Dropshipping From AliExpress to eBay Has Never Been Easier – Complete Guide with Smart Tools

Last Updated on October 24, 2022

The E-commerce industry has exploded over the last decade, and sellers have access to more business models than ever. Some choose to sell their products directly to a customer with no intermediary – this is classic retail. Some companies sell products in bulk to retailers: this is wholesale. And, of course, you can’t forget about the key selling model that is witnessing significant growth: dropshipping. 

Dropshipping: A business sells a product and passes the order to a third-party supplier, which then ships the product to the customer. 

A few years ago, “dropshipping” was a dirty word: it was associated with failed orders, unscrupulous shop owners, and poor product quality. Now, though, this business model has worked through most of its growing pains and is a reputable way to sell products. 

Of course, with dropshipping still being a relatively new concept, there remains plenty of confusion and misconception on the topic. In this article, we plan to clear up several key questions you may have: 

• What are the pros and cons of dropshipping?
• How do you dropship from AliExpress (one of the largest, most popular dropshippers) to eBay?
• How can you automate the dropshipping process?
• What advanced AliExpress dropshipping tools exist?

Are you ready to head down the path of entrepreneurship and financial success? Read on, and we’ll show you how to leverage AliExpress dropshipping from eBay sales: generate profit, slash your overhead, and unleash your potential! 

Information for Dropshipping Business Beginners

AliExpress is our dropshipping vendor of choice. Before we launch into the pros and cons of using AliExpress for dropshipping, we want to give you a quick overview of how it works. We’ll delve into greater detail later in the article. 

The general AliExpress dropshipping business model looks like this: 

This model implies that the seller does not need to have a warehouse or even have any product inventory. Everything on the seller’s end is digital; once an order comes in, the seller places the order with AliExpress. 

So, why dropship Aliexpress products on eBay? It’s simple: exposure. According to Statista, eBay reached 185 million active global shoppers, with a 5% YoY growth. It comes in second only to Amazon – and it is much more popular than sites like Etsy. What’s more, eBay is one of the most widely used mobile shopping apps in the U.S. If your target market is based in North America, you can significantly mark up items on eBay while still keeping prices affordable enough to be deemed a bargain. 

Active eBay User Accounts (In Millions) From Q1 2010 to Q3 2020

Does eBay Allow Dropshipping?

Is eBay dropshipping business even allowed? Well, yes and no. You are still responsible for the item’s delivery: if it does not arrive or is damaged, YOU will be held liable rather than the dropshipper. Furthermore, according to eBay, you must fulfill dropshipping orders directly from a wholesaler. 

What does this mean? 

While dropshipping isn’t banned on eBay, it is restricted. Technically, if you want to dropship, you must purchase bulk inventory from a wholesaler, who will then send orders out to buyers. What this does NOT mean, however, is that you can list an item on eBay, get an order, and purchase the item from Amazon and ship it directly to the customer. 

A good rule of thumb: if you want to dropship on eBay without getting your account shut down, purchase inventory in bulk. This doesn’t mean that you need to store it; the wholesaler can keep it and send it out as needed. This, however, means that it is trickier to set up working relationships with wholesalers, as not all of them will be eager to hold purchased inventory in their warehouses.  

HOWEVER! Most dropshippers on eBay do not, in fact, follow this rule; plenty of sellers place individual orders at AliExpress for dropshipping rather than buying inventory in bulk. We won’t recommend one way or the other – just be sure that you educated yourself on the risk of violating eBay’s terms. 

The downside is, if you decide to follow eBay’s rules, you can’t just purchase inventory as orders roll in. Because you are purchasing products up-front, you run the risk of losing money if they don’t sell.

Furthermore, you must guarantee delivery of the product within 30 days of the end of the listing. As most AliExpress wholesalers are located in China, it may be difficult to guarantee 30-day shipping if the buyer is in the U.S. However, by charging a premium on shipping, you could expedite the process. 

The last thing we’d like to address in this section is associated fees for dropshipping. You should know that eBay’s fees are changing on April 1, 2021.  

1. Insertion fee. This is also known as eBay listing fee.. You get a certain number of free listings per month – ranging from 200 to 100,000, depending on the level of your store. After that, they start to cost you, depending on your listing’s Buy It Now Price (but it is usually $0.35). eBay’s April update will give more zero-insertion fee allotments to sellers that use eBay to manage payments. For instance, non-store sellers will get 250 free listings per month instead of 200.
2. Final value fee. This is a percentage of your total sale, which includes the product’s price and shipping. In most cases, the final value fee ranges from 5% to 10%. In April, eBay will increase the final value fee by 0.2% in certain categories.  

