My AliExpress D-Ship Journey!

[Nimeskern]

Hi, first a little about me. I’ve been in e-commerce now for several years.

Name it, I’ve done it. I’ve made money in every possible legal way on the internet you can think of.

I’ve sold on Amazon by Private Labeling, I’ve dropshipped using Amazon Prime (giving my customers 2 day lead time, however this is now illegal.) and have sold thousands of dollars worth of inventory. I’m getting into wholesale accounts and using various in-depth methods of advertising using Facebook and Youtube. I've sodl auctions, built websites, and have sold things for a few bucks here and there. I’m not a millionaire, yet, and not even close! But I feel like I’ve got all the tools in front of me this year and in 2017 to get me to a place where I can quit my 9-5 day job.


Okay, enough about me.


I’ve always been told to avoid drop-shipping from Aliexpress because lead time and fraud. So my main concern was always LEAD TIME. Fraud is basically unavoidable anywhere.

I live in the US and shipping from Amazon Prime takes 2-3 days at most. Seeing 20-30 days on Ali-Express by ePacket scares the hell out of me. Even if it’s stated up front, I worry…will ANYONE even buy this stuff??


Well this will be my journey. Let's find out! Last week, I spent 5-7 days researching a perfect niche. I had to do this before ordering my hosting/domain and plugin. It’s going up in trend, and is something people from all over the world purchase. There are hundreds of my niche products on AliExpress and there are a lot of good strategies to market to these buyers in my niche. So I’ve bought the plugin, installed it, got my logos up and all my content up and running perfectly, and pages added and categories organized. I’ve imported 50 products and adding and removing any as necessary. So I’ve spent less than $100 on the plugin, the website, hosting, and logo’s using FIVERR.

My next steps are to keep adding products. The most time consuming part of course is removing all the supplier info and updating each product from the Chinese description to my own description. It’s hard because sometime I don’t understand the product enough, and I don’t have the upfront money to order samples of everything I’m selling to properly improve my products. So I’ll do my best.

My hope is that I can run 1 site/niche for $500-$1000 a month profit, and then open multiple stores doing the same.

I’ll keep sharing my results here weekly or monthly as I get results. I'll be available here to help anyone else out and maybe we can partner up to swap sites and make suggestions (Don't worry - I don't want to steal your niche or ideas!)

Total out of pocket: ~$100

Total Income: $0.00

Total Profit: $0.00

Traffic: 0

Time Spent: 10 days on niche selection and site development.


I thank Yaros for the knowledge he’s freely given.

 

[Eric S.]

Welcome @Nimeskern! I'm almost in exactly the same position as you. Except without the eCommerce experience. I come from a development background and trying my hand at this. Launched my site this week almost exactly as you described. Would love to compare notes. I've already put my site out there which may be folly, but figured if someone wants to put in the work to steal a niche they'll figure it out anyway.

Here's hoping for positive results!

 

[Nimeskern]

Well, let's go easy on the "experience". I don't want to pretend I'm anything more than I am. I've simply tried a lot of things. Haha.

I went to school for web development, but only got my Associates. So I have basic HTML/PHP knowledge and I can do enough to get myself into trouble with various plugins and scripts. My logos on the site are still questionable, but I feel they're good enough for now.

Sure, I'd love to share notes!

By "launched" - do you mean advertising?

 

[Eric S.]

Yeah 'launched' is probably a bad term. More like 'it's at a point people can use it'. Advertising/marketing is where my learning curve is. I've started some posting on IG, Pinterest and Twitter. Tried my first small shout-out on IG yesterday and felt it went pretty well. I'm taking it slow and trying to learn as I go, knowing it will take time.

What's you marketing strategy/plan?

 

[Nimeskern]

Well FB ads will be my primary focus, as I have some experience with them. I also took a course on some strategies using Facebook ads that I'll share in detail when I'm to that point. Which should be soon after I get done optimizing my listings and fixing descriptions. Other than that, I'll be on the learning curve for shout outs and pretty much all other social media cheap or free advertising that Yaros mentioned.

Are you using the davinci theme?

 

[Eric S.]

I have experimented with FB Ads a little for another project. I probably will try a little with this too. Trying to mainly focus on IG initially as it seems to fit my niche well.

Yes, I'm using DaVinci. I made some branding modifications, but otherwise using it as is. I looked at Michelangelo but I'm not fond of sliders on the home page. It looks pretty good otherwise so I may try switching it up at some point.

Are you planning any SEO push? I'm debating whether to make some content and try some link building, but not something I'm excited about.

I was pleasantly surprised today to find my domain keywords make the first page of Google today. I did not expect that.

 

[The Dropper]

Nice journey , keep us updated ! btw , is there any updates about the earnings ?

 

[Nimeskern]

I have experimented with FB Ads a little for another project. I probably will try a little with this too. Trying to mainly focus on IG initially as it seems to fit my niche well.

