How to Set Up Your AliExpress Dropshipping Business
Last update: 16 March 2025
Dropshipping has become an increasingly popular e-commerce model because it requires low upfront investment and eliminates the need for warehousing. One platform that dropshippers are turning to is AliExpress, one of China’s largest marketplaces. By sourcing from AliExpress, you can sell a wide range of goods without holding inventory while focusing on attracting customers and driving sales.
While dropshipping can reduce some financial risks, success still depends on choosing the right products, managing supplier relationships and building a strong brand. If you’re new to AliExpress and dropshipping, you may have questions like:
- How do I find reliable suppliers?
- What are some ways to test the quality of a product?
- Where can I get the best deals?
In this article, we’ll be covering:
- How does dropshipping work?
- Why source from AliExpress?
- How to set up your dropshipping business on AliExpress
- Why open an account with WorldFirst?
- How to find the best dropshipping products
Note: sign up to WorldFirst today and save on exchange fees when paying your AliExpress suppliers.
How does dropshipping work?
Dropshipping is a type of retail business where you take orders but outsource the fulfilment and shipping of those orders to a third party. That means you’ll buy directly from suppliers and manufacturers, and they’ll then ship the products to your customers without you having to handle the product yourself.
Dropshipping is an accessible way to launch an e-commerce business since you don’t have to worry about storing and shipping inventory. With minimal upfront costs, you can start selling from virtually anywhere.
There are three main players that make up the dropshipping business model:
- Manufacturers: These companies produce the goods and may sell them to wholesalers and retailers
- Wholesalers: These are businesses that in bulk from manufacturers, apply a markup and sell to retailers.
- Retailers (dropshippers): Online stores that sell directly to consumers at a markup.
As a dropshipper, you’ll be the retailer deciding the product and setting the price. When a customer places an order, you forward the order details to the manufacturer or wholesaler, who then ships the product directly to the consumer.
Your retail price is what customers pay, while your cost is the amount you pay to the manufacturer or wholesaler. Your profit comes from the margin between the two. To source products for your dropshipping store at cheaper prices, you can use marketplaces that have a list of dropshipping suppliers, such as AliExpress, Doba and WorldWide Brands.
The advantages and disadvantages of dropshipping
Why choose dropshipping over storing inventory and handling fulfilment yourself? There are a few compelling reasons:
- Low start-up expenses: It doesn’t cost a lot to establish a dropshipping business
- Fast setup: Dropshipping businesses are quick and simple to set up
- Multiple platform options: You can dropship via your own site, or via a marketplace like Amazon
- Simplified operations: You can focus on marketing and product selection instead of on packing, shipping, warehousing and inventory management
- Scalability: It’s easier to grow your business when you have fewer operational headaches to worry about
- Product testing: You can experiment with products in the market without having to commit to large orders
Dropshipping can be done manually or via an app to make the process simpler. Some marketplace sellers partially or fully automate their dropshipping businesses.
However, dropshipping does come with certain downsides, such as:
- High competition: As you’re selling unbranded products that haven’t been copyrighted, other dropshippers can easily compete with your business
- Supplier errors: Since you don’t control product quality or packaging, mistakes can happen – but you’re still responsible for customer complaints
- Lower margins: Selling non-exclusive products makes it harder to set premium prices, limiting your profit potential
- Lack of customisation: Since you don’t control product design or manufacturing, you won’t have much opportunity to customise or improve the item you’re selling
- Shipping and delivery: Dropshipping means longer delivery times, unless you opt for a Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) model, where your supplier sends your inventory directly to Amazon’s FBA warehouses.
Why source from AliExpress?
AliExpress is one of the largest global marketplaces, offering a wide variety of products including household goods, jewellery, electronics and more. Its vast selection and dropshipping-friendly setup make it a popular choice for e-commerce sellers.
Unlike other marketplaces, AliExpress makes it easy to find dropshipping suppliers. For example, AliExpress can integrate directly with your shop, simplifying the process of connecting products with buyers.
There are a few other key reasons why AliExpress stands out as a dropshipping source:
- Range: AliExpress is a large international marketplace with over 100 million products
- Convenience: Suppliers on AliExpress are familiar with dropshipping, often showing trending products at low prices for international sellers
- Low costs: Competitive pricing means your profit potential is high
- Accessibility: AliExpress has no minimum capital requirements and suppliers have very low minimum product order requirements
- Simple integration options: Order fulfilment apps like DSer, Spocket and AliDrop make AliExpress dropshipping integration much easier
How to set up your dropshipping business using AliExpress to source
Step 1: Set up your store
First, choose how you want to set up your storefront. You can create a website from scratch using platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix or WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin, all of which offer dropshipping integration options.
