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This varies wildly. A beginner who puts in consistent effort can realistically aim to make their first $1,000 – $3,000 per month within the first few months. Successful, established dropshippers can make $10,000 to $100,000+ per month. The biggest difference is marketing skill, product selection, and supplier reliability.
Yes, absolutely. Ecommerce continues to grow every year. Dropshipping profitability has simply evolved. The old model of selling cheap items from China with 4-week shipping is dying. The new, profitable model is brand-focused, uses fast US-based suppliers, and provides a high-quality customer experience. That’s where the profit is.
It is possible, but not recommended. You could use a platform’s free trial and rely only on free organic marketing (like TikTok or Instagram Reels). However, you will still eventually need to pay for the platform’s subscription fee. It’s more accurate to say you can start with “no startup costs”.
You can start for very little. The main costs are your ecommerce platform subscription (e.g., Sellvia subscription) and marketing expenses. Turnkey solutions like Sellvia often offer free trials or packages that include a free store setup, while budget for marketing (e.g., $100-$200) is advisory to start driving traffic and making sales.
Low Financial Risk: No need to invest in inventory, making it the most affordable way to start a business.
Easy to Start: You can launch a fully functional, pre-stocked store in minutes using a turnkey service.
Flexibility: You can run your business from anywhere in the world with just a laptop.
Wide Product Selection: You can offer a huge variety of products without managing any of them.
Easy to Scale: All the fulfillment work is done by your supplier, so you can focus 100% on marketing and growth.
Dropshipping is popular because it has the lowest barrier to entry of any business model. You don’t need thousands of dollars to buy products in bulk, you don’t need to rent a warehouse, and you don’t need to manage the complexity of shipping. A beginner can start a business in a single day with minimal financial risk.
The key difference is inventory management.
Traditional ecommerce: You buy products in bulk (wholesale), store them in a warehouse (or your garage), and are responsible for packing and shipping each order yourself. This requires a large upfront investment and carries the risk of not selling your stock.
Dropshipping: You have no inventory costs. You only buy a product after a customer has already paid you for it. This eliminates the financial risk and the logistical work of fulfillment.
Dropshipping is an ecommerce business model where you, the seller, can sell products online without ever holding any inventory. When a customer buys a product from your online store, you purchase that item from a third-party supplier, who then ships the product directly to the customer. You are the storefront and the brand; your supplier handles all the logistics, from warehousing to shipping.
It is the seller’s responsibility to assemble the package with the right items in it. The seller also arranges this package delivery to your buyer’s address.
Before you send the money to the supplier, your store receives the money paid by your buyer.
Let’s say the product costs $2.51 on AliExpress. You put a markup on it and make it cost $5.99 in your store, for example. So, while placing an order, your buyer pays $5.99 to you, and you only need to pay $2.51 to the AliExpress seller while transferring the order details.
That’s how you profit from dropshipping!
Yes, dropshipping is a completely legal and legitimate business model. It is simply a fulfillment method (retail arbitrage) used by major retailers like Amazon, Macy’s, and Wayfair, as well as thousands of independent entrepreneurs. As long as you operate an honest business, fulfill orders, and pay your taxes, dropshipping is 100% legal.
AliExpress has a great buyer protection system and gives a full money-back guarantee. Therefore, there is no need to worry if anything goes wrong with the order (it gets lost or damaged). Your AliExpress seller will be responsible for issuing a refund for your customer. Feel free to learn more about this procedure here.
When you have your own store, you are not limited by any rules and requirements of other marketplaces. Besides, owning your site gives you more opportunities for promotion and marketing strategies. Furthermore, building your own site is a wise investment because you can easily sell this business one day. Such established dropshipping websites are always a very marketable product.
When you buy AliDropship plugin for $89, you buy a piece of software that helps you automate your dropshipping procedures. You need to install it on your website and assemble a dropshipping store by your own effort.
When you order a custom dropshipping store for $299, you get a complete website that is ready for operation. It doesn’t require you to do the technical tasks of setting up the necessary systems. As soon as the store is handed over to you, you can start promoting it and make money with its help right away!
AliDropship Original plugin works for any WordPress website that has no WooCommerce plugin installed. It has an extended range of additional features and tools (including built-in themes, a convenient dashboard showing the most important store stats, etc.), which makes it the perfect choice for people who don’t have experience. This version of the plugin is only compatible with store themes offered by AliDropship.
