Many look for Chinese supplier because of the low purchasing cost and the wide selections. Leveraging search engines will help you find so many Chinese suppliers, but the fact still remains; how will you find a reliable and capable Chinese supplier that will meet your needs satisfaction and help you scale up during the eCommerce journey.
Below lists a few popular product sourcing channels. Every one of these product sourcing ways has its individual advantages and disadvantages, and each individually play an outstanding role in your product sourcing strategy.
1. alibaba.com
it’s probably the most well-known B2B websites. With all suppliers from China, there are hundreds of millions of products in over 40 different major categories, and buyers from 190+ countries exchanging 100K+ messages daily with suppliers. .
without doubt, the platform who just celebrated its 20th birthday has mature infrastructure, makes it trustworthy platform in terms of various payment options and buyer protections.
Though, lots of sellers on Alibaba.com are not factories but trading companies, who don’t have control of product quality and stocks; Also, buyers have to make wholesale purchase which is not friendly for dropshippers and esellers who just get started.
2. Aliexpress
it’s probably the most popular sourcing websites for dropshippers so far. It supports 16 languages, with millions of price-competitive products listed by Chinese corss-border sellers, and the best part is that all Aliexpress sellers will handle the shipping. All you need to do as dropshipper is to place on order with the Aliexpress sellers and fill in your customer’s information. The seller won’t put any materials in the package so your customers won’t know you are dropshipping.
However, as Aliexpress is a B2C shopping website, it was not meant for efficient sourcing and order fulfilment; your credit card or Aliexpress account could be frozen if placing multiple orders per day; Another thing is that ePacket usually takes longer than 2 weeks which is not good for customer retention.
There are dozens of extensions and apps to optimize the work flow. You probably would have to hire more people just for placing orders with Aliexpress as business grows, but overall Aliexpress is a good sourcing website to kick off dropshipping business.
3. Oberlo
Oberlo is known as high-integrated app with Shopify, allowing sellers to import products both from its selected suppliers and Aliexpress. You can easily add products, edit listings, place orders and sync tracking information with few clicks. You can use the app for free and pay for advanced features.
Oberlo certainly saves lots of manual work, but it only works with Shopify stores. The product selection is limited; there are also feedback that the product price change without notice.
4. expos
There are plenty of expos in China for importers and exporters, trading products in wide categories, happening all around the year. there most famous one is Canton Fair, happens twice a year in Guangzhou City. The Canton Fair happened in late October 2018 attracted over 180K buyers and 25K suppliers, made a total amount of sales of nearly 10 billion USD.
The advantage is obvious: the suppliers are vetted, the products are cutting-edge, and you can get a good price. However its not practical for dropshippers as the Common practice is to pay a sourcing agency running erands; also it’s usually not enough just to source twice a year for sellers.
5. dropshipping websites
We have a few reviews on dropshipping websites such as doba, salehoo, and xx. The advantage is dropshipping websites work with most marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Woocommerce, and so on, for better efficiency. These websites would also provide warehouse service to ensure fast delivery while it significantly costs more.
There’s always dilemma between cost and efficiency. But it ends with HyperSKU’s help! HyperSKU connects online sellers directly with Chinese suppliers, offering low price and up-to-date products. Also, enjoy the convenience to upload products to Shopify store with one click.
Latest articles you might be interested in: