Find out a new way of conducting product research, from no other than AliExpress' own Dropshipping Center!
Launched a couple years ago, the Aliexpress Dropshipping Center still proves to be that uber important tool every AliExpress dropshipper could never live without. Heck, it’s even more useful to dropshippers now as it has morphed additional features compared to its past version.
Interestingly, though, not everyone knows about this nifty program. And a big number of those who do, might not even be maximizing its features.
A quick background: The AliExpress Dropshipping Center is AliExpress’s way of helping you become successful in finding the most profitable products to dropship off of their platform and from the most reliable suppliers.
In this article, we’ll do a sort of deep dive into the AliExpress Dropshipping Center beginning with how to access it, what tools are there in the center, as well as some other key insights.
Let’s dive right in.
For existing account holders who have, in the past, already opted for access to the center, you should see the Dropshipping Center tab on your My AliExpress navigation bar.
As long as you’re logged in to the AliExpress account, you should get to the dropshipping center by clicking this direct access URL link: https://home.aliexpress.com/dropshippercenter/dashboard.htm.
Those who don’t have this tab enabled in the MyAliExpress page, have two options:
1) Been on the platform for some time and have displayed significant activity over several months or years?
Head on over to your My AliExpress page.
Qualified accounts will see a notification right below the navigation bar asking whether you’re a dropshipper and would like to have access to the tools available in the AliExpress Dropshipping Center. Hit “Yes” to go through a few steps in enabling access.
Once done, you’ll be redirected to the Dropshipping Center dashboard. If you go back to your My AliExpress page, you’ll notice you now have the Dropshipping Center tab showing.
2) Are you new to the platform or simply don’t see the opt-in notification described above? Eva, the AliExpress customer service bot, will prove to be helpful.
Pull up Eva from the bottom part of the screen while in the MyAliExpress page. Click on "Ask more" and type in "dropshipping center."
Eva will return with a few search results. Go ahead and click on the Dropshipping Center link which will take you to this URL: https://home.aliexpress.com/dropshippercenter/join.htm#/agreement
It’s pretty straightforward from here.
a.You’ll be asked to read through the General Agreement for the AliExpress Dropshipping Project;
b.Tick the box to agree to the terms and then click on “Next Step;”
c.You’ll then be asked to agree to some Data Service Authorization terms;
d.Same thing as above, tick the box to agree and move to the next page;
e.Here you’ll be asked to enter your first name and last name;
f.Click “Submit” and you’re done;
g.You get redirected to a congratulations page with a link to the dropshipping center.
And that’s it, next time you’re in your AliExpress account, the AliExpress Dropshipping Center should be a couple of clicks away.
Now let us show you what’s inside the center.
No scratching heads when you first land on the AliExpress Dropshipping Center dashboard as AliExpress helps you hit the ground running with their New User Guide.
The guide focuses on the two main aspects of the whole center. These are (the ability to do deep research around) “Products” and “Apps” (integrations).
Here’s what you’ll see in the New User Guide section:
i. Links you to the selection criteria form for finding new products to dropship plus a bit more data to help you make sound decisions.
ii. More about this in the section “AliExpress Dropshipping Center Products” below.
i. More about this in the section “AliExpress Dropshipping Center Apps” below.
Veteran dropshippers know how vital data is in making business decisions and the guys at AliExpress are aware of this.
They have reserved a section in the AliExpress dropshipping center dashboard to give you an overview of your purchases and sales activity.
Here you’ll see payments, orders, etc with your daily metrics covering data from “Yesterday,” the “Last 7 Days,” and the “Last 30 Days.”
One thing that wasn’t on here when this center first launched was the discount levels.
While most users start at the Normal level with a 0% discount, the more you dropship off of the AliExpress system, the higher your level becomes and so does the minimum discount you receive.
Note that the exclusive discount is set as a “minimum.” This means sellers can give additional discounts according to other criteria.
You can level up from Normal all the way to A level and movement across these levels is based on Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) or Volume from the past month.
Here’s the table with the upgrade level rules below:
The Announcements section shows product promos, news, and updates pertinent to AliExpress dropshippers and AliExpress as a whole. Each headline is a link leading to more information.
This section links to the Apps integrations feature of the dropshipping center.
More about this in the section “AliExpress Dropshipping Center Apps” below.
Here you are invited to join the AliExpress Dropshipping Facebook Group which is a community created by AliExpress for you to "connect, discuss and help solve issues together." We’ve been there and it's quite a lively group. We highly recommend joining.
