How do I connect my supplier's products to my online store?

[Zuta]

Ok so I've contacted my supplier for X amount of products and we're ready to start business but how do the products get connected through their shop? Do I send them the customer's information on an Excel sheet and everything? And if I buy from Ali express an X amount of products how do the products come to my shop?

[Rick]

Hey @Zuta 

I can see you have some queries about selling products that are sourced from a suppliers store, and you are wondering how you would connect your store to theirs.

From what you have described, it sounds like you will be dropshipping products on your store. Dropshipping essentially means that you as the merchant do not stock your own inventory. You essentially act as the middleman, so when a customer places an order on your store, you then arrange for those products to be shipped directly to the customer from the supplier - so you never have to handle the inventory, or deal with packing & shipping etc. Please check out this blog post which explains what dropshipping is and how to do it, it explains a lot!

Most merchants who are dropshipping do so by using some sort of third party app integration. You would install the app on your store, and then add products to your store via the app. You can choose the products you want to sell, as well as the suppliers you want to use. AliExpress is a very popular place to source products. Since our own app Oberlo has been sunset, we generally recommend DSers as a great alternative! Feel free to check out their getting started guide here.

After a customer places an order on your store, the app will generally have a process to handle the fulfilment of the order. You should never really have to completely manually do this with an excel spreadsheet. Here is DSers guide on how to fulfil an order on AliExpress from start to finish which explains the process in detail!

Have you considered what strategy you will take for shipping? A lot of dropshippers tend to offer free shipping, and mark up the costs of the products to offset the loss - however this is totally up to you as to how you approach this. We have an excellent guide here all about shipping strategies for dropshipping which is certainly worth checking out!

What kind of products will you be selling on your store?