AliDropship Woo plugin will ONLY work on your website if you have the WooCommerce plugin installed. This version only performs the core dropshipping functions, but makes it possible to customize your store any way you’d like.
To learn more about the technical differences between these solutions, please read these guidelines.
If you want to see which version works better for you, please, use this checklist and try managing both versions with our demo stores.
If you want to switch from the Original plugin to the Woo version or vice versa, you can do it without purchasing a new plugin. Please, keep in mind that when you switch between these plugin versions within 1 website, your store settings get lost. Therefore, you need to reinstall WordPress and start customizing your website all over again.
Of course! You can find answers to many of your questions in our Blog and Knowledge Base.
If there is a technical question about your plugin performance, please, feel free to contact our support team at support@alidropship.com. Write us a detailed email and attach the screenshots showing what’s wrong: this way, we will be able to solve your issue much quicker.
No, your personal license key is only valid for one website/domain name. This means you can’t use the same plugin for two or more stores.
We don’t offer a free trial, but you can use our free demo to see what you’ll experience with our solutions.
Also, before your purchase, feel free to review our demo sites with different themes we offer.
As you can see here, our custom stores come in several packages with varying prices. Whatever package you buy, you get a professionally made store that comes with already imported products, lets you accept buyers’ payments, and helps you transfer their orders to AliExpress sellers easily.
Generally, the packages differ by the number of pre-imported products (you can always import more if you want to!) and the range of marketing features that will help you promote your store in the future.
If you already have a custom store and want to upgrade it to a more advanced version, feel free to use this contact form. In this form, just write that you want to upgrade your store, and you’ll receive your personal coupon to do this.
We can give you niche recommendations and analyse up to 3 niches for you, but the final choice is up to you! It’s important for you to know a lot about the niche you’re choosing, and to be passionate about it.
Targeting people like you, with the same tastes and interests, can be very motivating and easy to manage. Feel free to use this free niche research tool and this list of the most profitable niches for your inspiration, and let your personal manager know what you’ve chosen.
You will get an individually created, fully functioning online store that is completely ready for operation. Together with it, you will also enjoy detailed guides on your store promotion and management.
Also, you will receive lifelong licenses for the AliDropship plugin and the add-ons that are included in the package.
All the custom stores come with free lifelong tech support, so we will be providing you with the necessary guidance along your business journey at your request.
After you become a store owner, you need to start promoting your website to make it successful. Please watch this video to learn more about it.
As you can see it from other store owners’ experience, advertising is necessary to make your first sale happen sooner.
When you get your first incoming order, you need to take these steps to process it properly. All the following orders will be processed in the same way, too.
It will also be great to:
- Read this article to see how dropshipping store managers organise their daily routine
- Check for the AliDropship plugin updates regularly and update your version to make sure your store keeps working to its best
- Check your social media accounts and email regularly
- Import new products to make your store offer relevant to the season and the trends
No, it only works with AliExpress.
No, these 2 systems are not compatible.
You should offer both. You need Stripe to accept all major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) and PayPal as a trusted, one-click alternative. Offering both is the best way to maximize your conversion rate at checkout.
You can buy a domain name from registrars like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or directly through your ecommerce platform (like Shopify or AliDropship) when you sign up. It typically costs $10-$20 per year for a .com domain, while other domains might be available for free (AliDropship provides you with a free domain name when you sign up).
A “turnkey store” (like those provided by AliDropship) is a complete business-in-a-box. It comes 100% built, professionally designed, and pre-loaded with winning products from a vetted supplier. For a beginner, it is almost always a better investment because it allows you to skip the 100+ hours of technical setup, design, and product research, and jump straight to the only part that makes money: marketing.
A good niche is “an inch wide and a mile deep.” It’s specific enough to target effectively but has thousands of potential products and repeat customers.
Bad Niche: “Outdoor Gear” (too broad)
Good Niche: “Fly Fishing” (specific, passionate, lots of gear)
Great Niche: “Fly Fishing for Beginners” (hyper-specific, clear audience, perfect for selling starter kits)
Look for a niche with three things:
Passionate Audience: Choose a hobby, sport, or lifestyle where people love to spend money (e.g., golf, fishing, coffee lovers, pet owners).
Good Profit Margins: Avoid products where you can only make a few dollars.