Yes, I'm using DaVinci. I made some branding modifications, but otherwise using it as is. I looked at Michelangelo but I'm not fond of sliders on the home page. It looks pretty good otherwise so I may try switching it up at some point.

Are you planning any SEO push? I'm debating whether to make some content and try some link building, but not something I'm excited about.

I was pleasantly surprised today to find my domain keywords make the first page of Google today. I did not expect that.

I checked your website. Looks great, I think the colors flow well - better than mine. Your niche probably is more focused than mine is also. You can check mine out here. My products and product images aren't focused in yet and I've removed a lot of products I previously added due to the supplier not having many orders or low feedback. So don't laugh too hard.

I think articles and content will go really well with my niche. I have some plans to create it, but honestly I have no idea how to market it other than posting neutral content on popular Facebook pages - with links directly to my store in the content (discretely). I agree I don't look forward to that side of things either and I thought about outsourcing the work on the cheap since I'm not actually an expert in my niche. i understand it but probably not enough to write an essay with tips and what not. You can get pretty good articles written for just a few bucks on some sites out there.

That's awesome about your keywords though. Where are you inputting those keywords at?

 

[Eric S.]

I checked your website. Looks great, I think the colors flow well - better than mine. Your niche probably is more focused than mine is also. You can check mine out here. My products and product images aren't focused in yet and I've removed a lot of products I previously added due to the supplier not having many orders or low feedback. So don't laugh too hard.

I think articles and content will go really well with my niche. I have some plans to create it, but honestly I have no idea how to market it other than posting neutral content on popular Facebook pages - with links directly to my store in the content (discretely). I agree I don't look forward to that side of things either and I thought about outsourcing the work on the cheap since I'm not actually an expert in my niche. i understand it but probably not enough to write an essay with tips and what not. You can get pretty good articles written for just a few bucks on some sites out there.

That's awesome about your keywords though. Where are you inputting those keywords at?

Your site is looking good! No laughter here. I think that is a cool niche too. The default theme seems to work pretty well for that niche, but let me know if you want any help with css or image changes. Maybe we could swap some services?

I've done the same with removing products. Be careful of the ePacket thing too. I started out adding items if there is any free shipping option, but then narrowed to only those that offer free ePacket. There are some that have ePacket for a couple bucks, but I could not figure out how to factor that in to the price in AliDropShip ona case by case basis.

I have looked at those article writing services also and thinking the same. I'm really not sure how I came up so soon in Google. It's seems to always be a mystery. All I've done is submit the sitemap in Search Console and setup social profiles. I son't think my domain name is a common keyword so competition is likely light.

I'm ordering my first samples to sent to an IG 'influencer', so we'll see how that goes. The bummer there is it takes so long to get there. If it's something that works I may stock a few popular items to send out quicker for reviews.

 

[Nimeskern]

Thanks for the feedback! I definitely am not sold on the products and or images - they were quick ones I put up. As far as colors - I believe I can change them up quickly without messing around too much with coding using the backend color choosers. Feel free to knock anything on it you want - if we're being honest we're only helping eachother out. And being critical isn't a bad thing. I won't take it personal! I would say for your niche I would worry about the low cost of the products - I've seen many suppliers requesting that the product be $5 or more to ship anything, and if your product cost is $1-$2 range, the shipping will either be very slow (they won't ship ePacket) or they won't ship it at all. I'm not saying all suppliers do this but I've seen a few for my niche require a minimum dollar amount - just food for thought for the low notebooks you offer - but I'm sure you've selected these suppliers carefully - was just my initial 2 cent feedback. Also note that notebooks could be confused with the laptop/computer "notebooks".

How do you search for ePacket? I didn't see that option on the plugin. Or are you going to AliExpress and searching there and adding them one by one?

I'm using the pricing formula Yaros gives for products, however I modified mine slightly to increase them. I factored in Paypal fees and shipping for each product - but you're right you can't really calculate this initially for all products to ensure X% of profit, so I make the margins high enough that it should cover shipping and all fees if the free shipping wasn't available. So I will profit, but the exact figure isn't known for all products unless you do a one to one calculation. The problem there being if the supplier changes shipping costs/etc. But for most of my suppliers I haven't seen shipping cost anymore than $5 for the product, and usually less than that or free. I still worry about long lead times - but most of said it wasn't an issue. Since I'm shipping worldwide - I believe many countries are used to long lead times. My campaign will not entirely focus on the US primarily either.