Whether you are dropshipping or shipping out items yourself, it will not affect your eBay fees. However, you need to keep AliExpress shipping in mind. While some stores on the marketplace offer free shipping, not all do. If somebody purchases multiple products from your eBay store, and they are all from different vendors, you will have to pay a large shipping fee and front the cost yourself. Lastly, be sure to account for any PayPal fees. 

Why It Makes Sense 

The primary reason for dropshipping with AliExpress to eBay customers is a very high profit margin. You can come across some high-quality, trendy goods on AliExpress that are up to 10x cheaper than in a retail store. You get to set the price in your eBay store – and, even after accounting for fees, you can rake in a lot of profit. 

However, this isn’t the only advantage of dropshipping from AliExpress to eBay store! It also greatly simplifies the selling process – you don’t need a warehouse or to keep any products on hand. Not only does this save space and overhead costs, but it also means you can get started right away. The supplier is doing all of the manual work, giving you the time necessary to market your store and provide great customer service. 

Be Careful Not to Get Disappointed 

You need to be careful, as eBay strictly restricts certain dropshipping behaviors. Because there is no clear-cut official guide to eBay dropshipping, their rules are often left to interpretation. For instance, when they state that you can purchase and send products from a wholesale supplier but not another marketplace. Yet, AliExpress is a marketplace of wholesalers. Be prepared to argue your case if an eBay moderator feels that you have violated the rules.

Another con is that shipping takes a long time if the buyer is from North America. Most AliExpress suppliers live in China, meaning that orders can take up to a month longer than usual. 

Lastly, it is hard to determine the quality of AliExpress products. Some are fantastic, while others are cheaply made and falsely advertised. To combat this, we recommend ordering one of each product types that you plan to sell; this way, you can test its quality for yourself. 

Step-by-Step Action Plan

Have we piqued your interest? After weighing the pros and cons, have you decided to try dropshipping with AliExpress on eBay? If so, we have created a step-by-step list of how to get started. 

Find Your Niche

Before opening your store, we highly recommend choosing a niche to sell in. While there are plenty of “general” shops on eBay, it is much harder to make a name for yourself that way. With hundreds to thousands of new dropshipping stores opening on eBay each day, you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. 

Yet, you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into selling products that aren’t profitable. The best balance is to find a niche that can yield high profit, has relatively high demand, and is not saturated with sellers. Keep in mind: this task will NOT be easy. With dropshipping being so simple and its boom in popularity, it can be challenging to find a niche that has high demand yet a low supply. So, how can you do it? 

1. Explore eBay Demand

There are several ways to explore eBay demand; some sellers choose to find the most popular products or copy the most popular seller. However, we recommend doing things a little differently. After all, if you have the same thought process as all other dropshippers, you will not stand out from the crowd. So, when exploring demand, you should make a list of items that: 

• Could be substituted with an alternative product if necessary
• Have low product turnover
• Are priced higher than $5
• Are non-branded (try to stick to a niche where the brand has little impact on sales)

Consider which categories are “hot,” and come up with micro-niches within each one. Some of the top niches include car accessories, gaming, tools, and office products. A micro-niche for office products might be a 4k, high-speed HDMI cable.  Next, use Google’s keyword planner tool to find monthly searches for the specific product. You can easily see whether it is in demand!

2. Find a Popular Product on AliExpress

Now that you’ve determined a product that should sell like hotcakes, it’s time to decide which one you will stock in your store. Head to AliExpress and do some research. We’ll use that HDMI cable as an example. When you search for a 4k, high-speed HDMI cable on AliExpress, try not to get overwhelmed by the number of options. You can filter out undesirable options; we recommend checking the “free shipping” box and the “4 stars and up” box. Lastly, sort the results from low to high price. 

Find a product that has a low price and good reviews, as this will give you the highest potential for profit while also providing the customer with a high-quality product. We also recommend ordering one for yourself, just so you can verify that they come just as advertised. 

