I'm going to provide you with the step by step guide on how to start a drop shipping business from AliExpress to American customers.
And note, you don't need to be from the United States to follow this guide. And actually, you can even scale your business and serve international customers.
eCommerce platform
At first, you will need an eCommerce platform. Hands down the best one at the moment is Shopify.
Why's that? Simple, you don't need any coding experience, Shopify has hundreds of apps in the app store and the initial set up takes less than 1 hour.
Its basic plan costs $29/month, and it covers all your needs and more.
Domain & Business email
There are many hosting providers, but I would recommend going for GoDaddy. It has an easy integration with Shopify - it is relatively cheap, and they have fantastic support if you're experiencing any hiccups while setting the whole thing up.
Payment Gateway
Ideally, you should offer both, PayPal and any debit/credit card payment gateway. It is always a great idea to offer variety to your customers.
You can start with PayPal instant checkout, and it is quite easy to implement it on Shopify (as they have integration already).
Same applies to credit/debit card payment gateway.
You should go for 2Checkout. I'm using it myself and never had an issue with them.
It takes some time to get approved, but once they get your account confirmed you could start to collect money from your customers.
Products
If you're going to follow these steps you've reached the most exciting part.
You have to pick a niche, import products to your store, make them appealing and start selling.
All this is possible with Oberlo application. It offers many great features that will automate your drop shipping business.
Oberlo will help you to import hundreds of AliExpress products in just minutes (including titles, images, descriptions, etc.)
It also has a feature of products customisation.
Oberlo keeps track of original AliExpress listing stock & price - and if it changes, Oberlo updates it automatically.
Lastly, Oberlo has a one-click ordering process and efficient fulfilment process where the application does almost everything.
Making your first sale
You should thing about your potential customer who is either necessity driven or niche passionate. You can also search for a segment of people with underrepresented interests/needs.
I would recommend to start with the Facebook advertisement as it offers exceptionally accurate targeting and with some practice, you can crack the code on how to show your product to a person who is willing to pay for it.
