Should You Dropship With Aliexpress?

Aliexpress is a good choice for beginners to start dropshipping. But when you are scaling up your business, Aliexpress seems not so “user-friendly”. We compare Aliexpress with CJdropshipping in many aspects, from products and services to shipping and the like, you can have a comprehensive understanding of these two dropshipping providers then decide which platform to choose from according to your needs.

Fundamental Difference

There are many fundamental differences between Aliexpress and CJdropshipping.

Aliexpress

Aliexpress is an international retail platform, vendors build a store on Aliexpress, and selling to customers worldwide. Most vendors and products are from China, so they have a comparative advantage in the product price. The orders are processed by the different vendors, Aliexpress is not involved in the fulfillment.

CJdropshipping

CJdropshipping is a platform integrated with product sourcing, order processing, and shipping fulfillment. It’s like a combination of Aliexpress and Oberlo. Dropshippers list or connect products on CJ to their stores, then CJ draws orders from their stores and takes care of everything. Warehousing, photo/video taking, POD, COD, affiliate programs, API support, and many other services are also available. CJ is a one-stop service platform covering all the services related to dropshipping business.

Here are some other differences between Aliexpress and CJ Dropshipping:

1. Product Prices

Both Aliexpress and CJdropshipping do not require a set-up fee or monthly fee but the product price on CJ is usually lower than on Aliexpress for the same item.

Unlike Aliexpress, CJdropshipping is run by experts in dropshipping. From platform maintenance to product delivery, we make overall arrangements for every section in order to cut down the cost of operation, so that we can provide a more competitive price for our customers.

Price on Aliexpress

Price on CJdropshipping

2. Payment Method

When checking out on CJ, you will see 8 common payment methods covering more than 200 countries, and CJ also provides COD (Cash on Delivery) for authorized clients. And, from now until June 30th, you can get a 2% bonus as long as you charge CJ wallet via Payoneer over 10 dollars or euros.

With Aliexpress, because you are paying to vendors, the payment methods differ from store to store, and many do not support PayPal, which is now a major payment way in western countries. Sometimes Aliexpress will reject your payments when you place a lot of orders because of security reasons or system error. We don’t need to explain how much trouble this can be. This can bring your business to a screeching halt causing refund requests from angry customers.

START & SCALE YOUR BUSINESS WITH CJDROPSHIPPING

3. Shipping

Apart from product price, shipping is also an important factor in dropshipping, which will make or break your business.

You will find that the shipping fees show on Aliexpress are usually much cheaper than CJdropshipping, some even provide free delivery. But is there anything really free besides sunshine and breeze? Of course not. The shipping price on Aliexpress is included in the product price. This is one reason why Aliexpress prices are higher than CJdropshipping.

Let’s compare the shipping fees for the same product on the two platforms. The costs of the former 3 carriers on Aliexpress are cheaper than the CJ packet, which is the best choice on CJ. But if you pay attention to the estimated delivery time, you will see that the delivery time can take more than a month with the other delivery services, while the CJ packet takes 5-15 days. When it comes to faster delivery, the costs are much more expensive than those on CJ. We are in a special period of time where shipping fees are rising horribly. Under normal circumstances, CJ is more competitive in shipping fees and time of delivery.

Shipping carriers and fees on Aliexpress

Shipping carriers and fees on CJdropshipping

A faster option on CJdropshipping

4. Product listing

There are more than 2.5 billion products listed on Aliexpress, which makes Aliexpress an indisputably wonderful platform for finding winning products and test orders when starting your business. But once you have found a winning product and you are trying to scale your business, Aliexpress is no longer a good choice for several reasons.

Firstly, there are many e-commerce stores that began with Aliexpress who turned to us to scale their business. To cover up the flaws, we provided sourcing services to help to find their winning products. CJ is working on implementing a supplier plan where suppliers will be able to post products on CJ. Once this feature is launched, our product listing will be able to compete with Aliexpress.

5. What we can expect about Parcels?

Generally speaking, when dropshipping, you will more than likely be selling more than one product in a single order. There are tens to hundreds of products available in a single niche, and customers are usually purchasing several items at a time.

Aliexpress

What happens when a customer orders 3 different products from 3 different vendors on Aliexpress? They will receive 3 different parcels coming from 3 different places at 3 different times, which may be a nuisance for your customer. And what happens when your customer has an issue with all three items? You will have to contact all 3 vendors individually.

When you use CJ, all products of an order will be shipped in one parcel (CJ packet) and the entire package will be handled as one order. On top of this, your packaging can be customized with your brand and logo on CJ to help make your store stand out. This will help differentiate you from other sellers and leave a strong impression on your customers. This service requires no MOQ and can be done for every order.

6. Warehouses

Aliexpress

Most vendors on Aliexpress have no warehouses or store their products in their home so that they can save on inventory costs. Because of this, they have very low inventory. Bigger vendors may have warehouses, but still limited in size.

When you dropship with CJ, you have automatic access to several warehouses in China, two in the US, one in Thailand, one in Germany, and other warehouses located in Indonesia, UK, and France are about to be launched. When your customers buy products domestically in the US, their goods can be delivered to them in as little as 2 to 5 days using USPS+. If you have winning products in hand, you can also buy private inventory from our warehouses for guaranteed inventory and allow for faster processing time.

7. Easy-to-use System

Aliexpress

Aliexpress’s system is quite simple and easy to create an account on. It is a platform for customers to find and buy products, just like Amazon or eBay.

While CJ’s platform is a little bit more complicated, we combine the functions of Aliexpress and Oberlo into one so that you have all the features that you need on one single platform. This will save you a significant amount of time and energy. Our platform was also designed to make it easier for new users to get used to, and we have provided tutorial videos for all the features. We will also be rebuilding the CJ system in the coming months to make CJ an easier environment to work in.

START & SCALE YOUR BUSINESS WITH CJDROPSHIPPING

8. Dropshipping Center

Aliexpress Dropshipping Center

The AliExpress dropshipping center helps you find new awesome products for your dropshipping store. It helps you analyze products before selling them, and it helps you find new AliExpress suppliers that you might otherwise never have found. The dropshipping center is free to use, even if you’re not dropshipping with AliExpress.

CJ - Dropshipping Center

Service product is a kind of CJ fulfillment service that allows you can ship your own products to our warehouse and we pack and ship for you. When you have some orders, you can directly place orders to our system and we will ship them from our warehouse. How do these steps work in CJDropshipping? We can be your Fulfillment Center both in China and the USA.