I recently learned about YouTube marketing. It's very cheap (You pay around 5-10 cents for a video watch) and the user has to watch 30 seconds of the ad before you're even charged. You can actually ask YouTube users to run an ad on their video or insert a link to your related store or product for a small fee (find videos with recent high views (500,000 views or more) and I've heard that can result in 100-300 clicks a day with already interested buyers. So the only trouble with the ad there is creating a video ad of a product or the website - but I have found a couple of companies that can create a simple video for $100 or so. I do have some experience with video creation however I don't have the tools I used in school right now - so it may be cheaper to out source the video idea. For the links, all you would need to do is contact YouTube users with related videos in your niche - such as a product review video and under the video say something like "If you like this product, you'll love this...". Again, I haven't personally tried this but it's an idea I will be testing.

 

[Eric S.]

Thanks for the info on the $5 minimum. I had not seen that and could be an issue. I actually ordered a $0.60 item myself just to see what happens. It supposedly has shipped, but we will see. I don't know if those small/cheap notebooks will sell at $5 - $7 like Yaros recommends, but maybe if they are unique enough they will. I may have to limit things to higher priced items and will do so if it becomes a problem.

I wish you could search by ePacket but no dice. The Chrome plugin is at least helpful in that when browsing on Ali it highlights which items have ePacket. It's time consuming, but the only way I see to be sure of good products. I 'outsourced' that to my daughter since she is in my key market and loves notebooks.

Good thought on YouTube. I did not know how that worked. There are online tools to make decent vids as well. I'm not sure which but I think Yaros is using one for his. Fiverr may be an option to get one made too if it's kept simple. I had also thought about finding reviewers of my niche and send them free product to review, but have not researched that much yet.

 

[Nimeskern]

I'm not getting my website found on Google, even after updating SEO on the new update. What am I missing here? I can't even search my website.com and it still won't show.

 

[Nello]

did you add your web site to Google Webmasters Tool?

p.s.: you might want to install a sitemap plugin to map the whole site for Google to crawl

 

[Eric S.]

What @Nello said. Be sure and set it up in the Search Console for Google. The updated plugin will also create a sitemap for you or use another plugin to do so. I used Yoast. Once that's in and confirmed it will take a day or two at least before the site get's indexed, and maybe longer for all the product pages etc.

 

[Nimeskern]

What @Nello said. Be sure and set it up in the Search Console for Google. The updated plugin will also create a sitemap for you or use another plugin to do so. I used Yoast. Once that's in and confirmed it will take a day or two at least before the site get's indexed, and maybe longer for all the product pages etc.

Awesome. Thanks guys. I've set up Google Search Console. Can I use Yoast without messing around with the permalinks which the plugin does automatically? I saw several others having trouble with Yoast and Yaro's plugin.

 

[Eric S.]

Probably should hold off on Yoast as the new SEO changes are keeping it from working properly for me. I haven't had permalink issues but others have so it seems risky. I had it installed and working but the update broke the meta description. Haven't been able to look closer yet.

 

[nick]

I have experimented with FB Ads a little for another project. I probably will try a little with this too. Trying to mainly focus on IG initially as it seems to fit my niche well.

Yes, I'm using DaVinci. I made some branding modifications, but otherwise using it as is. I looked at Michelangelo but I'm not fond of sliders on the home page. It looks pretty good otherwise so I may try switching it up at some point.

Are you planning any SEO push? I'm debating whether to make some content and try some link building, but not something I'm excited about.

I was pleasantly surprised today to find my domain keywords make the first page of Google today. I did not expect that.

I think you forgot to clear your browser, that would make your domain keywords show up in search results at the top, you only have 4 pages indexed, try site:your domain.com that will bring up all the pages in the index.

My site was indexed within 24 hours and within a week i have 30 pages indexed ,

As Yaros has explained you need a 3k character article on your home page and i think its 2k on the category pages, and then some description of the products on each page, this is necessary for google to take your site seriously.

 

[Eric S.]

I think you forgot to clear your browser, that would make your domain keywords show up in search results at the top, you only have 4 pages indexed, try site:your domain.com that will bring up all the pages in the index.

My site was indexed within 24 hours and within a week i have 30 pages indexed ,

As Yaros has explained you need a 3k character article on your home page and i think its 2k on the category pages, and then some description of the products on each page, this is necessary for google to take your site seriously.

I had used a private browsing session to verify where I came up. It's not coming up first but at the last slot on page 1. My site has only been crawl-able since Tuesday, so hopefully more pages will get indexed.

I missed the bits about the 3k character article on the main page and 2k on the category pages. Thanks for that as I'll work on it.

 

[Doug]

I created a facebook group where we can have a faster and easier interaction.

I am member of couple other groups about drop shipping and marketing and it works very well, we share a lot of experience about strategies and we help each other solving tool issues.

I created the group called "Alidropship Strategy" https://www.facebook.com/groups/422841541437957/

It's a closed group, just for us serious people about our business.
It is not a group owned by Alidropship plugin, I am a normal guy studying and trying to get into this business.

 

[Doug]

I was implementing on my site all the stuff you guys telling here, thank you for sharing much valuable information.