“Problem-Solving” Products: Products that solve a specific problem (e.g., “back pain relief,” “kitchen organization”) are easier to market than generic items.
This is a key question about solutions.
Shopify is a powerful, flexible “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) platform. You get the software, but you must find suppliers, vet products, install and pay for 10+ different apps for fulfillment and marketing, and design your store. It’s powerful but complex for a beginner.
AliDropship is a “Done-For-You” (DFY) solution. It provides the store, the high-quality products, the automated fulfillment, and even AI-powered marketing tools with guaranteed sales, all in one place. For a beginner who wants to skip the technical setup and focus on marketing, AliDropship is the faster and more direct path to launching.
Choose Your Niche: Decide what you want to sell (e.g., pet supplies, home fitness, kitchen gadgets).
Choose Your Platform & Supplier: Decide how you will build your store (e.g., Shopify) and where you’ll get products (e.g., AliExpress vs. a US-based supplier like Sellvia).
Get a Turnkey Store (The Fast Way): Use a service like AliDropship that provides you with a pre-built, pre-stocked store with access to vetted suppliers with automated fulfillment system.
Set Up Your Business: Register your business (e.g., as an LLC) and set up your payment gateways.
Market Your Products: Start running ads (Facebook, TikTok) or using SEO and social media to drive traffic.
Fulfill Orders: Manage customer service while your supplier handles the shipping.
YES! You can dropship from ANYWHERE in the world. You’re doing business through the Internet, so it doesn’t matter if you’re in Singapore or the United States, or anywhere else. Please, read this article to learn more.
Of course! A website is the basis of your dropshipping business. If your online store is good-looking, ready for service, and regularly updated, you are much more likely to convert your store visitors into buyers.
The lowest possible cost is $147 – please, watch this video to see how to launch your dropshipping business with this budget, and to learn your other options.
No, but you can reduce the cost of your dropshipping store.
You do not need an LLC to start. You can legally start as a sole proprietor using your own name and social security number.
However, it is highly recommended to form an LLC as soon as you are profitable. An LLC (Limited Liability Company) legally separates your business from you personally, protecting your personal assets (like your house or car) if your business is ever sued.
To install the plugin, you need to have a domain name, hosting and WordPress installed. You can buy hosting at AliDropship: in this case, we’ll install the plugin for you for free.
If you’re using a modern platform like AliDropship or an app for Shopify, you can import products with a single click. The system will automatically pull the product title, description, images, and inventory levels into your store.
The Hard Way: Manually check your supplier’s website every day and update the stock on your store.
The Easy Way: Use a platform with real-time, automated inventory sync (like Sellvia). If our warehouse is running low, your store’s inventory is updated automatically so you can never sell an out-of-stock item.
A healthy profit margin for dropshipping is between 30% and 50%. Anything less than 30% makes it very difficult to pay for marketing and customer service and still make a profit.
A common strategy is the 3x markup rule.
Cost of Goods: The price you pay your supplier (e.g., $15).
Marketing Cost: An estimated cost to get one sale (e.g., $15).
Your Profit: Your take-home profit (e.g., $15).
Under this model, you would sell the $15 product for $45. This gives you a 33% profit margin and a healthy budget for advertising.
A “winning product” typically solves a problem, has a “wow” factor, and isn’t easily found in stores. You can find them by:
Manual Research: Scrolling social media (like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt) to see what’s going viral.
Ad Spy Tools: Using software to see what ads other dropshippers are spending money on.
Use a Vetted Catalog: Partner with a service like AliDropship. Our team uses data from thousands of stores to identify “winning products” and then pre-stocks them for you, so you never have to guess.
This is the hardest part of dropshipping.
The Old Way (High-Risk): Spend months on AliExpress, ordering samples from dozens of different sellers, and risk getting scammed, receiving low-quality items, or dealing with 4-week shipping.
The New Way (Low-Risk): Use a managed supplier marketplace or an integrated platform like Sellvia. We have an in-house team that has already done the work for you. Every product in our catalog is pre-vetted for quality and is stocked in our own US warehouse, so reliability is guaranteed.
If your store is running on the AliDropship Original plugin, there are no limitations on the number of products you can import.
If your store is based on the AliDropship Woo plugin, we strongly recommend that you add no more than 500 products – otherwise, the store performance will get much slower.
