Most sellers I've seen on AliExpress estimate 15-30+ days for delivery. In the age of ubiquitous 1 and 2-day shipping, I just can't see customers going for that.
Seems like there'd be tons of people who change their mind after a week or two and then start demanding a refund or pestering you about their items.
You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks.
It's unfortunate, but part of the business.
The only way around it is to have products that aren't easily sourceable via Amazon. They're out there, but mostly in very targeted niches.
You also might find that you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for profits, but the money is still there to be had. I guess nothing ever comes easy, in any business--but there's still money to be made.
That's shady as hell, dude.
> You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks.
You definitely don't do this... at all. It's clear that you've intentionally buried that information in a separate "How we ship" page. Nobody thinks to look for that, they'll all assume shipping is the standard 5-10 days unless otherwise indicated.
If this is actually working and not causing tons of angry emails/refund requests, congrats. But I'd feel like a jerk doing that to people.
We do have the shipping times listed on 3 different pages accessible from the top nav (and bottom nav), one of which is labeled 'How We Ship'.. so I dunno. It's not really something I'd considered before this, or had offered as feedback (everyone so far has advised me that outlining your details on the Shipping page is the industry standard.) And I can definitely say that I have many more visits to the FAQ and Shipping pages than I have orders, so I'm guessing people actually do read them. But again, I can't say for sure, and I haven't seen complaints about it.
It also might have to do with the products themselves. These are unattached pieces of metal/wood for the most part, at lower prices than you'd see in a guitar shop.
Beyond that, Oberlo and Shopify are setup for these kinds of businesses, so users get a stream of emails confirming each order and tracking the package throughout the journey. That seems to be enough, so far, at least. But like I said, I think that's fair criticism and something I'm actually looking to change on the checkout. It would be great to load in a shipping time on checkout pages (this information is available from the vendors), but that's not supported yet, it doesn't look like.
20 days is certainly pushing the limits of what customers will tolerate without advanced notice. Many people would probably be calling for refunds after 2 weeks if they weren't told "This will take 2-4 weeks to ship" (which his site does NOT do).
30 days would be absolutely unacceptable to most people.
If you ordered a cheeseburger at a takeout place and they said "Thanks for your order!" then took 3 hours to make it, would you say "Oops, it was my fault for assuming it would be ready in a reasonable amount of time!"
No, you'd be frustrated and asking where your food was, especially since you'd paid for it 2 hours ago and they never warned you about how long it would take.
Is it because all products are coming from the far east?
I'm looking into making a dropshipping app, but for my niche anything more than 1-3 days would be a non-starter.
We have established suppliers now, many of which we originally found through Alibaba/Aliexpress, and we order hundreds or thousands of items at a time (I run a small chain of cell phone repair shops), but even then shipping on a couple medium-sized boxes can run $80 and up.
Most sellers on there only have China warehouses, and the free shipping option is 2-4 weeks+.
You can check whatever you're interested in on AliExpress though. It's the consumer version of AliBaba, which means the price and shipping info are always included in the listing. AliBaba is the one where you need to negotiate all the terms: Price, shipping, minimum order quantity, etc.
The absolute best (when the vendor has ePacket, which is like the FedEx of China) is 7-12 days.
But even then, you need to expect 2-5 days for the vendor to actually package and ship the item.
So you're much better off quoting customers 3-4 weeks. If 1-3 days is all that works for your niche, you probably need a new product, unfortunately.
I had a few other stores before this that didn't sell well at all, and I have to say that's because I just didn't know the products, or what the end users really wanted/needed/cared about.
Great ways to pick products: - Terapeak (http://www.terapeak.com/), but this is paid - eBay completed listings - Or most simple (and what I use) -- once you know your products, search AliExpress and sort by "best-selling". That's my go-to.
Feel free to check my store for ideas (or if you want to buy something!). URL is: http://modshop.guitars/
Last question, you send directly from aliexpress to your clients right? Does it not bother you, your clients receiving packages coming from a different store than expected and with a Chinese address?
Oberlo (the drop shipping service) does have an email system that lets you track the package on its journey and see where it is shipping from, after an order is placed. So it's not unexpected that the address is Chinese.
Most of the vendors actually do a good job on the packaging/presentation, but it's advisable to try each vendor's products (even something cheap), so you know what kind of standards they have. Some are very good, others are poor. You can also leave the vendor an automated message when you order about how to package.
There are certainly faster shipping options from HK and China that aren't overly more expensive that you could get them to use or provide your own account given enough volume.
Honestly, my advice is to not worry about it up front, and dive in.
You need to worry about making your first sale (which is seriously, very hard), long before you worry about returns. =)
You'll figure out it when you need to.
Depending on the shipping company in use, there may be local returns addresses in some countries that will get on forwarded, or it may be worth it for you to set something up.
Assuming you are upfront about the product coming from China I don't think it is too bad to get them to send back there, obviously in some cases a customer won't be happy and you would offer to cover the return on a case by case basis.
In particular, I'm wondering about how to handle problems - when orders don't arrive, when customers want to return defective items etc.
https://www.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping
Fair warning though: you'll still have a ton of problems and spend time dealing with customers.
