AliExpress Dropshipping, AliExpress Dropshipping Full Tutorial For Beginners

AliExpress Dropshipping

AliExpress Dropshipping

AliExpress Dropshipping, AliExpress Dropshipping Full Tutorial For Beginners

Finding the right supplier for our dropshipping business is essential to our success. To explain, the right supplier will enable us to create a great product catalog and provide a great shopping experience for our customers. With this in mind, AliExpress is a reliable and trustworthy dropshipping supplier that offers a wide product range and amazing sourcing prices.

So, in this article, we will take a look at AliExpress as a great dropshipping supplier and some of the key features. On top of that, we will also go through a complete guide to dropshipping with AliExpress.

What is AliExpress Dropshipping

Uniquely, dropshipping is an ecommerce business model where dropshippers do not keep products in stock. Instead, dropshippers work with suppliers. When a customer orders a product, the dropshipper purchases the item from a third-party supplier. Finally, the supplier ships the products directly to our customer’s doorstep.

Notably, with the low cost of starting a dropshipping business, it is an ideal way for entrepreneurs to start their online store. This helps us save on storage space and other costs because we don’t need to stock inventory.

Now, when we dropship with AliExpress, whenever a customer makes a purchase, we buy the item on AliExpress and the seller ships it directly to our customer. The difference between what the customer pays us and what we pay the supplier becomes our profit.

Notably, AliExpress has many advantages, including:

A selection of over 100 million products

Countless product categories

Some of the lowest prices on the market

AliExpress has become the go-to supplier for dropshippers to fulfill orders. It allows us to import cheap products into our stores and sell them anywhere in the world with high-profit margins.

Can we dropship from AliExpress

The answer is yes! We sure do. Dropshipping is legal and mainstream.

However, you need to pay attention to complying with regulations.

So what rules should you follow when dropshipping from AliExpress?

Avoid listing or selling copyrighted products.

Avoid selling anything dangerous.

Don’t sell specific categories like supplements or medical devices.

As you can see, most dropshipping rules are related to the products you sell. To steer clear of copyrighted products, check to see if your product is listed on eBay Vero and don’t list it if it is.

Some sellers on AliExpress are listed as knockoffs of popular brands, and following this rule can save you from potential legal trouble.

Additionally, avoid selling dangerous products or products that may require a license (weapons, alcohol, tobacco, etc.).

To make things easier, follow Facebook’s commerce policies. These rules cover most product defects, giving you peace of mind to dropship on any sales channel from AliExpress.

Most importantly, there’s no need to worry too much about strict rules attached to specific product categories. You can sell millions of other products from AliExpress at high-profit margins and with zero legal or copyright issues.

Advantages and Disadvantages of AliExpress Dropshipping

AliExpress Dropshipping, Like any supplier, AliExpress has both advantages and disadvantages that we need to consider before we start cooperating with them. They are both the largest and most widely used Chinese suppliers, but it can bring some additional features that we need to consider.

Advantages of AliExpress Dropshipping

Since AliExpress is one of the largest and most popular dropshipping suppliers, it is characterized by many advantages. On that note, some of the relevant advantages of AliExpress for dropshipping are:

Access to millions of low-priced products

Global shipping to almost any country

Dropshipping-oriented services and solutions

It is no secret that AliExpress gives you access to many products at prices that we cannot find on domestic supplier sites. As a result, we can sell any product at low and competitive prices while enjoying high profit margins.

Furthermore, since AliExpress ships worldwide, we will be able to sell to almost any market and create a global presence ourselves. Moreover, each order comes with tracking information so that we can always keep your customers updated.

Finally, AliExpress is a dropshipping-friendly supplier. If something goes wrong, we are protected by comprehensive buyer protection. In addition, the platform displays the latest product trends in the AliExpress Dropshipping Center, which makes it easy for us to find best-sellers.

Disadvantages of AliExpress Dropshipping

AliExpress Dropshipping, On the contrary, as a Chinese supplier, AliExpress comes with some disadvantages that are worth noting. Disadvantages of dropshipping from AliExpress include:

Long shipping times from China

No bundled orders

Language barrier

First and foremost, dropshippers can expect long shipping times, especially when compared to domestic suppliers. This is because orders are being shipped from China and take longer to reach our customers.

