Very long delivery time on Aliexpress

[German_Arango_L]

I opened a store 4 months ago (www.estrato8.com) and I made two sales. I just opened the second one a month ago (www.zapatillas.com.co) and I have not made my first sale yet. I've done all the SEO work in social networks but, apparently only if you put paid advertising you could move the business a bit.

Now, what I want to expose here is the delivery time of products. In my case, for Colombia the time of delivery of aliexpress is around 30-40 days and people are not willing to wait, because most of the competition delivers their products in 2-5 days, even foreign stores like ebay and amazon.

The issue of delivery time is something that no one mentions in all the articles or topics of this forum or in other articles that mention the wonders of the dropshipping business and less the shopify people and I have not found anyone to propose ideas or proposals for solution.

I have read about the e-packet system but it only includes 35 countries and none is from South America.

Someone knows another dropshippng suplier that is not from China, can be American or European?

There will be something that can be done to improve the delivery time of aliexpress?

Regards,

[Aria]

Hey, German!

Aria here, one of the Social Care gurus at Shopify. ?

Paid advertising is certainly one option but it's not the only option. It's all about building a brand. The following Blog posts may give you some inspiration: 

• How to Build Your Own Brand From Scratch in 7 Steps
• Launching a Successful Brand: How Panacea Made Over $16,000 in 30 Days
• Value Propositions: What They Are and How to Create Them (with Examples)

I love Instagram as a marketing tool. You can get really creative with it and it's a wonderful way of engaging with your followers. I notice you currently have 52 followers on Instagram. I would recommend you work on building your following. If you'd like to learn more about utilizing Instagram to grow your business, I'd recommend you sign up for the brand new Shopify Academy. We have an Instagram for E-commerce coming soon. 

We also have some great posts already to help you get started with Instagram marketing: 

• Instagram Marketing 101: Using Hashtags, Stories, and More to Grow Your Business
• How to Use Instagram Stories for Marketing (And Why You Should)
• Instagram Tools: 20 Essential Apps for Social Media Management in 2018

Delivery time is definitely one of the drawbacks of dropshipping from China, especially if you don't live in a country that benefits from e-packet. Things are improving all the time. Originally, e-packet was only available on parcels shipping to the USA, they have added a lot more countries since then. The other thing that is improving is the number of dropship suppliers. There are more and more suppliers joining our app store regularly. Companies are trying to meet the demand for dropshipping from countries other than China. A lot of them are print on demand companies but there are others. Here are a few apps for companies dropshipping from the US or Europe: 

• Spocket
• MODALYST
• Collective Fab
• MY ONLINE FASHION STORE BY CCFASHION
• ProductPro Better Dropshipping and Product Fulfillment :: US Products
• Dripshipper
• MXED - Sell Official Pop Culture Merch
• Gifty Dropshipping
• Otumate (only ships to US customers)
• ApparelPop! (only ships to US customers)

It's common for entrepreneurs to try a couple of different ideas before they hit the jackpot. It can be tricky to come up with the right product idea and grow a following around that product.

I wish you all the best! We are always here if you need more support. 

Aria
Social Care Guru
Shopify

[German_Arango_L]

Aria, thank you very much for your response.

All the articles that Shopify and Oberlo publish about the miraculous success of stores that sell thousands of dollars in the first month are absolutely false and created to convince the new unwary to enter the system. Because I already have the experience with my two stores to which I have dedicated full time for 5 months, I know that is not true. and also based on logic: you open a new website where there are millions and many thousands who offer their own products, so first how do you find customers when a Google positioning campaign lasts several months? If you do it through social networks as I said before, unless you are willing to spend several hundred dollars you will not be able to get visits in a short time. And that also spends time. If to make a sale at least 500 visits to the site are required, then where do the thousands of visitors that the store acquires in a few days come from?

 I spend several hours just posting a single post on instagram facebook, and G +

On the other hand, I already registered at Shopify academy but they are starting and now they only have 4 courses for beginners in the business. I'll wait later to see if they increase the content.

I can not use epacket because this service does not work for Colombia. I was looking to use the sevice with deliveries in USA but the clearance between USA and Colombia costs me approx $ 15- $ 18 which greatly increases the cost of transportation because my products that are shoes cost between $ 15 and $ 30 on average and I offer transportation free.

Anyway I have placed in my store the option of fast transport paying an additional price.

I greatly appreciate the list of App for dropshipping that you sent me. I was looking at all but only one fits my needs: Modalyst. However, I found a problem and that Wish does not publish the price of transport (whose time is also between 30-60 days) in its product chart and then it can only be known in two ways: taking the product to the cart and then eliminating it or importing it to the store and if the price of the transport is very high it must be eliminated after which it takes a lot of time.

I will deal with this App a little more to see how it works for me.

Thanks so much

[Aria]

Hey, German!

Aria here. 

You're welcome! 

The articles we publish about dropshipping success stores are based on experienced entrepreneurs, we certainly don't publish false articles. We have dropshippers on our platform who don't manage to sell at all, we have dropshippers who are literally making millions in revenue each year and we have everything in between. I'm not going to pretend making millions is the norm. Those guys know how to hussle. They know how to build a brand and a community and excitement around their product. They know how to pick a winning product and target the market effectively. It's also unusual for merchants to become a success with their first store. At Shopify, we believe in failing forward. When a business or project doesn't take off the way we thought it would, it wasn't a waste of time. We learn a lot and we apply it to the next big idea. Shopify is actually the best example, we exist because a snowboard store failed! Well, it didn't completely fail, they did sell snowboards but Shopify is the accidental, huge success story that would not have happened if our founders had not been trying to sell their boards.

How are you getting on anyway? Did you try out Modalyst?

Aria
Social Care Guru
Shopify

[totallypets]

Hi Aria, Im in the process of setting up a store to service customers in India..I am concerened about the delivery timelines of Aliexpress..how do I get around this issue so that my customers dont have long waits.

Shailaja

[Ooopalala]

I was about to ask the exact same question! I am in Australia and I am an online Homewares store https://ooopalalaemporium.com/ and have just the one product left that is currently drop shipped via Aliexpress (China), the rest of my products are supplied and shipped here in Aus by me. I originally started my whole store as a dropship but it was way too stressful, the shipping wait was unbearable. So now I currently only have 2 outstanding orders that have so far been 7 weeks and still no sign of them!! I received a less than positive email this morning from one of those customers. 

My frustration is this: There is little to no assistance from anyone once that package is shipped. For example, there has been not a single shipping update since Jan 01,2020 on both of the orders. How can this possibly be? "item has left origin country" is the last update, then nothing. What do I tell my customer? When I ask the store in China all I get is "hello friend, your package is still coming, please be patient". This does not sit well with an irate, impatient customer, nor me!

Really what I am after is any feedback of similar experience and how you managed it. I would love some support on how to reply to my customer.

I really want to keep the item on my site it's a beautiful product, and I have stressed on the product page that there is a lengthy wait, shipped from off shore etc, but wondering if I should just take them off until COVID passes, if that ever happens.

Would love some thoughts on this, thanks everyone.

Lindy