3. Use Automatic eBay dropshipping tool

Want to cut down on the amount of time it takes to find a high-quality product to sell from AliExpress? We recommend using an automatic assistant. Alitools is one such automatic assistant that can help you check the scope of the market. And you can download the iOS or Android app or just add the extension directly to your web browser for free! Some of the capabilities of Alitools include: 

• Checking price changes of a product on a day-to-day basis
• Distinguishing real discounts from fake ones
• Determining seller reputation
• Reading real product reviews
• Showing similar product, sorted by rating, popularity, or price

With Alitools, you don’t have to worry about dropshipping products from unscrupulous AliExpress shippers. 

4. Research Your Competitors

All right, you have selected a product to sell and found a reliable supplier on AliExpress. You’ve even verified the seller’s credibility via an automatic assistant. Now, it’s time to research your competitors and determine what you should price the product at. First, you need to figure out who your primary competitors are. Go ahead and enter your product into eBay. Next, make a note of eBay sellers that fall into one of these categories: 

• High sales but a low amount of feedback. This means that they are either selling a hot item or their title uses great SEO. 
• High amount of sales and high selling price. These shops are obviously doing something right; otherwise, customers would not flock to the online store that offers more expensive products. 
• Selling a product at an average price but with much higher sales. If two sellers offer the same price for a product, but one has far more sales than the other, you know which one is your key competitor. Likely, this is either because they have more feedback or because their item titles are optimized. 

Now that you’ve selected competitors, scour through their prices. Since you are a newbie to the market, you’ll want to price lower than them while still keeping your profit margin high enough for dropshipping to be worth it. As your feedback grows, so will your store’s popularity, and you can afford to price your items higher. 

5. Calculate Profit

There is no point in selling an unprofitable product. Take the niche that you have in mind, input it into a price history assistant like Alitools, and search for the top 100 eBay listings for the product in the last 30 days. If the niche is potentially profitable, you will see a high percentage of successful listings and a good sell-through rate. Furthermore, check out the average product price – in order to be competitive, you will want to remain close to that. 

If there is good demand for the product, and the average selling price is greater than the combined fees, shipping costs, and price of the product on AliExpress, then it is quite profitable. 

6. Consider the Logistics

Besides profit, there are other factors to keep in mind when choosing a niche. These include: 

• Product life cycle: How long do you expect the item’s demand will last? Is it just a fad? Are you willing to market yourself in a certain niche, only for the product to not be popular in a few weeks? 
• Season: Is the product sellable at all times of the year? Are there different varieties of your niche that can be sold in different seasons? For instance, a garden decoration shop may not be popular in the winter. 
• Shipping methods: Is the product large, fragile, or heavy? Will you need to purchase shipping insurance? Is there a high risk of the item arriving damaged?

Step 2: Create and Set Up a Seller Account on eBay

Once you’ve decided which product niche you want to work in, it’s time to create an eBay seller account.

First, you’ll fill out the account registration form.  Select a personal account or a business account, depending on your needs. The main difference between both kinds of accounts is that business accounts are associated with your company’s name, which is needed for tax reports. If you are selling as an individual rather than a business, then a personal account is fine. It is also possible to change your account type in the future.   

Once your account is registered, you’ll click the “Sell” button, which is located at the top of any eBay page. 

This will walk you through the steps needed to list a product, including seller registration. Keep in mind that account registration and seller registration are two different procedures! During seller registration, you will need to confirm your personal details, such as your billing address. 

You might be asked to verify your identity for security purposes; this could be done by providing a telephone number getting SMS verification. 

Next, you will reach a page where you specify what category of product you would like to sell. Enter the niche product in the box, and click “Get started.”

After this, you will need to set up a payment method, which your selling fees will automatically be taken out of. eBay seller invoices are paid on the 15^th day of each month. We recommend using a PayPal account for your seller’s fees. eBay pays sellers through PayPal, so getting the fees taken from there can be quite convenient. 

To add your payment method, head to your account settings and click on “Payments.” Link your PayPal account and follow the verification instructions. 

Now you are all set and can begin listing items on eBay! 

Payment Policies

Sellers may only accept eBay-approved payment methods from customers. Cash and point-to-point cash transfers are not allowed. The options that are offered at eBay checkout include: 

• PayPal 
• PayPal Credit
• Credit/Debit Card
• Google Pay
• Apple Pay
• Payment Upon Pickup (this would not be applicable for dropshipping items, so do not offer this)

Certain selling categories also offer bank-to-bank transfers, online payment services, money orders, and checks. 