Additionally, we cannot bundle orders into one shipment. Each AliExpress item is shipped separately, adding to your shipping costs. Also, not all orders will be shipped or arrive at the same time. Furthermore, since most sellers are Chinese, there is a language barrier, which makes communication more challenging.

To combat these issues, always check a seller’s ratings and the type of shipping they offer before listing a product. It’s also a good idea to go through reviews and see what other customers are saying.

Is AliExpress dropshipping still profitable

Dropshipping from AliExpress is not only profitable in 2025, it will be even more profitable in the future. In fact, the size of the dropshipping market was predicted to reach US$476.1 billion by 2026. And, with e-commerce continuing to grow, dropshipping’s potential shows no signs of slowing down.

On the other hand, remember that dropshipping, like any business, requires work. Our success will depend on making good decisions. For example, you must conduct solid product research to get high sales volumes.

Also, the dropshipping business model is low-risk and high-reward, which opens the door for us to make big profits with minimal investment. With that said, it’s clear why the dropshipping market will continue to see growth.

How long does it take to ship from AliExpress

AliExpress Dropshipping, AliExpress is known for having somewhat long shipping times. But this shipping time depends on two main factors:

Which warehouse we choose to source the product from

The shipping method chosen for the order

Since most of AliExpress sellers are from China, most of the shipments come from China. Therefore, we should always check the delivery time of an item before listing. However, don’t worry too much if a hot product shows an extended delivery time. Often AliExpress offers good shipping times for a higher cost.

In addition, AliExpress offers some international warehouses, including US warehouses. As such, we can reduce shipping times for available products and appeal more to buyers by choosing a different warehouse.

AliExpress Shipping Methods

AliExpress Dropshipping, For shipping methods, AliExpress provides many shipping options. It is important to choose the right one since time and money are a factor. Additionally, you need to provide tracking information.

This is important because it allows buyers to track the progress of their shipment. Additionally, it helps us avoid ‘item not received’ cases since we have proof of delivery.

There are multiple delivery types, with and without tracking. So, be sure to choose one that offers tracking.

The main AliExpress shipping methods that offer tracking are:

AliExpress Standard Shipping - This is one of the cheaper shipping options offered. You can expect to pay between $1 and $3, although it is often free. Shipping takes about 8-15 days. In many cases, you can find suppliers who will do free standard shipping and tracking.

AliExpress Premium Shipping - Premium shipments usually cost more depending on the size and destination of the package. All premium shipments are delivered by private companies such as UPS, EMS, DHL, or AliExpress itself through its AliExpress Premium Shipping.

AliExpress Saver Shipping - The average shipping time with Saver Shipping is 30 days but in most cases arrives before the estimated date.

Cainiao Standard for Special Products - AliExpress' Cainiao Standard requires a separate payment and is a good choice for expensive orders. Shipping takes between 30 and 50 business days.

China Post Air Parcel – Although not the most popular method, China Post Air Parcel is still a certified shipping option. However, the shipping time is rather long as it usually takes 52 days to deliver the product using this method.

Turkey Post – If our main customers are in Europe, Turkey Post is an excellent option for shipping. With tracking updates, product delivery usually takes 7-30 days when using this carrier.

FedEx – Since it is a well-known shipping carrier, we can guarantee accurate tracking updates to our customers. However, since FedEx is a private courier, they can be more expensive than other options. Still, shipping time with FedEx is around 24 days.

DHL – Similar to FedEx, DHL is a private courier company that can cost us more than other carriers. Shipping time with DHL is around 21 days.

It is important to note that the time for each shipping method varies according to the shipping company, the size of the package, and the final destination. But don’t worry; You can see the total shipping time when selecting one of the options.

Furthermore, we can filter products by warehouse location to score fast shipping times at a lower cost. With this in mind, it is crucial to choose a warehouse in the same location as our target audience to ensure fast delivery and, thus, customer satisfaction.

Will buyers know that their items are coming from AliExpress?

Generally, if a buyer wants to know where a package came from, it is easy to find out. However, if the item received matches what they saw in your store, most customers will not worry about its origin. Nevertheless, some dropshippers want to brand their store and keep the origin anonymous.

