Guide (26.01.18) Ali Express Dropshipping
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AliDropship
WHAT
How to start your successful
DOES DROPSHIPPING
DROPSHIPPING BUSINESS
MEAN?
with AliExpress
‘If you’re listening to this, you are the Resistance’
John Connor, ‘Terminator Salvation’
If you’re reading this guide, you’re one of us.
You’re the one understanding that the world is changing.
You’re the one realizing that usual ordinary job doesn’t give you that much security and profit any more.
You’re the one seeing that hundreds of people all over the globe are becoming millionaires every day thanks to their
own ventures.
You’re the one looking for alternative ways of making money, and we totally understand why you’re doing this.
According to the recent survey by McKinsey Global
Institute, up to 162 million people across Europe
and the United States (which is 20-30% of the whole
working age population) are involved in some kind
of independent work.
Remarkably, the number of small businesses in
the United States has increased 49% in the last
35 years – U.S. Small Business Administration also
reports that more than 500,000 adults in the USA
started their businesses each month in 2014.
It's not only about the money – the McKinsey’s survey
results show that people who work independently in
one way or another are more satisfied with their
life regardless of their level of income, education, age
and country of residence. This is why the same
dynamics of starting self-owned business can be seen
across the continents - Africa and Asia, along with
Australia and Europe, increasingly follow the
universally growing trend.
It’s easy to see why almost everybody wants to
join this community of self-employed
independent entrepreneurs!
If you never tried dealing with your own business before, most likely, you are still in doubts now, and we guess that you
have lots and lots of questions about all this.
Don’t worry: we got it covered!
STARTING ONLINE BUSINESS:
Why it makes sense at all
There is number of reasons why a person looking for an additional source of income would prefer online business to
any other type of venture.
When you think of alternative ways to make money, usually, you want your new business to be:
QUICK TO START
If you’re still working full-time and
just want to experiment with a
new business, you obviously
can’t spend much time and
energy on learning.
LOW-COST
Different types of businesses
require different amount of
financial investments at the
beginning. For example, if you want
to open a store to resell someone
else’s products, can you afford
buying these items upfront in bulk?
EASY TO RUN
The main reason why we give up
on our regular jobs is our desire to
have more free time. Why waste
hours on dull reports or risk your
life in a dangerous manufacturing
facility if you can enjoy relaxing
time with your family?
Online business ticks all these boxes because:
1
YOU CAN START IT WITHOUT ANY EXPERIENCE AT ALL
You know nothing about online business? Not a big deal. There are tons of explanatory articles,
educational videos, thematic forum threads and other recourses to guide you through. You don’t have to
be a software specialist or a digital marketing guru: a basic set of skills will be more than enough for this.
2
YOU CAN LAUNCH IT WITH MINIMAL COSTS
There are types of online businesses that require little to no investments at the first steps of your new
journey. For example, there are reselling models like drop shipping – to open a drop shipping store, you
don’t need to risk your money and buy products beforehand. You can start with a basic simple website,
and only use free methods of marketing and promotion until you got your first profits.
3
YOU CAN MANAGE IT FROM ANY POINT ON THE GLOBE
Basically, if you run any type of online business, you are not limited with geographic boundaries. You can
work wherever and whenever it is convenient for you as long as this place has stable Internet connection.
A first-class co-working space, a sunny beach, your own tiny kitchen – feel free to choose any destination
you like because it won't matter at all.
What’s even more important, you can always go for semi-automated business solutions. Roughly speaking, there is a
particular type of online business that can run itself.
Curious to know? Let’s discover it together!
Pros and cons of common
online business models
Generally speaking, if you don’t create and sell your own product(s), you have 3 basic ways to easily earn with online
business:
Become an affiliate
Create your own website
and monetize it with
advertisements
Start e-commerce
business with the drop
shipping model
These business models share the same benefits:
EASY START
You don’t spend much on launching such a business, and it’s not obligatory for you to get officially registered.
NO PRODUCT CONCERNS
You can run these businesses without manufacturing anything. Plus, you don’t buy items from suppliers in
advance, therefore there are no risks of going bankrupt. You don’t have to rent or buy a warehouse, and you
don’t hire additional staff to work on it. Also, you don’t deal with shipments and deliveries, which saves your time
and nerves.
FLEXIBLE WORKING HOURS
You don’t depend on a fixed time and place, so you might as well go on vacation and still earn money while
relaxing on a seashore.
BUT.
If we look at these models more closely, we will
see that affiliate programs and paid ads have
a number of disadvantages that negatively
influence your profits and in general, make it
inconvenient for you to run the business.
2. Delayed access to money
Most typically, you will have to wait for 30-60
days until the earned money gets counted and
transferred to your virtual account.