Next, we wanted to bring attention to eBay’s unpaid item policy. When a customer purchases an item, they must send payment in full within the next 2 days. Buyers must include payment for the cost of shipping and handling, in addition to the price of the product itself. If the buyer hasn’t purchased the item or contacted you within the 2-day timeframe, you may report the sale. If the buyer has not paid for the product within 4 days, you may close the case. What’s more, you may receive a final value fee credit and even an insertion fee refund if you relist the item. However, if you falsely report an unpaid item, your account may be suspended, or you might use the ability to use final value fee credits in the future. 

There is one more payment policy of note: transactions that are initiated on eBay may not be completed off of the site. 

Return Policies

eBay allows sellers to set up their own return policies. Options may include: 

• No returns
• 30-day free returns
• 30-day returns where the buyer pays for shipping
• 60-day free returns
• 60-day returns where the buyer pays for shipping

To set a returns policy, head to your Returns Preference page. Here, you can set up basic return rules, in which you choose accepted reasons (e.g., doesn’t fit, the wrong item was sent, ordered by mistake, etc.), automatically send a refund if the product cost is under a certain amount, and even create your own advanced rules. 

Additional Information

Some sellers use eBay’s International Trading Policy to restrict where products are sent to. When you create a listing, it is possible to limit the countries in which the item will appear. This is important if you are selling an item that is prohibited in a certain country or if the shipping time will take too long.

Step 3: Create and Set Up an Account on AliExpress

It’s very easy to create an account on AliExpress, as you are signing up as a customer rather than a seller. Simply navigate to the “Join” page, and register via email, Facebook, Google, Twitter, or Apple ID. Check your email; you will receive an email with a verification link. If you don’t see it, look in your spam folder. 

Click the verification link – now your AliExpress account is set up! It’s very simple. Now, before placing an order, simply add a shipping address and payment details to your account page. 

Payment Policies

Each payment you make on AliExpress is protected by their Buyer Protection System. Payments can be made via Visa, MasterCard QIWI, bank transfer, and Moneybookers. Paypal has been accepted on and off again; currently, sellers can choose whether they want to accept PayPal. 

As a buyer, you can receive a full refund if you 

• Receive a fake item that was guaranteed to be genuine (actually, you can get up to a 300% refund for this.)
• Your order was not delivered in time, and the seller did not deliver a refund. 
• Your items were not as described, and the seller did not deliver a refund. 

Return Policies

AliExpress’s Free Return Service gives buyers an extra 15 days after receiving an item to decide whether they like it or not. If Free Return is offered for an item, it will be shown on the item details page. 

Additional Information

If you make a mistake when inputting the dropshipping address for an order, you can’t change it. Instead, you will need to cancel the order and place it again with the correct details. Alternatively, you can contact the seller and ask them to change the shipping details. If your package was already shipped, you should contact the local express company instead. 

Step 4: Automate Your Dropshipping 

While it’s possible to manage your entire dropshipping business manually, this can become overwhelming and time-consuming as your business grows. Soon, you could be working with multiple suppliers and getting lots of orders per day. Do you want to spend countless hours hunting for profitable products, making listings, manually purchasing the items, and more? 

To save time, we recommend automating your dropshipping. Below, we’ve presented 5 of the most popular dropshipping automation services. 

Options/ Software	AutoDS	Wallet Monitor	DSM Tool	Oberlo	Dropified
Monthly Price	$6.39+	$9.99	$19.97+	Free to $29.90	$17+
Reliability Score	Excellent (4.7/5)	Excellent (4.8/5)	Great (3.8/5)	Average (3.1/5)	Average (2.9/5)
Key Features	– Scheduled and recurring uploads- Profit calculation- Serial number tracking- Automated price optimization	– Bulk editing- Competitor analysis- Filtered product search- Manage multiple online stores	– SEO optimization for listings- Auto restock- Bulk product and multi-variation listings- Customizable alerts	– Automated pricing- Product customization- Automatically update product inventory- Change product suppliers easily	– Import products from AliExpress with 1 clickAutofulfill orders- Add-on features are available, such as review importer and product research

When determining which dropshipping tool you’d like to use, there are several key factors to keep in mind: 