For example, the first time I got a $100+ sale on an item, I went to ship it and found that the vendor took the product down from AliExpress... but my Shopfiy account didn't update to reflect that.
So there are tons of pitfalls and things to be careful of, but like any field, you need to experience them firsthand, it's just part of the process. You can make money at drop-shipping, but it really is not easy, and there's still risk involved, like any business.
Your customer never sees the original seller's listing, and therefore you can charge any price you want.
So, as long as you charge a price that is higher than the raw cost + S&H, you can then collect money from your sale, and use that to purchase the item from the AliExpress vendor (this is automated). Part of the automation process fills in your customer's mailing address, and the vendor fulfills their order directly. (So you don't have to hold any inventory, you're just the go-between.)
Your AliExpress vendors will know what's going on, but they expect and anticipate that people do this. It's how they make money.
Essentially, the service you provide is marketing, design, and salesmanship. They provide the product.
how do you find the vendor in AliExpress ? do you need to talk with him before ?
And if a vendor burns me, I remove their products and look elsewhere.
I wonder, how do you deal with customs issues? I've had issues in the past while shipping outside EU and customers always expected me to solve the issues for them
For customer issues, you just need to be responsive and as helpful as you can be.
I've also had issues shipping outside the US, but Shopify (the platform that I use) lets you disable shipping outside of certain countries.
I've had some issues shipping to Canada, (never had an EU customer), so I only ship within the USA now. And changing that was only a few clicks.
Something just seems... off.
So your website could have little social and organic search presence but still do decent sales just off Google Shopping. Certainly if I was starting a new solo dropshipping site I would be looking to optimise my Google Shopping traffic over building a following in social media or creating content to attempt to boost my organic search rankings.
Do you use Shopify for any specific reason? Or it simply satisfies your needs?
Last question (I promise!): Do you place the orders manually or do you have any sort of automated system integrated with your supplier?
So yes -- I use Shopify primarily because it's a relatively simple way to get up-and-running.
You'll make less money on Shopify, overall, because they take part of the profits you make (~2% to 5%). And that turns some people off, but the payoff is this: You can make secure, good-looking and effective site in just a few days. With no coding or server management involved.
Now, I'm a software developer, and I'm capable of building an ecommerce site from scratch (as I'm sure you are, as well) -- but why? It's not worth that kind of time investment until you know that you're going to make $$$ from the project.
Shopify is almost like rapid-prototyping. It lets you get started quickly with a working version. So, even if the first business fails (mine did), you're not out 6-months of time and effort from site-building, design etc. Customers don't really know (or care) for the most part that the site is built on Shopify. Overall, it just works.
But yes -- I use an automated drop-shipping system called Oberlo: https://www.oberlo.com/
This only works for connecting AliExpress-->Shopify, so it's constraining in that way. But mostly anything you'll want to sell can be found on AliExpress.
Try it. =)
I wonder, how do you deal if a customer orders multiple items and you have to get them from different sources? Does your customer get multiple packages? I've heard about third-party logistics in China that sort this issue for you and send just a single package to the customer.
I will definitely try this out, just need to figure out which products to sell :)
Do you use any other services? And how often do you need to reply to customer emails?
But -- you still need to get people coming to your site somehow, which is actually the harder part.
You can buy ads, do social media marketing, blog posts--lots of techniques. And there are a ton of services for that. I've experimented with many, and continually try to refine that aspect of the business, but I can't claim to be an expert yet.
I reply to emails every day. Once you get orders, you do need to check and make sure everything is going smoothly, and ensure that your customers' needs are met.
I also get a lot of emails asking for advice about various upgrades, fixes, product recommendations. And these often lead to sales, as long as I have something that works. Depending on your store, there can be a consultative aspect to it.
This was actually fascinating to me and I've spent the last 3 hours reading stuff from your links. Just trying to wrap my head around how you built enough inbounds to make that sort of revenue...
It's easiest if you can leverage knowledge you already have. I also tried stores selling items I knew very little about, and it was much harder. =)
There are many tools for finding what's selling though. The best ones are paid, like Terapeak (http://www.terapeak.com/), but you can also search eBay completed listings and get a sense for what's selling.
Finding the right product(s) is definitely the hardest part, though -- you're absolutely correct. Not only is it hard to find products, you also have to find products with margins that enable you to make money. For some of my sales, I only make about $1-2 dollars. Which is something I need to improve, for my own business.
AliBaba (as opposed to the "express" version) is generally used for buying direct from manufacturers, and there are other sources, as well.
If you order from AliBaba, many manufacturers will put your branding on items, and you can do custom orders as well--if you have a design for a new item. However, they usually have minimum order quantities (MOQ's) of 500+. So you'll be out a few thousand dollars to get started, even for a cheap item.
I haven't done it, simply because it's very expensive to get started, but I've read some blog posts from people who've done what you're saying.
The biggest selling point of AliExpress and drop-shipping is that it's low-cost to get started. You can build a business with only about $250 of capital. (Or less.)
This is definitely doable for one person, and it isn't technically challenging for a software developer--but the hardest part (at least for me) is marketing, creating content, advertising, and so on.
Actually running a Shopify store and fulfilling by drop-shipping is simple. I would definitely recommend that as a good place to start, one person can do it.