Yes, if your store works on AliDropship Original plugin. If your store is based on the AliDropship Woo plugin, it’s best to import not more than 500 products in order not to trouble the store’s technical performance.
Please remember: to achieve the best financial results of your store operation, it’s necessary to edit these products’ pages in order to ‘hide’ their AliExpress origin. Otherwise, the store and the items won’t look appealing and trustworthy to your store visitors.
Therefore, you have 2 general options:
1) Import an average number of items and edit each of them manually to the best of your knowledge
2) Import an unlimited number of items from AliDropship’s database of highly demanded pre-edited AliExpress products.
Great question! Please view our analysis of the most profitable niches here.
Start with a niche store. In 2025, general “do-it-all” stores are dead. They are not memorable, cannot build a brand, and cannot compete with Amazon. A niche store allows you to build a targeted email list, create expert content, and become the “go-to” brand for a specific audience.
Yes, it is absolutely possible. Simply delete the products you don’t need anymore, and import the ones that suit your new niche. Don’t forget to change your store style if necessary (make sure that your domain name and website address suit the new niche). Also, notify your social media followers and email subscribers about the change in your product offering.
Manual: You receive a sale, you go to your supplier’s website, you manually type in the customer’s shipping information, and you pay for the product with your own credit card.
Automated (Recommended): You receive a sale, and your store’s backend system (like AliDropship’s) automatically sends the order to the fulfillment center. You don’t have to do anything; the order is processed, and the tracking number is sent back to your store automatically.
AliDropship company itself doesn’t store any products or arrange the packages’ delivery.
These operations are solely the responsibility of the AliExpress suppliers you’re working with. Therefore, if you have any questions about the delivery terms and duration, you need to ask your seller directly.
AliDropship company has no way to know it for sure. Products’ delivery is the responsibility of the AliExpress sellers, and all these suppliers are partnering with various delivery companies. The location of their warehouses, delivery companies’ terms of service, and other internal factors may influence the overall delivery time. Therefore, if you need to learn more about the delivery details, please contact your AliExpress supplier directly.
That’s right – all the sellers arrange deliveries on their own. So, to make it more convenient for your customer, it’s a good idea to import as many products as possible from a single supplier.
It is possible to integrate various payment gateways into your AliDropship-based store. You can view the full list of the available options here. Also, we offer detailed guides on activating payment gateways on your dropshipping website – here they are!
Not all the payment gateways require you to have an officially registered business. Therefore, you need to research the payment gateways from this list to see which of them work in your country, and ask their support teams whether you can register there as a private individual.
Before integrating a payment gateway, please ensure that your website is completely ready for operation:
- The necessary design elements are added
- The products are uploaded and edited
- There is contact information
- There are shipping/policy/refund pages (all the default pages).
You need to check the list of available payment gateways, choose the gateways that are supported in your country and learn their requirements for e-commerce stores.
Make sure there are no copyrighted products offered in your dropshipping store, and contact the payment provider’s team to guide you through the application process.
We do not recommend mentioning that you are a dropshipper as some of the payment systems consider such kinds of business as high risked.
You can specify that you are an entrepreneur and your website is an eСommerce store.
No, we don’t provide this service.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the long-term strategy for getting free traffic from Google. You do this by:
Writing Unique Content: Creating 100% unique product descriptions.
Blogging: Writing helpful articles related to your niche (e.g., “10 Ways to Organize Your Kitchen” for a kitchen niche store).
Building Authority: Creating content that establishes your brand as an expert
Create short, engaging videos that showcase your product in use. Don’t make a salesy commercial. Make a video that solves a problem or shows a “wow” factor. Post 1-3 times a day, use trending sounds and hashtags, and engage with your comments to build a community.
A good starting budget is $10-$20 per day for testing. When you find an ad that is profitably making sales, you can begin to “scale” by increasing the budget. Don’t spend any money you are not prepared to lose, as marketing always involves testing.
By the way, $10 is exactly what you pay daily with Sellvia Ads for GUARANTEED sales, skip wasting budget on testing, pay for ads with guaranteed 3+ ROAS.
The fastest way to get your first sale is through paid advertising. A well-targeted Facebook or TikTok ad can send a potential customer to your store and generate a sale within hours of launching. With Sellvia Ads (available in your AliDropship store dashboard) your ads will be launched and run automatically with guaranteed sales from the day 1.