These disadvantages are:
1. Multiple requirements
3. Few opportunities for growth
Any affiliate program, as well as Google AdSense,
has its terms and conditions policy which usually
sets limits on the intensity of your business
activities – and this, in turn, reduces your profit.
Basically, all these regulations can be differently
understood by you and by the program’s owner,
which is why it is a usual thing to get banned from
such programs. Plus, the terms and conditions
typically change quite often, and it’s not always
easy to keep track of them.
In other words, you’re fully dependent on the program’s owner and your business doesn’t 100% belong to you.
In these conditions, it’s impossible (and meaningless, to be honest) to develop such a venture and try to make it grow.
What’s the solution?
Let’s go to the next chapter to understand how drop shipping is different from these business models and what benefits
it can offer you!
What does dropshipping mean?
Watch our video to learn more about the dropshipping process:
HOW DROPSHIPPING
WORKS?
How dropshipping works:
1
2
3
A customer gets interested
in your products, places
an order and pays for it
You contact the supplier who
stocks this product,
and you place the same
order as your customer
5
4
The customer receives
the order and the deal
is completed
You ask the supplier to deliver
the order to the address of your
customer
What are the benefits of this type of online business?
IT'S THE IDEAL TYPE OF BUSINESS
FOR NEWCOMERS
YOU SAVE HUGE SUMS
OF MONEY
It is really simple to set up, even if you
have no previous experience in
ecommerce and Internet marketing.
Dropshipping gives you a great start –
you will have no trouble managing this
business because the supplier does
most of the job for you. Inventory
issues, stocking and shipping are not
your concern!
You don't own these products yourself,
so you don't need to rent a warehouse.
You also don't need to buy items for
your own stock. You only spend your
money on a product after a customer
has placed an order for it, so you'll
never be in the position of having
bought stock you can't sell.
YOU CAN REACH A REALLY WIDE
AUDIENCE
Dropshipping means that your store
is based on an online platform, or
ideally, on your own website. With
dropshipping your business gets an
international reach – you can connect
with any person in any place in the
world, no matter how far away they
live or what language they speak.
What is AliExpress and why would
you choose it for dropshipping?
What features make AliExpress appealing for dropshippers?
Why is it recommended to have your own
webstore for your dropshipping business?
1
2
3
4
5
What are the benefits of having
your own dropshipping webstore?
NO COMPETITION. If you post your
products on eBay, Amazon, or any
other marketplace or ads portal,
there will be lots of competitors
selling identical items for a low price.
If you use your own website, there
will be no other sellers, so visitors to
your webstore will only make their
purchases from you.
FULL CONTROL. Dropshippers who
own their own dedicated webstore
can run the site and think through
its strategy independently. It means
they are free to choose any kind of
products, they are not limited in
their pricing methods, and they can
stick to any marketing strategy they
like.
ANALYTICS. The webstore provides
the owner with detailed statistics
about the volume of orders, the
amount of revenue, the number of
visitors, etc. The website owner can
easily track the store performance
and make any changes that are
necessary.
ROADMAP: How to start your
Dropshipping business with AliExpress
Let's describe the process of choosing the right niche for your dropshipping website.
Initial research
AliExpress Most Popular Products
Amazon Best Sellers
eBay Daily Deals
This will give you plenty of valuable information and help you to decide what niche and products to choose for your
store.
Popularity and trends
When choosing a niche for your dropshipping website, you should focus only on demanded products that show positive
or at least stable trend. Go to https://trends.google.com/trends/ to get a better idea about the selected niche.
For example, let’s build a store that sells various types of cat-themed clothes and accessories. Let’s take a look at
relevant queries on Google Trends and analyze their dynamics in the last 3 years.
It is a good idea to check every possible product category you are going to sell. As you can see on these graphs, people
get more interested in these items every year, so this is a good niche with an appealing potential.
Below you can see a niche ('Nokia') that is not recommended:
Competition
Of course, it is almost impossible to find a popular niche with a good trend but without competition. Before launching
your dropshipping store, it is strongly recommended that you search for similar web stores on the Internet. If you find
several popular sites offering the same products (especially with good prices), you should probably think about finding
another niche and products, which are generally harder to find. Obviously, there is no point in creating another generic
"Shoes", "Car parts", or "Gardening" store. It's better to take a narrow niche and try to be creative.
A broad niche might sound like a good idea, and we do understand people who are dreaming about starting an
authority website where they can sell many different products, however in practice it can be very tough to get traffic and
orders from a site like this.
SOME REASONS TO GO NARROW:
01
02
03
04
Due to your specialty, people will be ready
to come to you again and again because
you are “the one” in their minds.
