Tracking Options And Ali Order Event Emails

landed

Member
I have posted before on this subject but I had a few different questions and time has moved on.
It's a big time drain for me to check aliexpress orders. I get a lot of emails from them (Ali Express) and feel the need to check them against orders because I don't want an order to finish if delivery has not happened. If delivery hasn't happened I need to raise an issue and check with the customer. So I feel these emails "your order is close to finishing" are a real pain.

So I wonder if shopify store owners have the same pain points?

Notably:

Tracking: I use e-packet and Aliexpress standard which has tracking. Can't this somehow manage the order status so when it is shown as delivered the order status in my backend goes to closed. I do this manually for every order. It's a pain and I feel should be more automatic.

Creating a Track My Order page for the customer showing maybe an iframe of the chinese page. It would be a useful feature. I see Shopify has this or they have somehow managed to hack it...would be nice to do for woocomerce orders.

Customers when they don't have tracking create a lot of emails and that is time.

I know the alidropship team have done this kind of thing at scale and I WISH they might blog about this side of the business instead of marketing all the time.

TY for replies and insight. I really want to get away from Aliexpress and move to an agent. Then doing CSV orders will presumably change things again. I need to find an agent. If anyone knows a good or straight agent please let me know.
 

landed

Member
Agents are used to fulfil direct from China usually you need 20 orders per day depending on the cost of item etc. Alibaba and Aliexpress are the expensive ways to import and source. I think 1688.com you see the real prices but you never can tell for sure.
 

Mar

Moderator
Agents are used to fulfil direct from China usually you need 20 orders per day depending on the cost of item etc. Alibaba and Aliexpress are the expensive ways to import and source. I think 1688.com you see the real prices but you never can tell for sure.
I am not sure how or if it work. The plugin is designed for AliExpress only. You may get this so called agent to fulfill orders, but fulfillment is just one of the plugins functions.
 

Mar

Moderator
So I feel these emails "your order is close to finishing" are a real pain.
I receive this emails but never bother about it. AliExpress will close the order anyway when the time come. I don't understand where is the real pain.
 

Mar

Moderator
I get a lot of emails from them (Ali Express) and feel the need to check them against orders because I don't want an order to finish if delivery has not happened
AliExpress will close an order when the 60 days buyer protection is over, and that is even if there is no confirmation that the order was received. That is why I keep an eye to the tracking information. When the buyer protection is almost over and there is no information that the order was received, I submit a dispute. But even if there is an outstanding dispute, AliExpress will still close the order when the time come. But you will be refunded.
 

Direct Webstore

Well-Known Member
Creating a Track My Order page for the customer showing maybe an iframe of the chinese page.
There are several posts on this with example code in this forum.

I know the alidropship team have done this kind of thing at scale and I WISH they might blog about this side of the business
Use the search in both. They both contain info on this.
https://alidropship.com/category/blog/
https://help.alidropship.com/en/

I really want to get away from Aliexpress and move to an agent.
Narrower profit margins. No thanks.
Bye

:)
 

landed

Member
AliExpress will close an order when the 60 days buyer protection is over, and that is even if there is no confirmation that the order was received. That is why I keep an eye to the tracking information. When the buyer protection is almost over and there is no information that the order was received, I submit a dispute. But even if there is an outstanding dispute, AliExpress will still close the order when the time come. But you will be refunded.

So how do you know this if you delete the emails? Sounds like you might be waiting for the customer to tell you they didn't get it?
 

landed

Member
Agents give a better margin from what I am told. Better everything. I am happy to report when I find a good supplier and we build a relationship I am happy with Aliexpress. But that's the difficulty it's saturated with poor quality products.

Using an agent is using CSV ordering and you will update the orders by yourself or get a VA to do it. I suppose you gain by not having to submit orders one by one and lose by having to do the status updates yourself. I seem to have to do a lot of this anyway using the plugin.
 

landed

Member
I receive this emails but never bother about it. AliExpress will close the order anyway when the time come. I don't understand where is the real pain.
The pain is that I CARE if an order is about to end and it has not been delivered yet. That is bad for reputation but it's also a crap thing to do to someone who bought from you. IMO. I know many dropshippers couldn't give a toss but I am different to them.
 

Mar

Moderator
So how do you know this if you delete the emails? Sounds like you might be waiting for the customer to tell you they didn't get it?
I am not deleting emails. If there is no tracking information that the order is received, I assume the order is not received meaning I am not waiting for the customer to tell me. If the seller know that the order was received by other tracking, surely they will inform me and the dispute will be resolved in their favor.
 

Mar

Moderator
Agents give a better margin from what I am told. Better everything. I am happy to report when I find a good supplier and we build a relationship I am happy with Aliexpress. But that's the difficulty it's saturated with poor quality products.

Using an agent is using CSV ordering and you will update the orders by yourself or get a VA to do it. I suppose you gain by not having to submit orders one by one and lose by having to do the status updates yourself. I seem to have to do a lot of this anyway using the plugin.
I have posted a number of warning about dealing directly with suppliers. Good luck to you.
 

landed

Member
I have posted a number of warning about dealing directly with suppliers. Good luck to you.
Sorry I haven't got a crystal ball with me today- could you post a link?
Agents are not necessarily the suppliers they are middle men yes that take a cut but they get you better quality and cheaper supply with volume hence why they are affordable. A bit like paying for an accountant is actually them making you the money they pay you.
 

Mar

Moderator
The pain is that I CARE if an order is about to end and it has not been delivered yet. That is bad for reputation but it's also a crap thing to do to someone who bought from you. IMO. I know many dropshippers couldn't give a toss but I am different to them.
AliExpress will close orders when the time come. There is nothing you can do about it no matter how you care. You may extend the buyer protection but again the time will come. Delivery failure happen and it is beyond the control even by the seller. Preventing the order closed when the time come will not help.
 

Mar

Moderator

landed

Member
I perhaps didn't explain too well. I am simply trying to save myself time and detect orders that will close and did not get delivered. So some kind of flag on an order that is about to be closed but hasn't been delivered. I may have to resign myself to making the customer contact me when they didn't get their delivery which is not ideal. Unfortunately asking the customer if they got their order looks bad and opens you up to fraudulent scalys.
But I today dropped some OCD and deleted the about to finish emails...it was quicker yes.

Thanks for the link to the junk thread. No I was not meaning these guys. There are risks with business and relationships have to be created over time. But legitimate agents exist and that's the only way you can really scale orders (I say pretending to know).
If I could click and auto order on aliexpress then ok fine I can start to see advantages to sticking with Ali.
 
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