New to Dropshipping? Ali Express or Shopify?

Are you a new dropshipper? “How do you choose the best marketplace to dropship to Ali Express or Shopify?”

As a new dropshipper, you must know that there is no point in comparing between the two platforms and you can use both extensively for your online business.

Shopify is the platform that presents your front, holds your storefront, your inventory, and manages orders.

Ali Express is a marketplace that sells products from China, it’s a similar marketplace like eBay and Amazon, Aliexpress is offering Chinese products and cheap products. 

The process of a dropshipper is that a client buys a product through your Shopify store, and you purchase the product from Ali Express and the seller from Aliexpress ships the product to the customer.

Shopify = Website, Ali Express = Supplier.

It is obvious that as a new dropshipper you can start by buying a Shopify plan and upload some nice products from Ali Express. 

There are more many considerations that a dropshipper should count on before opening an online business.

Market Research: 

Before uploading a product that you have liked or random products, you must do Market Research. 

That means to find your niche and find some products to upload and sell, you must answer a few questions before, is the product already selling? Does it have a market? Does it belong to a passionate niche? Can you easily promote it to a specific group of people? Is it too saturated or are there too many people selling the same product (competition)? What is its perceived value?

In the beginning, You can open your online store using Shopify’s free plan.

When searching for a supplier, you need to be aware of several things

First, you need to make sure that the quality of the products is at the required level.

Reputation In Ali Express:

Check the feedback on sellers in Ali Express, little search products, and sellers can help you make a decision which products or seller (supplier) is better for your online business, checking feedback will help you determine if the seller is a good fit.

Shipping terms:

Make sure to look at the shipments term from the supplier.  

What type of shipping methods do they offer? How much do they charge for shipping? 

How long will it take for them to process the order and ship the product to the customer?