1. The tool must support all of AliExpress’s products. Most automated dropshipping services work with an API, which is the software interface that grabs all the information from AliExpress. Some tools, however, use APIs that don’t support all products. This is really unfortunate because you could be missing out on some really profitable opportunities! Therefore, be sure to verify that the dropshipping tool supports all of the AliExpress items rather than just ones compatible with the API. 
2. Stock and prices must always be current. You may think that there is no need to monitor inventory as Chinese vendors have plenty of products in stock. However, popular goods will often go out of stock – so if you’ve chosen a niche with high demand, you might face this. What’s more, as the supplier faces increased demand, their prices might rise. If your tool doesn’t update prices and stock in a reasonable time frame, you may end up in hot water: perhaps one of your customers will order an item when it’s out of stock. Or, they might order it at an old price, and you end up losing money! Some dropshipping tools only update stocks and prices once per day – we recommend choosing on that updates once per hour or even more often. 
3. The tool should send automated feedback. Some automated dropshipping tools will send the customer a “Thank You” note as soon as an order is received. Once the order is shipped, the tool will also deliver a tracking number. After the product is received, the tool will send out a feedback request. This system does a great job of forming a relationship with the customer, increasing satisfaction, and taking the workload off your shoulders. 
4. It should support item variations. Most AliExpress items have some sort of variation available – for instance, one purse could come in multiple patterns and colors. With eBay, we can take advantage of that, as we pay per product rather than per variation. With some dropshipping automation services, you can easily upload multiple variations of a single product and just get charged for one listing. You can even set different prices for each variation! This brings more potential for profit, especially if your AliExpress supplier charges the same price for each variation. 
5. There should be comprehensive, automatic item specs. Dropshipping automation services can input item specs into your listing, saving you lots of research and manual inputting time. For instance, let’s take a phone case. A dropshipping automator can import the phone case’s brand name, compatible phone models, design, type, size, model number, and features – just with the click of a button. 

Step 5: Pay Commissions

If you’ve automated your dropshipping, you can easily add items from AliExpress to your eBay store with 1 click. The service takes care of the rest! Now, all there is left to do is pay commissions. Some services come with commissions off of the product cost. For instance, Dropified charges 8% of the product cost on top of the $17/month fee. The services, though, will automatically calculate the cost of commissions for you and send an invoice, so you don’t have to worry about manually determining costs. 

Conclusion

Dropshipping from AliExpress to eBay customers is an excellent way to make a significant profit without paying a lot of money upfront or even storing inventory. If you only purchase items as the orders come in, you essentially only need to spend your capital on marketing. 

However, if you are willing to invest a little more, automated dropshipping tools can simplify nearly every part of the dropshipping process, leaving you with more time to focus on providing the best customer service. 

The key takeaways for this guide are: 

• Carefully research which products are in demand yet are not oversaturated in the market. Automated assistants like Alitools can make this easy! 
• Make sure to follow eBay’s Terms & Conditions, so your dropshipping store isn’t shut down. 
• Consider using automated dropshipping services.

To sum it all up, we’d like to provide a working example of how you can start your dropshipping business on eBay from scratch. 

1. Sign up for an eBay and AliExpress account
2. Create an eBay store
3. Use Alitools to find an in-demand product with limited supply. For instance: frog-themed garden décor. It is trendy, yet there aren’t too many shops selling this specific niche. 
4. Use an automated dropshipping tool to select all related products and add them to your store. 
5. Wait for the orders to come in. The dropshipping tool will take care of everything! You just need to provide customer service and pay commissions. 
6. Enjoy the profit, market your business, and keep searching for new, profitable products!

There are many eBay users who dropship from AliExpress and are successful at it. All it takes is a little practice. With some studying, you’ll soon be able to identify product trends easily – and it’s even easier if you use Alitools. Let your business flourish while the dropshippers handle the logistics!

FAQs

Is dropshipping still allowed on eBay?

Yes, dropshipping is still allowed on eBay. However, you are not allowed to dropship from aliexpress to eBay. You must dropship from a supplier that is located in the United States.

Can u dropship from AliExpress to eBay store?

Yes, eBay allows dropshipping. In fact, they even have a page on their website that explains how to do it.

Is it legal to dropship from eBay?

Yes, it is legal to dropship from eBay. In fact, eBay even has a section of their website dedicated to helping people get started with dropshipping

Is dropshipping from AliExpress to eBay allowed?

eBay dropshipping is allowed, as long as you follow the company’s rules and regulations. For example, you cannot use any copyrighted images on your listings without written permission from the rights holder.