This article gives a detailed guide on how to start a dropshipping store if you source on Alibaba. The descriptions include information for beginners and advanced users.
Dropshipping from Alibaba to eBay is a profitable business model with minimal upfront costs. Success depends on selecting reliable dropshipping suppliers, understanding profit margins and choosing the right dropshipping products. Ensuring competitive shipping costs and efficient order fulfillment are critical to maintaining customer satisfaction and achieving higher profit margins. By using automation tools such as Easync for order fulfillment and inventory management, dropshippers can streamline their operations, allowing them to focus on scaling their business and optimizing product lists to maximize sales and profitability.
How to dropship from Alibaba to eBay
Dropshipping is one of the best business models for beginners as it allows them to try several product niches without significant investments. The difference between this model and standard order fulfillment is connected to the split of responsibilities.
A dropshipper is only the organizer of a dropshipping store, who receives the orders and distributes them among suppliers. All production activities, stationary, and delivery are the supplier’s responsibility. The dropshipper can also boost sales by creating additional advertising campaigns and improving the online store design.
Thanks to software, there are many possibilities to reduce manual work and spend more time on business expansion and improvement. The dropshipper’s profit depends on the margin between the sales and the supplier prices, so it is better to sell more items to have a more profitable business. It is not possible to increase sales prices significantly, as dropshipping stores normally sell popular products with high competition in popular marketplaces.
We focus this article on dropshipping from Alibaba to eBay, one of the popular order fulfillment models for beginners and experienced dropshippers. We will guide you through all the steps for creating a profitable store.
Ultimate Guide for dropshipping Alibaba to EBay
The main steps for dropshipping business organizations do not depend on the source and target marketplaces. That means this article will be useful for all dropshippers. However, we will highlight the benefits of this path for dropshipping.
The sequence of dropshipping business organizations is optimized based on our experience. We excluded the choice of market and target marketplaces, as we defined our task at the beginning. But please remember that you can use different source markets (AliExpress, Walmart, Shopify, Amazon, and much more), as well as target marketplaces (Shopify, Amazon, HomeDepot, Wix, etc.) or create your domain for an online store.
Source of the product niche and define best-selling product
The start of this business model should always start with searching for your product niche. We recommend starting from something below $10-20 that is compact and easy to transport. It is also essential to try something at the beginning that other entrepreneurs have successfully sold. Experienced dropshippers normally are aware of market needs and understand their customers. As dropshippers do not store any products or raw materials, you may try endless products until you find the most profitable.
During your first search, you should not rely on your interests; you need to do product research. If you choose eBay as a target marketplace, you need to check the products with the highest demand there. For example, in 2024, the top five profitable niches for eBay sellers are health and wellness, home and garden appliances, electronics, beauty and personal care products, and fashion. Inside each product niche, there are endless products, and you should dig further. Please do not forget that you are forbidden to sell and advertise products on eBay (the list is available on the official website).
Inside each product niche, you can filter on eBay website products per the number of bids, which indicates the customer interest. You can also analyze other marketplaces, social networks, Google requests and other resources, but we have already provided the list of popular niches. If you do not want to spend a lot of time setting filters and analyzing trends, you can use one of the automation tools for product research – like AutoDS, EasyNc, Zik, Terapeak and others. All of them’s main idea is that they search for you on the target marketplace for the winning products. Some of them can send you reports daily on the winning products, including information on the most reliable suppliers, the recommended selling price and estimated profit.
For advanced dropshippers, we propose to focus on unique products and print-on-demand products, which are mainly considered premium and where competition is lower, but where you can increase your price to receive more margin.
Search for reliable suppliers
Like Shopify, Alibaba is one of the most reliable and popular source marketplaces for dropshippers. Alibaba to eBay dropshipping is one of the most popular. You can start your store organization by searching for a supplier, not a winning product, but this path does not promise 100% success.
Nevertheless, suppliers play an exceptional role in the dropshipping process. The dropshipper can’t influence the product quality; you can only find suppliers and trust they work. Even though you can execute anonymous test orders, there is no guarantee that the suppliers will perform equally well all the time.
There are several tips on how to find a reliable supplier on Alibaba: filter suppliers with gold membership or trade assurance, check licenses, ownership status, and availability of real reviews, location of company or factory, contact information, identify possible scam alerts, contact suppliers directly, define clearly or sign the rules of your future work like quality, packing, shipping and returns, discuss possible discounts and other benefits from your relationship.
