This Is Why AliExpress Shipping Time Won’t Hurt Your Dropshipping Business
AliExpress can be a great dropshipping supplier. However, AliExpress shipping time often scares away people who want to launch their own dropshipping business. Of course, long shipping isn’t good for an ecommerce store. But in this article, I’m going to prove that it’s not a critical problem.
Future store owners worry that people won’t buy anything from them because of the delivery time. Typically, online stores deliver your orders in about 7-14 days, while with AliExpress shipping time mostly takes 15-45 days.
But why do you think that it makes a difference?
Here are 5 reasons why shipping time shouldn’t EVER be your worry!
1. Hot items are worth the wait
Did you make enough effort while choosing the best products for your store? If they are highly demanded and have great value for your target audience, your store visitors won’t mind the delivery time. It is especially true for unusual products that are not so easy to find in other places!
If a person orders a truly unique item, he or she will most likely agree to wait even if takes up to 60 days!
2. These are not life-critical products
The whole idea of dropshipping stores is to generate impulse purchases driven by emotions. You’re not selling prime necessity items like food or medicines, and your customers don’t have an urgent need when they buy from you. They are not placing orders because of a burning reason. They just (ideally) fall in love with your items, and make a quick and easy purchase simply because they liked something. In other words, they CAN AFFORD to wait.
3. You can always put a disclaimer
To be honest, this is absolutely necessary. Write the shipping time information in a visible place for your customers’ convenience – and for your own safety! If the product description starts with a phrase like ‘Please note: the average shipping time is 30 days’, the page viewer will know what to expect from the purchase.
4. Customer support is your ultimate advantage
Upset clients start to storm you with letters when they think that their item is lost and the whole thing was a fraud. Keep calm and be patient! You can sort this issue out in 3 simple steps:
- When you send your client the confirmation email, include the shipping times in it ONCE AGAIN – not everyone is attentive enough to read even basic information in the product description. When you congratulate your customers on making their purchases, it’s appropriate to remind them about the expected delivery period. For your own convenience, you can safely use the AliDropship Plugin: it automatically notifies your buyers that the order was processed and the package was shipped.
- As soon as you get the tracking code from your AliExpress supplier, email this code to the buyer and explain how to use this information to learn about the current location of the package. Again, the AliDropship plugin will do this automatically, so if you have the plugin installed, you won’t waste your time and energy doing these tasks manually.
- Make your refund policy very clear: kindly explain that you will surely make a 100% refund IF the item is not delivered AFTER the end of the delivery period you’ve promised. If you wrote it on your product page that the item will be delivered in 30-45 days, the buyer will ONLY get a refund from you in case the package is not there by the 46th day!
5. Find AliExpress products with fast shipping
As you probably know, AliExpress free shipping is usually the longest one. Other shipping methods are not an option since they cost several times more than the product itself. However, AliExpress delivery time depends on the location of the warehouse.
Where does AliExpress ship from? Most goods come from different locations in China. But some sellers keep some of their products in warehouses located in European countries and the US. If you order products from one of them, shipping can take just 5-15 days.
So, if you want to dropship goods to America, try looking for products with cheap or free shipping from a US warehouse.
6. Use alternative suppliers
Some entrepreneurs who are not happy with AliExpress shipping time may want to try other dropshipping suppliers with faster delivery. If you own an AliDropship or WooCommerce store, consider trying Sellvia.
Sellvia is an ecommerce wholesaler with hundreds of products belonging to broad niches. Some of them come from AliExpress, some are made by American manufacturers. But most importantly, Sellvia’s warehouse is located in California. As a result, your customers can get their packages in 1-3 business days after the order was processed!
Sellvia is fully compatible with the AliDropship plugin and suitable for dropshipping.
As you can see, long AliExpress shipping times can’t actually hurt your business when you have all the processes smoothly organized. So, if it was the only thing holding you back from getting your own dropshipping store, put the worries aside and go on the adventure!
tutorials and special offers from AliDropship
Recommended for You
You will need very, very special products for people to wait 30 days, long shipping times (over 3/5 days) will absolutely hurt your business, how can you even write this that it doesn’t
At the moment there are enough new customers to be found, but when I started to ship from a fulfilment centre in the US my sales increased over 40%, so making a statement that long(er) shipping times don’t hurt your business is just plain wrong and misleading
According to our experience, people are ready to wait even 30 days when you offer FREE shipping. But of course if you have a possibility to offer fast delivery, it will increase your sales. It also much depends on the country you are selling to. For example, US customers are used to fast shipping and it is not a good idea to offer them AliExpress standard shipping service. But in case with USA, Canada, UK and other European countries you can always choose AliExpress epacket service that is fast and very cheap (or use a local fulfilment centre if it is available).
I love your article. I m close to propose a course to my suscribers and I m pretty sure I Will use Your plugin for that. Any affiliation?
Thank you! We have a lucrative affiliate program, please check https://affiliates.work10.alidropship.com/
this is very helpful article. Answer lots of my questions. i’m ready to go for it but i don’t know how to kick start or/and initial cost to do it, please Advice.
