With the rise of demand for online work, people tend to become more creative in order to make money. Online selling platforms, like AliExpress, offer various ways to its customers on how to buy affordable items and how to earn money from them.
One of these is what we call, dropshipping. Sounds familiar? If not, then let’s take a look at what is dropshipping with AliExpress!
AliExpress Review Summary
Product Name: AliExpress
Creator: Alibaba Company
Summary:
AliExpress is an online shopping platform that offers cheaper prices of its products as compared with its competitors like Amazon, Ebay and other similar services. It is also widely know for its Dropshipping offers to its customers. It is as easy as buying products from them but there are other factors such as your online store and supplier management, that you need to work on
AliExpress Dropshipping is good but I don’t think it is the best way to go if you want to earn or start a business. Too many legal risks, too!
Price: Free sign-up
Best For: Online shopping
Rating: 5 out of 10
Not Recommended
What is AliExpress?
If you are into online shopping and simply prefers doing things online, then you might have come across AliExpress. It is an online store that is known for its cheaper prices compared with its competitors like Amazon, eBay and other similar services.
AliExpress is owned by Alibaba, a massive Chinese multinational company focusing on e-commerce and computing. Alibaba is also one of the world’s largest internet companies. They founded AliExpress in 2010 primarily as an online selling platform of different products.
How does AliExpress work?
For the past years, AliExpress is becoming popular in the field of dropshipping.
Dropshipping is a convenient business model that allows entrepreneurs to start an ecommerce store without ever stocking inventory. In dropshipping, your suppliers will store the products for you in their warehouses. If you make a sale they will be the one to pack and send it to your customers. Whenever a customer buys your product you just have to contact your supplier to get it shipped.
If you choose AliExpress dropshipping, it already offers a huge catalogue of products. Starting entrepreneurs can find and source products for their e-commerce businesses using the website. For your online sales, if you were able to sell some from it, you can then purchase your products from AliExpress suppliers. They will ship those orders to your customers.
How to Earn Money through AliExpress Dropshipping?
So, here’s how you make money:
AliExpress is selling their inventory at the wholesale price. Basically, instead of buying 30 items of a certain product and getting a discount, AliExpress will sell 1 item with the same or similar discount.
Which means that if you sell the same product for the retail price (or just a little lower), you get to keep the monetary difference.
For example, if AliExpress is selling a T-shirt for the price of $10, and you’re marketing it as $15 on your site, then if someone purchases it through you, you’re making $5 per shirt.
Looking at the business model, it is easy to understand how to earn money. You sell and get profit from your sales. The following are noteworthy:
- Your prices are not regulated by the SRP (Suggested Retail Price). You can strategically name the price of your products.
- You can also come up with your own policies: quality, payment, refund or return policy.
However, it might not be as easy as it looks to be. Like any other business it also has its own workload for it to be successful and legitimate! So what are the good things and the serious problems encountered with AliExpress Dropshipping?
Good things to consider …
There several good reasons why most of AliExpress’ were dropshipping other than merely shopping and purchasing directly from their website. There are actually more resellers than buyers and most probably it is because of the following reasons:
Free Start-up
Dropshipping with AliExpress is also comparatively easy. It is one of the free start-up business online that requires less commitment especially in checking or trying out products. Even the services that come with it are also free at first. Who wouldn’t want something free, right?
Access and use of some of their promotional materials
AliExpress also gives freedom to their customers in accessing their existing promotional materials. This includes photos and descriptions that can help you sell better. However, it is also recommended that you invest on your own promotional and marketing tools or materials. One good reason is for you to be able to manage you branding. You can also personalize the description so you can balance the truth and facts about the material.
Easy process
The same process goes when doing a dropshipping transaction. It is like buying the product for them in the website. You simply put your customer’s name and address on AliExpress!
Is AliExpress a Scam? How safe is it?
It is not a scam because you honestly gain income from dropshipping. But there are also a lot of legalities at stake which will cost you more. it’s best to weigh the options and count the costs. Here are some things you need to look into:
Multipletasks, Lots of app downloads
There multiple steps, apps to download and platforms to research on. You need to make sure you have your store and your own inventory.