Suppliers that offer test products should be appreciated. We recommend finding several suppliers from different locations to provide you with a choice and optimize delivery; also, with more than one supplier, you can withstand the picks and any difficulties of the only supplier.
The main benefit of Alibaba as a source marketplace is the availability of millions of Asian suppliers with minimum prices. The suppliers could be manufacturers, wholesalers, dropshippers or importing agents. For the minimum price, it is better to always search for manufacturers.
The website has organized categories for a fast search of suppliers, but not all of them want to work with dropshippers; some products have long shipping times, and there are many communication problems. The same is true when searching for a product niche; you can analyze everything by yourself or use the same automation tools.
Organization of an online store
You should know that eBay works with dropshippers, but you need to prove the origin of the products and be responsible for the whole product’s path to the end customer. All dropshippers should provide that they are allowed to sell the listed products, which means you should have the authorization of the manufacturer or wholesaler (you are not allowed to source from another retailer; always search for an authorized representative).
So, you are safe to organize the dropshipping store on eBay, but you need to pay eBay fees: insertion fees (you have only 200 free listings; the rest are 35 cents per one), final value fees (eBay takes 12.9% of the final price plus 30 cents per order) depending on the product category and store fees (starting from $4.95/month).
To start a store on eBay, you need to create an eBay seller account. There are several options for stores depending on the number of listings in the selected categories. For beginners, we recommend a basic store with a price of $21.95/month. All changes of your store you will perform in Seller Hub. Your online store should be simple, easy to navigate and look professional. You need to update listings and set clear pricing models regularly. For synchronization of your Alibaba account with your eBay account, we will talk in the automation section.
You can personalize the design of your eBay store to attract more customers. The name of your store should represent your brand and be unique from other members on eBay. It should not be misleading to other popular names protected by trademark law.
You can customize the main image, store logo, photos and descriptions of the goods. Moreover, you can tell your story and add a short description of yourself to create a positive image of the home brand from your customers. Be careful with product images and descriptions (videos are preferable now); everything should be of high quality and unique.
To better rank at eBay, you need to follow all internal instructions and use keywords. All beginners fight at the beginning for positive feedback, so it is essential to have a pleasant website. To attract new visitors, do not forget to perform SEO and advertising campaigns (in more detail later).
Dropshipping automation
All dropshippers can make their business profitable only with a large number of sold goods. That is why you have large listings, numerous suppliers and many options for potential best-seller items. The stocks and prices may change, so the product availability should always be actual. As you see, there is a lot of time-consuming manual work. We propose using automatic software for such tasks, which will give you more time for business expenditure and promotion campaigns.
There are plenty of tools available on the market. For example, Easync helps not only with order fulfillment but also with managing all steps of Alibaba eBay dropshipping easily. As you understand, even if you have found your winning dropshipping niche, you constantly need to add new products and sometimes change the niche.
Easync offers automatic order fulfillment by taking care of payment through multiple methods: crypto, Payoneer, wires, transfers or PayPal.
You will connect your source market (Alibaba) with your eBay account (online store) and define your pricing model and tracking features. The software can also import product descriptions, but we recommend customizing and changing them to be unique. Be careful with Alibaba product descriptions; some of them are automatically translated into English and may be weird. And that is all! You may visit your Easync account once or twice a day to check the quantity of orders and your profit! Your customers will get real-time access to the delivery status.
There are other alternatives to Easync of automation tools (AutoDS, Dropified) with the same functionality, but you can also find tools for automatic communication with customers in live chat or help desk (Intercom, Chatbot, Zendesk, and many more). So, you can easily delegate routine tasks to software. This will also decrease possible mistakes in order fulfillment by manual copying of information.
Test orders
We have already highlighted several times that dropshippers do not control suppliers; they only order from them. In the beginning, when the ordered quantities are not good, you can’t ask for your rules. To understand better how your suppliers perform, we strongly recommend making anonymous test orders from time to time.
Before you include the items in your listings, it is better to receive test orders. By the way, you can take photos and videos of the products for your online store. Do not forget to repeat test orders, as some suppliers can change the product quality without notification. Some suppliers on Alibaba send test samples for free without additional requests.
Advertising campaigns
The competition on eBay is high, and you are unlikely to be the unique seller of the goods unless you send branded goods (this is not the usual case of a dropshipper). eBay, a popular marketplace visited by more than 100 million visitors each month, proposes its own advertising tools that you can buy.