The “Hear your voice” section links to a feedback survey while the “Contact Ds Support” section gets you connected to Eva, the AliExpress customer service bot.
As we have briefly mentioned above, the AliExpress Dropshipping Center’s foremost function is to equip dropshippers like you with product research tools that’ll set you apart from others. The idea is to give you as much data as you might need to make informed decisions when adding new items into your dropshipping store’s product line.
As soon as you enter the “Find Products to Sell” section of the AliExpress dropshipping center, you’ll see three sub-tools each under its own tab.
These are “Hot Selling,” “Search by Image,” and “Sponsored Products.”
Let’s go through each one.
The Hot Selling module acts as a sort of advanced search form where you can define at greater detail the types of product results you want to see.
Search results off the bat?
Now you’ll see that there will always be results at the bottom even though you haven’t defined your parameters just yet.
For new users, the list will most likely just be a generic, but recent, what’s what of the hottest selling items in AliExpress.
But if you’ve been on the platform long enough and have had some significant activity, the search results here will be auto-populated by product listings you might most likely be interested in.
Advanced search options?
And from here, you can sort product search results through tabs at the very top based on shipping from location:
Search Results Columns:
That should give you an idea of how powerful product research could be in the AliExpress Dropshipping Center.
You can also use SaleSource to find winning products that you can sell in your dropshipping store, all you need to do is to go to the Product Center, where we have more than 2 million prime dropshipping products – a list which is regularly updated.
From there, you can either search a product by name, go to the best sellers section or look for products that are currently trending
As the name suggests, this sub-tool allows you to upload an image from your computer. From there, AliExpress will conduct a search through its product database using the said image.
I searched for QCY earbuds and here’s how it returned results.
Not only did I get the actual QCY product I was looking for but scrolling through, I got a few more ideas around what other products, brands, and the like are there.
Similarly, SaleSource also offers the Search by image feature, however unlike with the AliExpress search, on SaleSource you can get a more precise result, by uploading 4 images instead of 1 or even just a url. Also, with SaleSource you can import images directly from any Shopify store, making your product research even more effective.
The image search feature can be found in The https://salesource.io/analyze section of the Product Center:
Once the image is analyzed, we provide you with the key data, such as AliExpress listings, competitors selling the same product, product descriptions, product videos and the suppliers.
This section shows sponsored cards defined by AliExpress stores/suppliers who paid to be displayed. The cards show up to 3 products that you can click through.
Each card also highlights the store’s overall AliExpress rating based on customer reviews and feedback.
Category search is possible here, too, with the same category dropdown as in Hot Selling.
This, right here, is quite powerful and offers you an answer off the bat whether a listing should make it to your product line or not. Or at least whether it’s worth considering further.
If the “Find Products to Sell” section above displays search results based on your specifications, the Product Analysis page reveals how a product has done in terms of sales volume over a recent short period of time. It is product performance in the AliEpress platform, visualized.
As of this time, there is no way to stretch the search results’ date range as it seems to be only displaying numbers from the last 10 to 14 days.
The are two ways to get the analysis data for products in the AliExpress Dropshipping Center:
Once you’re on a specific product’s analysis page, you’ll see the following:
1. Product Name - which clicks through to the main product page
2. Store Name - which clicks through to the selected store’s page
3. Logistics Reliability - which ranges from Below Average to Excellent and practically gives you an idea around shipping. Will it be a breeze? Or should you expect some bumps along the way?
4. Overview of Sales Volume - discussed briefly above, is a graph of sales volume data
Apps, in this case, are supported integrations that are meant to extend functionality or give you additional features to help you with how and where you dropship.
These are the three available apps integrations currently on there with descriptions according to their websites.
With how AliExpress dropshipping is growing, there is no doubt there will be more apps integration options in the future.
And there it is! We’ve covered how to access the AliExpress Dropshipping Center and showed you what tools are in it.
Because of the sheer number of e-commerce sites out there employing the dropshipping model, whether it be directly on their own websites using tools such as Shopify or on well-established platforms like eBay, you would think the competition is just too stiff to even consider entering the game at this time.
While there IS competition, remember that not everyone is selling the same products, selling to the same audience, or are dropshipping off of the same suppliers. This means if you use the tools here properly, even with just the most basic of efforts, you should be playing the game at least a little bit better than the rest.
In any case, again there it is. We’ve packed as much of the essential info as possible on the AliExpress Dropshipping Center into this article. We hope this helps you grow as a dropshipper on AliExpress. If you have questions, feel free to get in touch with us.