In recent years the ecommerce market has been developing at an incredible rate. And if you’re interested in starting a business in the ecommerce industry then you should definitely consider looking into the dropshipping business model.
Whether you are a beginner ecommerce entrepreneur or an experienced one, with dropshipping, you have an opportunity to start a profitable venture with minimal investments. The trick here is to sell products while not having to store them or manage the inventory. And to make sure that your profit is as high as possible, you’ll need to find products with an initial low price. You can find affordable products on various ecommerce marketplaces, like AliExpress.
However, to launch and maintain a dropshipping business, one has to be familiar with the essentials and basics of this business. What is dropshipping and how does it work? What are the benefits? How to start a dropshipping business with AliExpress?
What is dropshipping?
Let’s start with the terminology. At the beginning of the article, we slightly hinted what is dropshipping and how it works. Now, let’s go into more detail. Dropshipping is an online selling method where you, as the business owner, do not have to manage stock. Instead, you find a reputable supplier offering high-quality products, and create good-looking product pages featuring these exact items on your independent website. Of course, you also set a new price that’s a bit higher than the original one.
When you get an order on your online dropshipping store, you will simply need to send the information of the order to your dropshipping supplier. As soon as the supplier gets these details (and your payment), they will start processing the order and using a courier in Melbourne ship out the product directly to your customer.
You might be wondering how you make a profit off this? Since the products on AliExpress are listed at considerably low prices, you can set the price on your store at least two or three times higher than that of your suppliers.
And don’t forget to concentrate your efforts on the marketing aspect of your business. Without marketing, it is highly unlikely that internet consumers will find your store and the products you sell. We recommend focusing on social media marketing, through channels such as Facebook and Instagram, as they are the most popular social media platforms in the world.
The essentials of dropshipping
Establishing an online store
Once you have an understanding of who your target audience is and what products you are going to offer, you need an online store. Thankfully, long gone is the time where you had to be a technical expert to build a fully functional website. Now, everything is highly affordable and accessible. An ecommerce entrepreneur has several options:
- Create an online store from scratch
- Order a store development service
- Buy a ready solution
Luckily, there is an abundance of services that can provide you with a quality online store in all these situations. Here are some of them: AliDropship, Shopify, BigCommerce.
Finding a trustworthy supplier
After the ecommerce entrepreneur has successfully established an online store, it’s the time to find a reliable dropshipping supplier. There are also a couple of options in front of the business owner.
The Internet is filled with databases of various dropshipping suppliers, both free and paid ones. You can search for a supplier yourself, this is where online retail marketplaces such as AliExpress come in.
On AliExpress there are hundreds of thousands of products from different product categories. One can find almost anything there. What’s more, the amount of sellers is also pretty impressive, with most selling the same products at different prices.
Essentially, the dropshipping entrepreneur is tasked with finding a supplier he can trust with a quality product.
A reliable supplier can be determined by a couple of factors, let’s look at some of them. There is a general assumption that the longer the seller has been active, the more trustworthy he is. And there is some truth to this. What else?
The store statistics. If we are talking about AliExpress, each store owner has a statistical summary. There you can see the number of store followers, the percentage of positive reviews, and a general store rating.
Another factor to look at is the review section of the store. Look at what regular customers are saying and you will get an understanding of how the seller operates.
Finding a quality product
Now, that you know how to find a reliable supplier, how can you find a quality product on AliExpress? This is important because you can’t physically touch the item and access its quality yourself.
It is rather simple: just type in the product name you want to find in the search box and filter the results accordingly:
- Sort by the number of orders
- Check the box with 4* and up
- Check the Free shipping option
These filters will show you the most popular products with the highest ratings and the most beneficial shipping terms.
Additionally, head over to the review section of the products. There you will find what people who ordered the actual product have to say about it. Some even share pictures, which will give you an understanding of the product, allowing you to compare it to the seller’s claims.
Final takeaways on how to start dropshipping on AliExpress
Doesn’t all of this sound easy? Well, that’s because it is. The dropshipping business model is becoming exceptionally popular because of its accessibility. Here are just a few of its benefits: it’s low-risk, time-saving, and flexible.
Taking everything into consideration, dropshipping provides an incredible opportunity to start your own business focusing on what you want to sell. It is widely accessible to the majority of people and can even be managed from the comfort of one’s home.