In the promoted listings, the campaign manager manually picks the items that may benefit most, and these items will have the “recommended” tag next to them and will be suggested to customers by eBay in the search results. The advertising campaigns on eBay are based on many attributes, such as seasonality, preferences, and more. The ad rate charges the fee for promoted listings. Unfortunately, top-rated sellers on eBay have more benefits from all advertising campaigns and have better returns on their investments as their items are recommended in the first rows.
Another eBay advertising method is the banner ad that appears on the eBay home page. You can choose the banner’s format; it can also be an image or a video. The price for this advertising is charged on every 1000 impressions of the ad, whether people click it or not, without connection to their searched keyword. There are also classified ads that have a flat rate of $9.95 for 30 days and are applicable only for specific product categories.
Order discounts, bulk purchases, limited-time offers, bundle deals, shipping discounts (including free shipping), coupons, and category markdowns are additional eBay promotional tools. All campaigns should be ordered in the Seller Hub. eBay analytics help achieve the maximum benefit from advertising.
Apart from the paid promotions, you can use free SEO tools; you need to optimize your product titles and descriptions and include the most relevant 3-5 keywords (you can research the experience from your competitors every month for the best result), improve quality of the images, videos and description; use in the description specific terms as size, color or brand; choose the most appropriate category and subcategory of your products, price your products competitively.
In addition to eBay campaigns and tools on the Site, you may use all other popular advertising with direct links to your online store. You may promote it in email campaigns, social networks, blogs, forums and other relevant to the subject website. All ways are good, fit your budget, and help to improve sales. We always recommend watching your competitors and using their successful practices.
Order fulfillment and customer service
The most essential factor in eBay’s online sales is customer satisfaction. This is the best promotion for your online store. You need to process the orders quickly and deliver high-quality products.
To improve your customer reviews, you may offer free shipping; for that, you may increase the price of the products accordingly. The dropshipper has to take the orders, distribute them appropriately between reliable suppliers and provide customers with tracking information and delivery status.
Also, you may need to respond to questions and resolve problems. As we said earlier, the automation tools are good helpers in these tasks. If you are a beginner, you may use free trials and free versions of software, but the paid versions provide more functionality and can handle more useful features. If your customers leave many negative reviews on your store, your eBay account may be banned without the possibility of creating new ones.
Business development
As with any other type of business, you need to control the dropshipping store regularly. You need to check your customer satisfaction, order fulfillment, delivery terms, and product quality and organize advertising campaigns. You need to add new best-selling items and remove those that are not profitable.
This all is everyday work. If you want to expand, you need to open a new online store, increase the number of items in listings or organize your products. That means that some dropshippers may switch to more traditional business models with their own warehouses and production facilities. There are no recommendations for these items as each dropshipper chooses its own path.
Dropshipping is a perfect business model to start with minimum investments; after you receive some profit, you can easily start something else.
Conclusion
We tried to simplify the overall organization process of Alibaba dropshipping to eBay to you. If you follow it closely, you will not have any problems. Alibaba offers a huge choice of suppliers; you just need to choose the best ones. We strongly recommend following all eBay policies. Otherwise, your account can be suspended. There are numerous cases in which your account can be suspended temporarily or permanently, such as not having enough authorization documentation, poor customer review rating, invalid payment information, and no payment of eBay’s fees.
Despite this, your dropshipping on eBay promises to be easy, and using Alibaba as a source market is profitable. eBay dropshipping has the same rules as dropshipping on other marketplaces, meaning that you will have minimum investments and huge possibilities to expand your business. Using automation tools, you can create hundreds of actual listings for several eBay online stores; with automatic order fulfillment, all products will be delivered on time, and customers will be satisfied. There are no limitations in dropshipping from Alibaba to eBay; this model is a nice start for a beginner.
References:
- Singh G., Kaur H., Singh A. Dropshipping in e-commerce: A perspective //Proceedings of the 2018 9th International Conference on E-business, Management and Economics. – 2018. – С. 7-14.
- Hayes M., Youderian A. The ultimate guide to dropshipping. – Lulu. com, 2013.
- Schmuck R., Benke M. An overview of innovation strategies and the case of Alibaba //Procedia Manufacturing. – 2020. – Т. 51. – С. 1259-1266.
Eugene Stepnov – Head of Marketing at Gologin. Formerly, He was the COO of Flatlogic and the co-founder of Kuoll. His main expertise is in promoting complex web SaaS products that lead in mar tech, affiliate marketing, dropshipping, cyber security, and web development.
