Choose Products Based on Figures – Dropshipping Tips

With AliExpress dropshipping, it’s easy to find the best products. If products have received thousands of orders then they have the social proof to validate them as a product worth selling. Once you find the products with the highest volume, you want to take a look at the reviews. Are the product reviews high? Do the customer pictures look like the product picture? Are there a lot of positive product reviews? If so, you’ll want to add that product to your store as it’s likely to get positive feedback from you as well. You also want to look at the seller rating to ensure that overall feedback is positive.

Be picky about the products you add to your store. Don’t merely add products because they look nice and you’d like it for yourself. Look at the data – are these products getting sales and positive feedback. Doing so will give you a better chance of landing your first sale.

A great tool you should use as a dropshipper is the AliExpress Seller Check Chrome Extension. You’ll be able to see a detailed report on each seller’s rating on AliExpress such as how long they’ve been on AliExpress, how much you can trust them based on goods sold, how fast their shipping delivery is and more.

11. Always Choose ePacket – Dropshipping Tips

As a dropshipper, you’re free to sort products based on ePacket shipping. Since ePacket shipping is the fastest affordable shipping method, you’ll be able to ensure quick delivery to customers without breaking the bank. On average, ePacket shipping costs under $5 for most products. This allows you to still make a profit when selling goods at market value. From personal experience, I’ve seen ePacket deliveries reach customers within a week making it the best delivery method for dropshippers.

12. Be Active Daily – Dropshipping Tips

Running a business requires daily effort. You don’t need to spend eight hours a day working on your business but you’ll need to spend at least an hour a day on your store as you grow your sales. Each day, you’ll need to process orders so that products arrive to your customers promptly. You’ll also need to respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours (ideally less) so that customers can depend on you.

Marketing efforts will also need to take place each day. You can automate your social media posting at the beginning of the week. However, you should aim to be active on social media daily. You’ll also want to make sure that your ads are always running.

13. Import 25 Items to Start – Dropshipping Tips

When I built my first online store four years ago, I made the mistake of importing 600 products to my store in one day. I know it can be exciting to add a ton of great products to your store since it can be done in just one click.

Here’s the problem though: When you add too many products to your store, you need to rewrite product descriptions and maybe remove the logo from a few images. Writing copy for even 100 products can be time consuming and exhausting, especially if you’re a student or hold a 9 to 5 job. Stick to 25 at the start. You can write quality product descriptions for 25 items in only a few hours.

By starting with a smaller collection, you’ll be able to launch your business quickly so you can start making sales. Once a week you can add 10 to 20 new products so that you build out your store’s collection while already making a profit. You don’t need 100 products to get your first sale. All you need is one great product to land your first sale.

14. Monitor Your Competition – Dropshipping Tips

Another dropshipping tip is to like your competitors on social media. Monitor their websites and social media pages regularly. By liking their page, you’ll start receiving their product and retargeting ads. Which products do they advertise? Does that product get a lot of engagement such as comments or shares?

By monitoring and paying attention to your competition, you’ll know which products you should be selling on your store. When you pay attention to the types of posts your competitors add to their social media pages, you’ll know what type of content people within your niche really like — this helps make you a better marketer.

15. Change the Oberlo Custom Note – Dropshipping Tips

As a dropshipper, you should change your custom note to your supplier. Under Settings, click Suppliers, you’ll find Custom Note on the bottom. Here you can leave a message for all your suppliers. You’ll want something that’s relevant to all your suppliers.

On my store our message reads, ‘Ship with EPACKET only! We’re dropshipping. Please no invoices or promotions!’ Since we only import ePacket products, we remind suppliers to use ePacket shipping when shipping products to ensure customers receive their goods quickly. We also tell them that we’re dropshipping so that they don’t add their invoices or marketing materials in packages. We haven’t had an issue with suppliers adding their own invoices or promotions in a package because of this message.

16. Use Oberlo Supply – Dropshipping Tips

If you’re launching your first dropshipping store, you should consider using Oberlo Supply. Oberlo Supply allows you to dropship quality products from some of the best suppliers. You’ll be able to find products from the most popular niches. The best part about using Oberlo Supply is that you won’t need to process orders as products immediately get sent to suppliers making it great for those with busy schedules. You’ll have more time to focus on running marketing campaigns so that you can make more money.

It’s great for new entrepreneurs because it makes the business even easier to run. It’s also great for experienced entrepreneurs because it allows you to build a high volume store without having to process orders allowing you to save money and time.

Are you an experienced store owner? Which dropshipping tips would you share with new entrepreneurs to help them build their first store? If you’re a new store owner, let us know which of these dropshipping tips helped you the most.

Good  luck

Copy writter © 2018 John Freech

5 Things You Need to Know to Ensure Drop Shipping Success

Nordstrom’s recent investment in supply chain software firm Dsco (formerly known as DropShip Commerce) uncovered not only their efforts to boost the speed of online order fulfillment, but also the growing trend for retailers to leverage technology to create faster, differentiated experiences as ecommerce continues to proliferate.

drop shipping

Drop shipping can be an extremely beneficial tactic for retailers when done right because it offloads some risks associated with inventory management. But for suppliers and retailers alike, it can create additional layers of complexity and challenges associated with quality and speed, among others. Therefore, drop shipping requires sophisticated, real-time API (Application Programming Interface) connectivity between all parties to support the logistics behind it.

