Dropshipping Aliexpress Europe GDPR

[yepperdoodle]

Hi peeps.

I hope everyone is well.

I am reading up on dropshipping and have so many questions and been searching the internet for answers, but all I can find is answers for non-EU shops.

Basically, I am based in Malta (EU), my clients will most probably be mostly from Europe (although..might be worldwide) and I love the products on Aliexpress.

I am a member on other dropshipping and wholeseller groups like esources, but they are all so chaotic and I can't find any products that jump at me. With Aliexpress I type in the keyword I am looking for and they have the funkiest things.

Problem is this confusing EU GDPR thing and also most probably the shipping times to Europe, oh and VAT.

All this stuff is putting me right off as I cannot seem to find any shop owners who are dropshipping within Europe and buy from Aliexpress. When I enter Aliexpress and GDPR into Google...Tumbleweed.

Is there anyone on here I can connect with to understand more and if it is worth doing dropshipping in Europe from China?

Questions I have so far are:

Are the dropshippers on Aliexpress GDPR compliant? How do I find the ones that are and if I find them, what do I need from them?

Does anyone have a terms of service and privacy policy template that I can have a look at or point me in the right direction in what to add, especially in terms of GDPR?

I am a sole trader. Do I need to add VAT to my products? I have a VAT number.

I want to use woocommerce with the alidropshipping plugin and never built up a store in my life. How does it work if a customer buys the product.? Is there a way to check if the payment is not fraudulent? How do I then order the product from the seller on Aliexpress? I assume that is automated somehow?

From your experience are people OK with the shipping times or will that put them off?

I assume I need to mention in my ToS that I am using dropshippers? Do I need to mention Aliexpress?

I really thank you all for helping me out here.

Thanks.

Regards, Stef

 

[Mika]

When I started, I made things too complicated. Keep it simple, just put up your fist store. Don't waste time for things like GDPR, it is mainly targeted for multibillion companies - although small businesses are not exempt. Anyway, just build up your store and start marketing and experiencing. (This is not legal advice, just my thoughts!).
About VAT ask from your VAT office, but again, don't do things too complicated. In many cases you are exempt of VAT unless your sales is over X amont (depends of EU country you live. So, most likely you can fix it later. If you sell outside EU you dont need to pay VAT for those sales, but EU sales is a different story if you sell enough and it gets even more complicated if you sell different eu countries high volumes as you need pay separate VAT rates depending of country. But I guess this is not yet thing you need to worry about. Just build your store and start. About shipping times you need to be transparent and mostly there are no problems as for those for who it might be a problem, don't buy from you, but you dont want those problematic sales at all. Just copy&paste & edit general TOS form some nice site, don't put there too much things like drop shipping etc. (Again this all is not legal advice, just my thoughts!). Just start!

 

[yepperdoodle]

hi. i need to be gdpr compliant. it is not just for big companies. it is for everyone who has a business that deals with people's data. i created my tos, privacy policy and cookies. so that is done now..now i look into vat. in Malta i have to register for vat starting from day 1. what i want to do is add the prices incl vat to woocommerce and no matter where i sell to, i want everyone to pay the same price...everything else is too fiddly... i offer free shipping..so that is sorted slowly getting there...ugh....