In this case, if possible, we should avoid 'AliExpress Standard Shipping', since as the cheapest or free option, it does not allow us to hide the origin. Instead, we can choose other shipping options that allow us to hide the origin of our products. But it is important to choose a method that provides tracking information for our safety and the convenience of our customers.

On top of that, we can often send messages and ask the seller to remove any identifying information about the origin of the package. This way, we don’t have to show that the package is coming from AliExpress.

And, in the best case, we can also find sellers who offer white-label products. In fact, there are some white-label products on AliExpress, but they are much more limited. This allows us to brand our packages with our store information and logo and build brand recognition.

Does AliExpress offer global shipping

Global shipping is what makes AliExpress a great dropshipping provider. As such, it allows us to target a larger market and increase sales. However, not every item is shipped to every location.

aliexpress shipping locations

If we want to see which products were shipped to a specific location, we just need to adjust the location setting on AliExpress. To do this, we just need to click on the language tab at the top and choose a ‘ship to’ location from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, we can check individual products for shipping options on the product pages.

First, select a ‘Ship from’ location. Then, choose a shipping destination above the ‘Buy Now’ button. A popup window opens, and after choosing a country, AliExpress tells us whether shipping is available or not.

• How to Start Dropshipping with AliExpress
• Aliexpress Dropshipping Guide

Are you ready to start a rocking AliExpress dropshipping business? The good news is that no prior experience is required. All you need is a laptop/computer and a reliable internet connection.

Once you have that, you can start setting up your business.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at a complete step-by-step guide on how to start dropshipping with AliExpress.

Before you get started, here’s a quick overview of the steps:

• Find a winning product
• Choose a sales channel
• Choose an automation software
• Import your products
• Fulfill orders
• Next, we’ll look at each of these steps in detail.

1. How to find winning products on AliExpress.

Contrary to popular belief, we don’t need to waste time testing random products to see what works. Instead, our goal is to test high-potential products for our store and work from there.

So, how do we find high-potential products using AliExpress?

There are several ways to find potential best sellers. To get you started, AliExpress has two great sections where you can start your search:

Top Rankings – The ‘Top Rankings’ page displays the best-selling items in each product category. Use it to easily find new trending products for your store.

Super Deals - AliExpress Super Deals is a discount page full of hot proven products. Search here to find trendy products with high ratings at low costs and increase your profit margin.

Notably, there are several factors that can help us determine the winning products:

• High demand
• Low competition
• Positive reviews
• Profitability
• Trends
• Quality

To conduct quality product research, there are a few additional methods we can take advantage of:

• AliExpress Dropship Center
• AutoDS Winning Product Hub
• AutoDS Product-Finding Blog and YouTube Channel
• Google Trends and Google Lens
• AliExpress Dropship Center

AliExpress Dropshipping Center is a powerful tool that includes the ability to find best-selling products. It has great tools to help us identify hot trends, search for products, and analyze a product’s performance in the market in real-time. To find the best-sellers, this tool looks at various factors such as price range, category, and popularity.

AutoDS Hand-Picked Product Hub

AutoDS Marketplace

Product research is very time-consuming, but we can automate our product research process with AutoDS Hand-Picked Product Hub. The hub gives us the fastest, best-selling items.

In fact, by going to the AutoDS Hand-Picked Product Hub dashboard, we can easily find popular items with detailed analysis.

AutoDS Product-Finding Blog and YouTube Channel

Also, an easy and convenient way to find winning products is AutoDS’s blog and YouTube best seller playlist. From this content, we can get access to exclusive product suggestions, enabling us to scale our ecommerce dropshipping venture.

Google Trends and Google Lens

Google Trends allows dropshippers to analyze search data for a specific keyword over a period of time. For example, this information can help us determine the popularity of a product or niche and identify any seasonal or long-term trends.

On the other hand, Google Lens is a visual search tool that can help dropshippers identify products and their suppliers. To explain, with Google Lens, we scan an image of a product and the tool will provide information about the product name, manufacturer, and supplier.

2. Choose your sales channel

In detail, sales channels are places where we can market and sell our AliExpress products. However, we need to consider the difference between a marketplace and a customizable ecommerce website.