We will discuss 5 things you need to know about drop shipping, including the benefits, challenges, and, most importantly, how to win.

What it is: Drop shipping (briefly) defined
Drop shipping is a retail fulfillment method where a third party, typically a manufacturer or distributor, handles shipment of a product to the customer after being purchased directly on a retailer’s website. It’s different from standard ecommerce fulfillment and delivery because the retailer never stocks or owns the inventory, eliminating significant up-front investments.

A drop shipping agreement between the retailer and that third party eliminates several steps of the typical supply chain. Retailers can offer a wider range of products online without ever needing to personally handle the inventory. And they only purchase items directly from the distributer or manufacturer as their customers buy them.

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The pros
There are several benefits of drop shipping for merchants. Most broadly, it reduces a lot of challenges that both new and established retailers would face if they were using a standard fulfillment model. For example:

Less upfront capital required – Retailers often tie up significant capital in purchasing inventory. Drop shipping requires less upfront investment by enabling a more on demand model. Nordstrom, for example, doesn’t need to stock hundreds of pairs of a new shoe.
Lower overhead – Since retailers aren’t actually keeping merchandise in stock, they don’t have to pay for warehouse space or oversee operations to keep items handy.
Increased flexibility – Retailers are also able to offer a wider array of products at no additional cost, allowing them to better meet consumer needs, scale quickly and rapidly respond to the evolving purchasing demands of today’s consumer. They can sell new items or remove old ones from their website easily without stressing about excess leftover inventory.


The cons
While drop shopping is a very attractive model, with the convenience comes a couple of challenges that need to be considered:

Limited visibility – Since retailers are shipping from outside their owned inventory, they often lose visibility into key fulfillment milestones like ship dates, delivery timeframes and shipment tracking.
Stock-out risk and inventory issues – When retailers are sourcing from multiple warehouses and not managing their own inventory, they lose insight into how much of a certain item is available, resulting in less control over out-of-stock situations. Additionally, suppliers don’t always utilize modern API technology required to provide real-time updates around inventory levels and changes.
Supplier coordination – Drop shipping often requires working with multiple suppliers for various products, which can become complex when trying to manage them all. This can result in errors on the supplier side, for which the retailer is typically held responsible. Additionally, a retailer’s ability to maintain a consistent cultural and brand experience is reduced when giving fulfillment control to their suppliers.
Competitive landscape – Since drop shipping is an affordable fulfillment method even for small businesses, lots of competitors are also taking advantage of it. More cutthroat competition can result in lower margins.


How to win at drop shipping
The retailer and the consumer are the top winners with drop shipping. However, suppliers are also seeing great benefits from this tactic, since it has become increasingly in-demand, meaning ample new business opportunities and profits.

While there are some built-in complexities to the process, drop shipping can be seamless and near-fool proof with the right planning and technology in place. For example, when using APIs to facilitate data flow, information can be transmitted between a retailer’s system and a supplier’s within nanoseconds, reducing the abovementioned risks.

When it’s done right, drop shipping can be the perfect logistical orchestration that benefits all parties involved. However, when marred with challenges like lack of visibility into supplier inventory or complexity from managing too many different suppliers, it can result in unhappy customers or lost sales. The best way to avoid that is to have API technology in place that ensures on-demand transparency and communication between retailer, supplier and end consumer.

Successfully drop shipping freight items
API connectivity between retailers, suppliers and end consumers becomes even more critical when dealing with larger ecommerce items (freight – think: furniture). With freight items, online ordering and fulfillment is still done manually. There is no live data feed connecting the supplier, retailer, final-mile transportation provider and consumer.

Because of that, it’s increasingly difficult for retailers to select the optimal fulfillment method to meet their customers’ needs, and nearly impossible to coordinate a seamless drop ship fulfillment of large items. Without API connectivity, retailers selling freight items through an ecommerce portal are missing out on innovative fulfillment solutions. For this reason they can lose customers to outfits like Amazon, Alibaba and Walmart that are able to provide both choice and transparency from point of purchase through delivery.

Leveraging the right tech for growth
Regarding Nordstrom’s investment in Dsco, a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, “Dsco is helping to improve [customers’] online experience by reducing complexity in our supply chain.[1]” The move came as Nordstrom reported that online sales accounted for 20.7% of overall company sales for Q1.

As ecommerce continues to grow and the desire to reduce supply chain complexity increases, drop shipping will be seen as a way to speed delivery and cut out middlemen. APIs allow for integrated, immediate communication between the retailer, consumer and a potential drop ship vendor. With the right technology systems making drop shipping seamless for the retailer, distributor or manufacturer and the consumer, it’s a winning method all around.

Good Luck

Copy writter © 2018 John Freech