Typically, online stores deliver your orders in about 2-3 days, not in 7-14 days, as you wrote
I have been scammed in aliexpress. The seller misdeclared my package without I knowing it. I bought from the seller 295$ worth of cases. The seller declared that I bought only 77$. Now I have to pay 350$ of fines to the customs. Now I opened a dispute to aliexpress. They said that I should pay the penalty that the seller misdeclared. I know now the buyer protection is only for seller and not for the buyers. The Seller’s name is “SUNDAE STORE.” Don’t buy from that seller he/she will just manipulate you. That’s what she done to me. Sundae STore wants only your money. The customer service is awful!!
I must be honest I’m dropshipping from South Africa and delivery time is a huge problem. I would love to use Aliexpress but the shipping takes 37 -57 days to SA, sometimes even longer. Unfortunately epacket is not available in South Africa. Very sad as customers dont want to wait that long and makes it difficult for us to sell
What’s the point to dropship to South Africa? You can target other markets like US, Europe with 7 days shipping. This is the main advantage of this kind of business. It does not matter where you are located.
So which countries Yaroslav do you suggest we target and which countries should be avoid. I checked out Mexico, and it says 53days eeek, too long. What are you thoughts?
Have lots of customers but I’m sure the don’t want to wait that long for shipping
How much will it cost to start a dropshipping store with Ali please
I have found many of dropshipping stores offer 3-5 days delivery. And I think they source the product from AliExpress.
I am curious to know how they do that? Is that dropshippers personally contact with the supplier and negotiate for a custom shipping time?
Hi Shoaib, did you receive an answer to your question? I’m also curious to know the answer to this!
If you can afford to buy, say 100 units of a product that you find in AliExpress via Alibaba, then you can either deliver it yourself, assuming you’re geographically well situated and can handle all the logistics, or send your product in bulk to some sort of fulfilment service ( e.g. an agent or Fulfilment by Amazon FBA ). They will handle all the logistics for you and your customer will get their product faster because this facilities normally are located in Europe, US or somewhere more convenient than China. Of course when you visit these websites they look like a dropshipper site ( especially if it has not been well branded ), but in reality have already moved to bulk ordering. Now one thing you could do if you don’t have the means to order in bulk or just don’t wanna take that risk before getting some traction with your product is, in case you wanto to deliver to the US, go one by one through all these AlliExpress sellers selling your product of choice and find out which ones deliver to USA using UPS . Note: This is not the same as e-packet. This type of service costs of a few more dollars for the end buyer, but the product can be delivered from 4-10 days (after processing the order ) which is way better than 1 or 2 months. Remember, this is not the same as e-packet. You have to find sellers that in their product pages have a box that says: “This product delivers from United States” and check the box. You’ll see if the UPS option pops up and then you know that option is available from that seller. Next is to order samples, send them to someone in the US if you don’t live there and see if they deliver as stated. For that purpose you can order something ship from the seller if you’re product is expensive. And don’t forget to contact them before ordering any samples to ask any questions you may care about such as if they can deliver with no promotions or invoices in the boxes, etc. I hope that helps.
This article is awesome. I almost gave up my dropshiping business because I was discouraged by the long shipping timings. But this post has actually rekindled my hopes and determination.
Thank you
ok so my brother is currently living in the us and hes coming back on the 29th of june, is it possible if he orders *today* from his usa address and come back with the package? Or will it not arrive at the time hes staying (in the usa)?
Hi, thank you for your question!
It will depend on the shipping service that the supplier provides.
The delivery take too long.
How long do shipping take with expedited shipping?
Hi, thank you for your interest!
Please use the instructions here https://work10.alidropship.com/best-and-cheapest-way-to-ship-internationally/#how-to-find-the-cheapest-international-shipping-options-on-aliexpress to see how to check the available shipping options. Delivery time and fees will be slightly different for every particular product and destination country.
Don’t forget expected delivery time is sometime quoted as either working days or business days which omits either weekend and/or public holidays. There is a possibility that the items ordered may never arrive in time or at all so when to initiate the rather troublesome refund process?
On at least 1 occasion, after successful refund, the item arrived out of the blue! I have been prompted (by Customer Service) today that one refund (US$7 – big deal) is ready to kick in (more that 40 days).
I have patronize several online websites and one occasion the good deal watches were confiscated by the Customs. Luckily, I was refunded my money. Never ordered from that website again.
I discovered recently that there is also the practice by some stores that the goods advertised are not actually in stock. They will take some 10 business days to locate the goods for you and (usually) at best, another 40 working days to deliver.
I am close to giving up on AliExpress. Small items @ $10 or so, I can wait for a while BUT for $500 or so per item I expect fast and secure delivery. I dare not purchase anything beyond $500 at the moment to avoid non-delivery and the troublesome refund process.
I do check with the sellers if the goods are in stock before placing the order. Some sellers don’t bother to reply and some just replied with the smile emoji. After payment has been made, one seller asked me whether I would to swap for a different model (unspecified) as the model I ordered was no longer in stock. I have wasted 10 business day BUT at least the refund was prompt, within 48 hrs.
I will keep shopping on line to within country.