If we want better brand development, we can use a customizable website. Also, this way, our customers will focus only on our products without being pulled into someone else's list.

On the other hand, when using a marketplace, we have a lot of direct competition. But, marketplaces have a lot of organic traffic and a huge existing customer base that we can leverage.

That being said, the top sales channels are:

Shopify, Wix or WooCommerce

Ebay

Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Shop

If we are looking for a fully customizable store with relatively low selling fees, Shopify, Wix, or WooCommerce are all great choices. They give us complete control over our store, from design features to the types of products we sell. Furthermore, they do not limit the number of products we sell at any given time. However, be prepared to invest time and money in marketing because they do not have organic traffic.

Conversely, eBay is an established marketplace with a lot of existing organic traffic and a large existing customer base. Marketing will be the least of our concerns here. Still, compared to other marketplaces, eBay has relatively high selling fees and limits how many products we can sell.

Facebook Marketplaces and Shops give us the best of both worlds: low selling fees and lots of free organic traffic. Notably, they only charge $0.40 per sale or 5% (whichever is higher). Additionally, as a relatively new sales channel in the dropshipping scene, there is very little competition from other sellers. As a result, we can quickly build revenue and scale.

3. Automate Your Dropshipping Business

AutoDS Dashboard

One of the best aspects of dropshipping is that we can automate our tasks! For example, dropshipping automation allows us to automate the entire dropshipping process. As a result, we save a bunch of time and effort while reducing errors at any step. Also, by automating our dropshipping processes, we can optimize our business and increase profits.

With this in mind, the best all-in-one dropshipping automation tool is AutoDS. AutoDS has countless tools that allow us to scale and grow our dropshipping business:

Price/Stock Monitoring

Product Importer

Price Optimization

Full Order Fulfillment

Easy Inventory Management

Automatic Tracking Updates

Print-on-Demand

4. Import AliExpress Products to Your Dropshipping Store

There are two ways to import AliExpress products to our online store – manually and automatically. By manually importing our products, we have to copy/paste product information from the supplier’s website individually. Then, we have to transfer the details one by one to our sales channel, which takes us a lot of time.

In contrast, with automation tools like AutoDS Product Importer, we can easily import products from AliExpress with the click of a button. It allows us to import single items in bulk or schedule a product import for a future date.

autods Single Product Import

We can source item IDs or URLs and import them one by one. Or, grab entire product pages in bulk using the AutoDS Helper Item Grabber extension.

To display, first, we need to click the “Add Product” button in the top left corner of the AutoDS platform. In this case, from the drop-down menu, we will select the “Single Product” option.

Automatically Add AliExpress Dropshipping Products to Your Store

Then, we only need to add our product URL and save it as a draft or import it directly to our store. We also have the option to edit the list with the ‘Edit Now’ option.

AutoDS Product Importer Add Product URL

If we choose to edit our product listings before publishing them to our store, it will take us to the edit page. Here we can edit the product title, shipping method, and tags.

Additionally, we also have the option to edit the description, appearance, images, and item specifications. This gives us the opportunity to optimize our listing and increases our chances of making more sales.

Edit Draft AliExpress Dropshipping Product Listing

Overall, AutoDS makes the product import process much faster and easier.

5. Fulfill your orders through AliExpress.

Order Fulfillment from aliexpress

To ensure customer satisfaction, we need to fulfill orders promptly. So, to fulfill orders manually on AliExpress, we start by getting all the shipping information from the order details page. However, we have to manually copy/paste each shipping information to our AliExpress supplier, which makes us prone to errors.

Sales will undoubtedly start to increase. If we fulfill orders manually, we are at risk of errors and delays. As a solution, we can automate our order fulfillment process, saving time and effort and avoiding errors. With a tool like AutoDS Auto Order, the system can fulfill orders for us using our buyer account.

Alternatively, when using fulfillment by AutoDS, we need to load a balance to fulfill our orders. This tool uses an AutoDS buyer account with our suppliers instead of our personal account. So, there is no more worry about any account being locked.

6. Providing Excellent Customer Service and Returns

Undoubtedly, providing our customers with exceptional customer service is crucial to our success. Because it helps us differentiate ourselves from the competition and gain customer loyalty. Therefore, customers will be encouraged to return if they have a pleasant experience while shopping at our store.