For an in-depth look at launching an online store, beyond advice on how to set up AliExpress dropshipping, check out our comprehensive guide to starting an e-commerce business. If you decide to build a website on a platform like Shopify, you’ll need to:
- Pick a high-performing template that’s mobile-friendly, fast-loading and designed for conversions
- Create key top-level pages for your site: homepage, product category pages, individual product pages, shopping cart and checkout pages, and post-purchase ‘thank you’ pages
- Create informational pages: an ‘about’ page, a shipping options page and an FAQ page, for example
- Consider adding a blog to drive organic traffic
- Set up payment options
For more information, read our blog about how Shopify works for sellers.
Step 2: Find and add products
Site built and tested? It’s time to add products. You can add AliExpress products manually and keep track of them via a spreadsheet, or you can use apps like DSer and AliDrop (which we’ll explore a little later) to make the process easier.
Many sellers on AliExpress already provide product photos and descriptions, but you’ll gain a competitive advantage if you create your own custom descriptions and pictures by ordering sample products and using studio light boxes to take high-quality photos.
Step 3: Go live and market your venture
When you have a healthy number of products in your store and you’re pleased with the way your website looks, you’re ready to start selling. You can drive traffic with a combination of paid and organic marketing tactics. Paid channels include:
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising like Google Ads
- Paid social media ads
- Affiliate marketing
- Influencer marketing
Organic marketing strategies include:
- SEO website optimisation
- SEO-enhanced product pages
- SEO-enhanced blog posts
- Email marketing
- Word of mouth
- Open 20+ local currency accounts and get paid like a local
- Pay suppliers, partners and staff worldwide in 100+ currencies
- Collect payments for free from 130+ marketplaces and payment gateways, including Amazon, Etsy, PayPal and Shopify
- Save with competitive exchange rates on currency conversions and transfers
- Lock in exchange rates for up to 24 months for cash flow certainty
Step 4: Convert site sales into AliExpress orders
If you don’t use a connected app for dropshipping, you’ll need to monitor orders as they come in and create AliExpress orders manually. In principle, this is a simple process:
- A customer orders and pays for a product on your website
- You visit AliExpress and order the product at wholesale price
- At checkout, you enter the customer’s details in the shipping fields
- The AliExpress merchant sends the product directly to your customer
If your site is popular and you receive a lot of orders, you may become overwhelmed quickly. That’s where apps like DSers, AliDropship, Spocket and Zendrop come in. Different apps will integrate with your store, depending on the website you use. All you need to do is create an account, add products and keep your payment method up to date.
When orders come in, they flow into your fulfilment app. At that point, you simply click ‘order product’ next to each pending item in the interface and the app places AliExpress orders for you. Customer details, including address information, get transferred to AliExpress automatically.
Step 5: Use an international bank account like WorldFirst to get better rates when making payments
On AliExpress, you can choose to purchase products in different currencies, including US dollars, pounds and euros. However, many AliExpress sellers will inflate prices in international currencies to protect their margins.
To avoid this, you can negotiate and pay in the seller’s preferred currency, such as USD or CNH.
The World Account from WorldFirst gives you the flexibility to hold, convert and pay in multiple currencies. This means you can exchange your local currency for USD or CNH to pay AliExpress sellers, avoiding unnecessary markups and transfer fees.
A World Account also makes receiving sales revenue simple. Get paid in 20+ currencies, from over 130 marketplaces and payment gateways, including Amazon, eBay, Shopify and PayPal, and use those funds to pay suppliers directly.
Step 6: Monitor site and sales performance
Most e-commerce platforms let you track site visits, sales and other stats via your dashboard. You can also use tools like Semrush and Google Analytics to keep tabs on key performance indicators (KPIs).
Track your sales over time and adjust the AliExpress-sourced products you offer to take advantage of seasonal and consumer trends.
Why open an account with WorldFirst?
WorldFirst’s World Account is a multi-currency account that empowers your business to grow beyond borders.
Many dropshippers use WorldFirst as a payment platform for their entire e-commerce business and benefit from fast payments and collections, competitive exchange rates on FX transactions and easy management of global payments.
There are multiple benefits to opening a WorldFirst account:
Receive revenue from your marketplace sales into the same account you pay for goods
WorldFirst directly integrates with marketplaces such as Amazon and TikTok Shop. Sales revenue from platforms like Amazon can be received directly into your World Account, exchanged into CNH and used to pay Chinese suppliers.
By keeping funds within your World Account, there’s no need for multiple transfers to and from a bank account, reducing FX fees and administrative hassle. Plus, with multiple currency accounts, you can hold funds and exchange them when rates are most favourable.
Open 20+ currency accounts to reduce FX costs
With WorldFirst, you can set up over 20 currency accounts to receive and hold funds in their original currency, including a CNH account for Chinese yuan.
Paying AliExpress suppliers in their local currency minimises FX conversions, keeping costs down. A dedicated local account also reduces transfer fees every time you send payments.