Free marketing (SEO, social media posting) is powerful but takes weeks or months to build momentum.
As you can see in the custom store packages, we include some of the most important marketing elements into your store when we make a ready-made drop shipping website for you. It’s up to you to set them up and manage your advertisements on a regular basis.
Our team can help you with separate promotional tasks and marketing campaigns: there is a full range of marketing services you can order from us.
Also, your business can heavily benefit from our marketing add-ons that are designed to boost your store performance.
Please note: you can learn a lot about your business promotion from our first-hand dropshipping experience that we share in our dedicated dropshipping blog and Dropship Club.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Understand who’s your target audience
- Define your marketing budget
- Make your store SEO-friendly
- Start collecting your store visitors’ emails to reach them with your promotional emails and follow-ups
- Start promoting your store on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter) depending on your store niche, products, and target audience
You can promote your store quite efficiently even if you have a limited budget. Please, read the article and watch the video here.
Relying on our clients’ first-hand experience, we can safely say that most typically, the first sale happens in about 1 month after the sale launch. It heavily depends on the intensity of your marketing efforts and the choice of advertising methods.
There might be several reasons for it:
- You’ve chosen an unprofitable niche
- Your product offer is not competitive
- You’re targeting your promotional efforts at a wrong audience
- Something in your store performance makes it inconvenient for visitors to place their orders
We recommend you to read this guide carefully and request a professional store review if necessary.
AliExpress is a huge online trading platform where you can find practically anything. However, customers who are looking for a specific product tend to place their orders on a niche site that is devoted to that particular product category. Here’s why…
- There are more than 100 million items currently listed on AliExpress. So naturally it’s not easy to search through numerous products to find the exact one you’re looking for.
- Niche webstores are made by people who are passionate and well-educated about their niche. Customers are more comfortable visiting these stores because they get to buy from well-informed experts who are true fans of their own products.
- Customers can count on high quality customer support. Questions are answered quickly, and the customer feels like he/she is talking to one of their own.
- The statistics don’t lie, professionally designed niche stores with affordable prices make visitors pull out their credit cards and BUY. Impulse buying, in particular, will always be a key element to keep the profits flowing.
- Lastly, buying from one of our webstores is ridiculously easy. Since customers can check out without even registering, there is no barrier to entry (like on some other websites). This keeps conversions at peak levels, even with customers who don’t have trust/experience with online shopping. We know how important the checkout process is, so we make sure the whole experience is as seamless as possible.
Yes, you can add products yourself. Please, follow these guidelines.
Please, discuss it with your AliExpress suppliers. As far as we know, for an agreed extra cost, it is possible to include your own branded materials in the packages sent by AliExpress sellers.
There are no signs of AliExpress and prices on packages. However, sometimes sellers from AliExpress include their business cards in the package. Anyway, you can always send a comment with your order asking your seller not to include anything. The sellers on AliExpress have a clear idea about a dropshipping business model and will be happy to assist you.
You can use the following sample text:
‘Dear seller. I work as a dropshipper. Please, do not mention Aliexpress and your return address, and don’t place your business card into the package. We look forward to continuing and further developing our cooperation with your store. Thank you!’
It’s not necessary for the customer to return the damaged item.
As a rule, AliExpress sellers issue refunds readily and don’t ask the buyers to return the packages as it’s quite costly.
So, if your buyer is unhappy about the product quality, contact the seller first, request a refund, and ask if you really need to return the product. Most likely, the supplier will pay you back with no objections, and just advise you to throw the faulty item away.
When your supplier ships the order, they will generate a tracking number. If your system is automated, this tracking number will be automatically uploaded to the order in your store, and an email will be sent to the customer.
If you are working manually, your supplier will email you the number, and you will have to manually add it to the order and send it to the customer.
You are the front line. All customer questions about order status, returns, or products come to you. You must provide professional and timely support via email or a chat widget. A good supplier will provide you with all the information (like tracking numbers) you need to answer these questions effectively.
Automation is key to scaling.
Fulfillment Automation: Use a supplier with an integrated, one-click fulfillment system.
Marketing Automation: Use AI-powered ad tools (like Sellvia Ads) to run your campaigns and email marketing flows to nurture customers.
Store Automation: Use a turnkey store that is already built, optimized, and integrated from day one.