Create your own store or page using social media platforms. This is also needed so that you can look for customers and dropshipping channels. There are already droppshipping apps that can help you to this like Shopify which has an automated product feed. You also have to do your own inventory and notetaking of sales. There are apps for this like Oberlo.
Delayed Shipment
In dropshipping, you are not able to control shipment as the supplier will do it for you. This is one of the inevitable problems in this business and which also causes bad impression you’re your store.
Supplier Management
Even though you do not have a direct control over this, it is something you have to be careful with. Supplier management, proper inventory and shipping methods are very crucial. Since this is a business, customer satisfaction is at its core.
You have to make sure that your customers are satisfied with the total product quality and services. Most of the suppliers online right now are into profit and not on customer satisfaction. All successful dropshippers work very closely with trusted and legitimate suppliers.
Copyright Issues
One of the unique issues of dropshippers in AliExpress is the copyright infringement. There are a lot of stores in their website that sells counterfeit goods. Well, this is very common to most people that these products really put the dropshippers into legal entanglements with legitimate companies whose product were copied by some Chinese manufacturers.
Payment Methods
With reason above on copyright, most payment options are banning websites and stores to make any money transaction with the customer. They ban or became more strict with their policies and validity of identity for users.
Here are some legal issues I came across with in my research:
- Company registration and tax is also another challenge. Most of the dropshipping transactions are made internationally and within your locality. In the case of international shipping, you should be aware of the business laws and rules that regulate it. This could cause a great damage on your business if overlooked.
- The product research and selection become very important. You have to keep yourself updated of the market trend. In this way you will keep customers easily or find new ones. Selling old or outdated products wouldn’t be as interesting as selling what is new. It will also be helpful to focus only on one niche so that you can grown your business.
- Most of the supplier’s in AliExpress has this “No Return, No Exchange” policy. This means that if your customer is unhappy with the product, then you have to handle it yourself. It is good to aware of these kinds of policy so you can communicate and clarify it to your customers before the purchase. If it still happens that they are unsatisfied with your product and services, then you might to reconsider having a different supplier. Especially if the complaints are mainly on shipping and product.
Like any other business you have to be aware of the law in your place and in the places you are shipping. Since there are no international laws yet regarding it so you have to look at that personally.
Affiliate Marketing and Wealthy Affiliate: Safer ways to build a business!
If you are interested in starting or growing your own business and in increasing you income, I highly recommend Affiliate Marketing! It is somewhat similar and different to dropshipping. Here are some reasons why.
Free! Free! Free!
Just the dropshipping, affiliate marketing also is a free start-up business for everyone. Online stores like Amazon and other popular products offer an affiliate program with a free sign up. Interested entrepreneurs can sign up and join the affiliate program to promote links of the merchants.
All you need to have is a website and a domain where you can market your products! Wealthy Affiliate is free yet very helpful when it comes to this because they cater the basic needs of an entrepreneur. It is like a one-stop platform for affiliate marketing!
Passive Income
This is one of the great things about affiliate marketing! It is profitable even when you sleep! You can earn a passive income with it. You have to work on your outputs and research but it doesn’t require a full-time activity for you. As long as you there are people buying products through your affiliate link, you are earning!
Unlike dropshipping where you are in charge of setting up a store and inventory, in affiliate marketing you simply help them find the best deals and quality product by leading them to the right store or brand. This is safer wherein you wouldn’t have to worry about copyright and legal claims.
If you check out Wealthy Affiliate, you’ll see they are already partners to thousands of different legitimate merchants and products. It wouldn’t be hard for you to find the right niche!
No Customer Support
You wouldn’t have to worry much about the customer service and satisfaction because your merchant will do it for you. You simply have to look for the products and affiliate programs to join in. Then, simply keep the traffic coming in your website!
With Wealthy Affiliate, you don’t have to download multiple apps or get several services for the things that you will use. It already offers all the start-up and build-up that you will need in starting your business. Here are some that is included when you sign up for free:
- Access on their main website
- Inclusive of training, mentoring and videos!
- You will have a community to learn from and will you grow your business
- The tools you’ll be needing like website and connections to channels are also included!
There more to see and find out! Check out Wealthy Affiliate!