To demonstrate, a common way to provide customer service is to provide frequently asked questions. This way, we can try to help our customers without having to reach out. Furthermore, a more direct method is via email/message. To explain, once a customer sends us their question, we can resolve it by sending them an email or message with the answer or solution.

Returns on AliExpress

When dealing with returns for products from AliExpress, here’s what you need to know. While most sellers accept returns, each seller has their own policy. To help us out, AliExpress offers free returns for up to 15 days after receiving the product.

As long as the product is in its original packaging, you have up to 15 days to open a free return request for a full refund. Additionally, this covers damaged products or items that are not as described.

For returns made within the past 15 days, the buyer will be required to pay for return shipping, regardless of the reason for the return.

To handle AliExpress returns, use the AliExpress platform to open a dispute. Before doing so, make sure to:

Get proof of claim - Ask the buyer for proof/evidence of their claim (photos or videos showing the reason for the return)

Provide a return label - Make sure to charge the buyer for the return label

Execute a refund - Issue a refund to your buyer and continue handling the return on AliExpress. This way, you still provide good service and don't keep your buyer waiting.

What are the best AliExpress extensions?

Once you start dropshipping, you’ll want to speed up processes, save money, become more efficient, and most importantly, scale to higher profits.

AliExpress Chrome extensions can make a big difference in that regard. Here are the top five extensions for your AliExpress dropshipping needs:

For a more comprehensive list of must-have AliExpress extensions, check out our Top AliExpress Extensions article.

AliExpress Free Shipping

Alichrome Free Shipping Extension

There are many reasons why you might need an invoice from AliExpress. It could be for record keeping, for verification, or to clear customs if an order gets stuck.

Instead of getting an invoice from every AliExpress seller, AliExpress Free Invoice Generator can help you create an invoice PDF hassle-free, saving you time and effort in the process.

After downloading the extension, go to the AliExpress orders page and near any order, click on 'Download PDF Invoice'.

AliSave

AliSave Chrome Extension

The AliSave extension provides a simple yet powerful solution. It allows you to download all images and videos for any product with the click of a button.

Using this feature saves you from having to download images or videos individually. Once saved, you can access them for any purpose, whether it's uploading a product, editing an image, or using the video to create an ad.

AliExpress Search by Image

Aliseeks Search by Image Extension

Aliseeks' AliExpress Search by Image is a neat little extension, very helpful for your AliExpress research needs.

Whenever you see a picture of a product you like on any website, just right-click on it and click on 'Search AliExpress by Image'.

The extension then redirects you to a list of product results from AliExpress that match the picture. You'd be surprised how often AliExpress sells the same product cheaper.

If you like what you see, click on the result and it will take you to the product page on AliExpress.

Up Assistant

Up Assistant Ecommerce Extension

As mentioned earlier in this article, it's always important to review the seller's information before importing a product. Usually, this comes down to the level of positive feedback from the seller.

However, Up Assistant gives a more accurate 'Seller Rating' based on various metrics and analytics. Instead of just looking at a seller’s feedback, Up Assistant includes in its ratings how long the seller has been on AliExpress and how effectively they communicate with buyers.

Once installed, you will see the assistant’s seller rating represented by a number posted on the product thumbnail. Alternatively, click on the product to see a detailed report on the product page.

AliExpress Parcel - My Orders

Aliexpress Parcel Extension

Tracking packages on AliExpress can become a tedious process. Every time you want to track a package, you have to navigate to the order page and check the status. This is especially burdensome for a busy store with multiple orders per day.

AliExpress Parcel - My Orders Extension saves you a lot of time, making all your orders available to track at any time with just a few clicks.

So how do you use the AliExpress Parcel Extension? 

Install the extension and go to the order page on AliExpress. Next, go to your desired order and click on ‘Add Tracking’. From now on, dropshippers will be able to track orders for extensions with a single click.

Conclusion

Overall, AliExpress is a great choice for a dropshipping supplier. It enables us to offer a wide variety of affordable products where we can add a solid markup and remain competitive. Plus, they are there for us every step of the dropshipping journey, making it easy for us to attract customers and increase sales. Trusted and reliable suppliers are hard to come by, and AliExpress is a great dropshipping partner.