05
When you narrow your niche, you get
a better understanding about what you
are going to sell
It's easier to rank higher in search engine
results for particular search terms
It is always easier to focus on one
audience and plan your marketing
strategies
To get a better idea about a narrow niche, take look at this website we created for one of our clients:
AliExpress stock
Before starting to build your web store, make sure there are enough categories and products available in the selected
niche. Go to AliExpress.com and enter necessary keywords in the search bar. In our case, we started with entering the
“cat” query – as you can see, there are thousands of items related to cat-themed clothes and accessories. This is why we
can be sure it is a popular niche.
Prices
Generally, AliExpress offers very competitive (often unbeatable) prices for many products, however we would always
recommend conducting some basic research about the prices of products you are going to sell on your site.
Ideally, AliExpress prices should be twice lower than the prices of your competitors.
You should pick at least 5-10 products in the selected niche and find the best prices for these items on AliExpress. Next,
go to Google and search for the same products in order to compare their prices with prices at AliExpress.
Let's take an example:
We found a highly popular cat necklace (look at the rating and the number of orders) for $0.81.
Then, we looked for the
identical offers from other
sellers. Here is the example
from Amazon:
As a result, we can see that
we can have a good margin
selling this item.
Product categories
For example, let's take a “cat hoodie” query and check the results.
In spite of the fact that this keyword has high competition, its search volume looks rather good.
One by one you can select keywords for the main categories that will be presented on your site.
Step 2: Choose a Domain Name and Hosting Provider
Domain name
Hosting
AliDropship
HostGator.com
GoDaddy.com
Annual plans starting
at $3.96 per month.
Plans starting at $5
per month
AliDropship.com
Plans starting at $4 per
month. Perfectly optimized
for AliDropship plugin
Step 3: Install WordPress
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) that you should install on your web server
(hosting).
To start the installation process, you firstly need to download WordPress from its official Download Page. There are two
ways to install WordPress – quick installation or manual installation. Simply follow the instructions below to install
WordPress using your chosen method:
WordPress Quick Installation with HostGator
WordPress Manual Installation
Step 4: Setup AliDropship Plugin
The AliDropship Plugin offers a complete set of features that allow you to
easily start and run a successful dropshipping webstore. With this plugin, you
can easily search for and add products to your site just by specifying
categories, keywords, purchase volumes and other filtering options to find
the best products.
Or, just visit AliExpress.com,
find a necessary item and
import it directly to your site
in just one click. The desired
product will appear on your
site instantly.
See how it works:
In addition, you don't have to worry about changes in products prices, variations and inventory. The Plugin's auto
updating system will keep your product info fresh with the latest data from AliExpress.
The Plugin offers
great functionality
and many helpful
tools. All your
products, pricing,
sales, profit, traffic
stats and orders are
available and
managed within one
single control panel.
The AliDropship
Plugin features
built-in themes
that you can easily
customize and
setup according to
your own
preferences.
All themes are mobile-friendly and have
professional stylish design to meet all
modern requirements and trends of
successful online stores.
The process of importing products with the AliDropship Plugin is quick and easy - and there are no limits on the number
or type of products you can add to your store.
We do however
recommend that you add
products carefully and
focus on those that have
over 300 orders and a 4*
or higher rating.
In addition, we highly
recommend offering your
customers a free shipping
option on all items by
taking advantage of the
free/low cost delivery
offered by many
AliExpress sellers.
When possible, try to take only
products which offer free or very
cheap ePacket shipping. Since the
majority of products on AliExpress
come from China, ePacket delivery is
not only the most economical option,
but also one of the quickest ways for
small goods to get to the United
States, as well as other countries.
1
Install the AliDropship Google Chrome extension.
2
Go to AliExpress.com and start searching for products.
3
If the AliDropship Chrome extension is activated on your browser, it will detect and show you the items with
ePacket automatically:
4
Visit a product page
and click the Import
button on the top
red panel. The
product will be sent
to your site.
If you want to edit
product before
import, click Edit
button. Change
product title,
description, price,
image gallery,
variations as you
wish and Publish or
Import product.
After your products were added to your store, you can edit product descriptions or at least product titles in order to
make them unique and look more professional. Having your own unique content will serve your business to rank
well on Google and will help you convert better on product pages.
It heavily depends on what kind of products you are selling. It's often a good idea to stick to low prices, with a high margin
potential. Such products usually cost within a $1-$20 price range and can generally then be priced at $20-$50 or more.
You can also try this formula that works well for our own dropshipping projects:
$0$100=Your Price: Supplier Price x 1.35
The AliDropship Plugin has a
special Pricing Automation
system, which you can use to
create your own mark-up
formula and apply to all or
particular products.
