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AliExpress is an ecommerce platform or online marketplace of Chinese origin, in operation since 2010. Its model is very similar to the one offered by Amazon: a website where the buyer can find thousands of products divided into various categories. These products are offered by different sellers, who pay the marketplace a commission for each sale made.
AliExpress has been planning its entry into Europe for three years, and Spain has been one of its main training camps, with three pop-up stores and now a permanent physical store in Madrid.
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The AliExpress marketplace accepts both sellers who are companies and those that are sole traders. Your company must be registered in the UK, and you will need to provide legal, tax and personal documentation.
The first thing to do is create an account at AliExpress. Choose the name of your shop well, because if in the future you change your mind, you can only change your shop’s name once.
Attach the relevant tax and banking information, and wait for your application to be checked and registration to be accepted, which generally takes 2 to 3 working days. You’ll receive a confirmation or rejection email.
You can now start to customize your shop and sell your products on AliExpress!
You can also register a new own brand that’s not already in the AliExpress database. To become an official store, you can only sell products of your brand and it must be authorized in the marketplace.
The AliExpress website automatically adapts to the user's country and language, and is available in 18 languages.
For the time being, sellers wishing to use AliExpress can select the regions of the world where they want to distribute their products, and from the following countries within the European region: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Ireland.
The products that may be sold on Aliexpress belong to any of these categories:
The following products may require special authorization before you can sell them on AliExpress:
Also, be aware of the list of prohibited items on AliExpress, which includes everything illicit and illegal, such as for example:
The main step is to upload your product information to the marketplace.
Download the "Product Information Template" available in your AliExpress merchant panel, and the "Price Inventory Template" to modify stock and prices.
AliExpress makes it clear that this method of content management is very easy, but you still need to be careful! Importing your product information by hand is a very slow task, prone to errors. It’s much more reliable for you to download the template and then perform the bulk export and import of your catalog to AliExpress using PIM software. Find out how it works here!
It’s also unwise for you to resort to using the default descriptions included in the AliExpress Item Description Template for each category. Rather, you should try to be original in order to stand out from other sellers and improve your positioning.
Save on product management time with a PIM tool, and instead dedicate your valuable time to being creative, uploading, deleting, deactivating and changing stock and prices on AliExpress and any other channel whenever you wish.
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All prices must include the VAT of the corresponding country.
AliExpress offers payments protected by Verisign SSL, by debit or credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, American Express, etc.)
The seller only receives payment when the buyer confirms receipt of the item, so the deposit may take 5 to 7 working days to appear.
Be aware! The deposit is made into Alipay, your AliExpress account. Once the available balance appears, you’ll be able to send it to the bank account of your choice. Note, however, that each withdrawal of money from your AliExpress balance incurs a €1 commission.
Use the shipping templates to create your shipping methods. Note that you must use your own carrier.
Each seller on AliExpress can select the method of shipping their products, the courier company and the costs. You can create several templates; for example, one for Free Shipping and one for Shipping Cost based on weight. Don't forget to state your refunds and returns policy, and an address for returns.
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Sellers on AliExpress pay the marketplace a commission of between 5% and 8% for each transaction, depending on the product category.
Other than that, there are no extra costs: no fixed overheads or arrangement fee, and you have the option to close your store whenever you wish.
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Conclusion
AliExpress gives a great opportunity for selling your products. Take the easy step of integrating this marketplace into your sales network in a few clicks, just like any other channel, and keeping your content always up to date — by trying our PIM for free for 30 days.