Easily manage international payments online
Traditional bank accounts make sending payments to Chinese suppliers expensive and time-consuming. Banks may require additional checks and it can take over a week for certain payments to process.
WorldFirst is designed for e-commerce and digital businesses, allowing you to set up your business account entirely online within a day. You can also add team members with customised access and integrate with Xero or Netsuite to streamline accounting.
How to find the best dropshipping products on AliExpress and what to consider (including tips to increase sales)
To find the best dropshipping products, you can use the following research tools to keep on top of e-commerce trends and bestselling products.
Trend Hunter: Trend Hunter is the world’s largest trend community. The platform uses data, artificial intelligence and tips from everyday consumers to highlight the latest consumer insights and market opportunities.
Reddit: Reddit helps you discover specific topics within niche communities. These topics can confirm that the problem you aim to solve is actually relevant and important.
BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo can help you identify trending topics on social media platforms such as X and Meta.
Jungle Scout: Jungle Scout gives insights into trending items on marketplaces such as Amazon. There are also data visualisations on historical product sales, rankings and reviews based on the product you’re looking to sell.
What to consider when selecting winning products
When deciding on the best product to source from AliExpress, it’s worth checking through their product categories. Once you’ve chosen your category and the product you want to resell from AliExpress, there are a few points you’ll need to consider:
Branded products: As a dropshipper and reseller, you’ll need to avoid reselling products with any brands and logos to avoid infringing on another company’s intellectual property – unless you’re looking to be a licensed reseller. However, being a licensed reseller will impact your margins and overall profitability.
ePacket delivery: Third-party logistics providers can help support faster shipping from local manufacturers in China and Hong Kong to your customers locally. This is important to consider when choosing a seller on AliExpress, as some sellers offer ePacket shipping and others don’t. It’s best to pick a seller who does, so your products can be shipped more quickly to customers in the US and Europe with local distributors such as UPS, Canada Post and Royal Mail.
Ranking and sales: Find products that have 4.5-star ratings or higher, and choose from sellers who have positive customer reviews. For more insights into the seller, use third party tools such as AliExpress Seller Check. Additionally, you’ll want to check the number of sales the seller has made. If the seller has sold to many other customers, you’ll know that there’s demand for their product and possibly repeat orders.
Difference in price: Price will always determine what your overall profit margin will be. When looking at a product on AliExpress, check how much the seller has it listed for. Then cross-check the same product on marketplaces such as Amazon. You’ll then be able to determine the average sale price of the product and the overall profit margin you may receive when you start to sell.
Product details: Order the product yourself so you have first-hand knowledge of the customer experience. You’ll be able to see shipping times, whether the product is high quality, how it’s packaged and how to use it. This will help you understand any issues if customers have negative feedback later. You can also ask the seller for additional information before you place an order with them.
Tips for increasing your dropshipping sales
Once you’ve set up your e-commerce store online, you’ll want to consider the following tips which will help improve your customer experience:
Product descriptions: Make sure you write your product descriptions in a way that’s optimised for your audience so you can help them better understand what you’re selling and how it benefits them.
Delivery time: Work out how long it’ll take for your products to be shipped from your suppliers, so that you can manage customer expectations. Typically, dropshipping products for end customers can take between 12 and 14 days.
Track delivery of products: As shipping takes longer than the same-day or next-day delivery times that customers have become used to, you’ll often have customers asking you how long they’ll need to wait once they’ve placed an order. Use tracking apps to provide good customer service. If you’ve set up your store on Shopify, you can use apps such as Tracktor or Aftership.
Free or low-cost shipping: If you’ve picked a seller who offers ePacket on AliExpress and they also offer free or low-cost shipping, then it’s worth offering the same to your customers. This will help attract more orders for your products.
Returns and refunds: If orders aren’t shipped to customers, they may ask for a refund. AliExpress sellers don’t typically accept returns, leaving you to manage returns and refunds yourself. Make sure you’ve purchased AliExpress buyer protection, so that you can resolve disputes with your supplier in case of poor quality merchandise or lost packages.
Search engine optimisation: Driving traffic to your site is essential for generating sales. The more traffic you have, the more likely you’ll have orders come through. Start by optimising meta titles and descriptions to improve search visibility. A well-integrated blog can also support content marketing, allowing you to rank for relevant keywords. FAQs, product guides and information about your business are also important, helping build trust in your brand. Beyond on-site content, make sure your social media posts link back to your store and use trackable URLs to monitor engagement and conversions.
Boost your sales with WorldFirst
Faster payments, lower costs and greater flexibility can give your business a competitive edge. With the World Account, receive sales income in 20+ major currencies and access local account details to get paid like a local – reducing conversion fees and speeding up payments..
Use the funds in your account to pay for goods and services in 100+ currencies across 200+ countries, or withdraw them home at great exchange rates.
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