Now that you have your store
filled with products and are
ready to dropship, it's time to
think about promotion.
1
SMM
Social media marketing (SMM) is the process of gaining traffic from social
media sites, lifting sales, raising brand awareness, gaining reputation and
communicating with customers on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc), as well as in blogs and forums.
Commonly businesses avoid too much advertizing on social media, however the experience of some of our
thriving projects shows that selling goods via social media is not only possible, but can be a great success. Just look
at this Facebook fan page and the number of its subscribers! The conversion rate of this store is really high owing
to SMM! Some niches, such as fashion, sports, fan merchandise, entertainment, baby care, etc., are ideal for sales
via social media, so why not take advantage of this strategy?
We have great experience of promoting dropshipping businesses via SMM channels and have proved that the
most winning strategies are:
Attracting attention to dropshipping stores in niche Facebook groups. See the strategy and a success story:
How We Made $4500+ Revenue in Three Months of Promoting Our Dropshipping Store in Facebook Groups;
Shoutouts on Instagram. See the strategy and a success story:
How We Upgraded from 3 Orders in March to 195 Orders in May by Promoting Our Dropshipping Store via
Instagram Shoutouts;
Auto-promotion with Social Rabbit plugin. See the strategy and a success story:
How We Got 66 Orders and $813 in Just One Month by Promoting Our Dropshipping Store in Social Media
with a Special Plugin;
You are welcome to share your own success story and SMM strategy with us and with the dynamic community of
dropshippers we've created. Contact us, tell your story and become a new hero of our blog!
2
Facebook Advertizing
Make sure your website and
Facebook page are ready for new
visitors, and ensure that all the
necessary information is provided
and all works well;
Choose products to be promoted:
your own favorites or the ones
marked as bestsellers on AliExpress;
Control and optimize your
campaign. We'd recommend
starting with small amounts until
you gain some experience and get
ready for managing higher budgets.
Read the success story of one of our clients who used Facebook advertizing: 2,500+ Orders in the First Three
Months.
3
SEO
If you want to get more clients from search engines then you should take care of the following on-page SEO
activities:
3
Video Marketing
Every video should also be optimized right at the moment you upload it (not later):
4
Email Marketing
What you need to do:
On checkout, you can leave a message for the seller, like:
“We're dropshipping. No promotions & invoices, please!”
That's it! Now it's just a matter of waiting for your customer to receive his order.
What should I do if my customer didn't receive the order?
In case your client did not receive the order or is not satisfied with his purchase, you should follow the AliExpressBuyers
Protection Policy.
AliExpress has a good protection system, with a full money back guarantee. So, if your customer is not satisfied with a
product and asks for a refund, you should dispute the purchase with the AliExpress seller. If you are selling inexpensive
products, your AliExpress supplier should usually refund you quickly without having to return the items because they
don't want the headache of disputes and receiving returns for relatively low value items. This enables you to give a full
or partial refund to your customer through PayPal without them having returns either. The reputation of the wholesaler
is rather exposed and they are willing to do anything to maintain their feedback rating.
Benefits of using our solutions
AliDropship is a great comprehensive solution developed for those interested in running an AliExpress dropshipping
business. Using the service, customers can:
What are the unique benefits of AliDropship?
HIGH PROFITS
NO EXTRA CHARGES
The service is developed to let dropshippers earn as
much as possible. It is achieved by using numerous
instruments of website development, marketing,
promotion, etc. that are easy to understand and use.
You pay for the service once, and you won't be charged
any additional fees later on. You won't have to pay any
commission for successfully processed orders, and there
is no limit on the number of completed transactions.
CONVENIENCE
FLEXIBILITY
You can order a customized dropshipping website with
all the settings in place, and it will let you start your
business smoothly. You will get a turnkey webstore and
professional help from customer support members
who will guide you through the whole business process.
If you have some basic knowledge about developing and
running your own website, you can just buy the
AliDropship plugin to adapt your website for
dropshipping purposes.
OWNERSHIP
You are the full and only owner of the webstore. There is no need to get anyone's approval while selecting products,
styling your website or choosing a marketing strategy. You have all the rights to create your own brand, build a specific
strategy for promoting the store and interacting with customers – and you can sell your store later on as a valuable asset.
Are You Ready to Start
Your Dropshipping Business Today?
If you want to build your own dropshipping
store right now, buy our powerful AliDropship
plugin with a 15% discount!
Coupon code:
STARTER15
In case you want a 100% hassle-free start,
order a turnkey custom store with a 10%
Discount - and begin getting revenues from
day one!
Coupon code:
CUSTOM10
Order Custom Store
Buy Plugin
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