This is a guest-blogging article contributed by our good friend at CJDropshipping
Aliexpress is a good platform for beginners to start dropshipping, especially it’s easy for testing winning products, easy to use, mass products and vendors, as well as quick processing. But when you are scaling up with your business, Aliexpress then seems not so ideal, this will be explained later in this article.
As a competitor of Aliexpress, what does CJDropshipping provide? In this article, a comparison between Aliexpress and CJ Dropshipping are done in the aspects of products, services, shipping and the like. So you can have a comprehensive understanding of these two drop shipping providers, which helps you decide whether to choose one of them according to your needs.
Not sure which products to dropship this summer, check out our newest Video guide:
Outline
- Fundamental Difference
- Product Listing
- User Friendliness
- Cost of Purchasing Product
- Shipping Time & Costs
- Parcels That Customers Received
- Payment Methods
- Product Details
- Warehouses
I. Fundamental difference
There are many differences between Aliexpress and CJDropshipping, but these differences are majorly result from the fundamental difference between the two platforms.
1.1. Aliexpress
Aliexpress is an international retail platform, vendors build a store on Aliexpress, and sell to customers worldwide. Most of the vendors and products are from China, so they have comparative advantage in the product price. The orders are processed by different vendors, Aliexpress is not involved in the fulfillment.
1.2. CJ Dropshipping
CJDropshipping is a platform integrated with product sourcing, order processing and shipping fulfillment. It’s like a combination of Aliexpress and Oberlo, dropshippers list or connect products on CJ to their stores, then CJ draws orders from their stores and takes care of them. Warehouse service, photo/video taking, POD, COD, affiliate and API support and the like are all available. It is a one-stop service platform covering all the services related to dropshipping business.
Read more:
- Shopify AliExpress Dropshipping: How It Works & Best Apps To Use
- Best Shopify Dropshipping Stores For Your Inspiration In 2024
II. Product listing
There are more than 2.5 billion product listings on Aliexpress while the number on CJ is only about 215,000, far behind Aliexpress. Why do the numbers differ so greatly? There are more than 8.7 million sellers on Aliexpress according to their annual report of 2019, all the products are posted and maintained by the sellers. By contrast, the products on CJ are all posted by the CJ team, they have limited staff so they have to pick trending products to post, and sourcing products by the requests of their users.
In this aspect, Aliexpress has an overwhelming advantage over CJ Dropshipping, so Aliexpress is undoubtedly a wonderful platform to find winning products and test orders at the very beginning of your business.
But when you have found a winning product and want to scale up, Aliexpress is no longer the best choice for you. Many e-Commerce runners began with Aliexpress and turned to CJ Dropshipping to scale up. There are several reasons behind, and they will also be explained later in this article.
To cover the weakness of product listing, CJ sets a sourcing service for users to post sourcing requests once they have winning products. And CJ is launching a supplier plan, which means suppliers are about to post products on CJ. As more and more suppliers join in, the product listings of CJ could be competitive to Aliexpress.
Read more: Dropshipping with Aliexpress Dropshipping Center: Do or Don’t?
III. Easiness of using the system
The system of Aliexpress is quite simple, because it’s a platform only for customers to find and buy products. It‘s like you create an account and buy stuff on Amazon or eBay. So it is quite easy to start with on Aliexpress.
While the system of CJ is much more complicated, because it combines the functions of Aliexpress and Oberlo, and go further than they can do. Once you have set the features you need in place, you are able to save time and energy.
IV. Cost of purchasing product
Both Aliexpress and CJDropshipping require no set-up fee nor monthly fee.
But the product price on CJ is usually lower than on Aliexpress for the same item. Why is CJ able to provide a more competitive price? Because most stores on Aliexpress are owned by individuals, couples or brothers who are not able to provide primary source of products. It is those manufacturers who are able to provide the most competitive price, but only to retail or native people, or sellers on Alibaba, a wholesale platform known as a famous B2B solution. As a result, vendors on Aliexpress have to buy inventory from manufacturers or dealers, and make profit through arbitrage. Additionally, they have to pay the annual fee, showcase fee, and pay for advertisement on Aliexpress if they want their products or store seen by more customers. All these factors make products inevitably more expensive on Aliexpress.
Unlike Aliexpress, CJDropshipping is run by the CJ team themselves, from platform maintaining to product delivery, they make overall arrangements of every section, to cut down the operational cost. Therefore they are able to provide a more competitive price for customers.
V. Shipping time & costs
Shipping could also be one of the most important parts for dropshipping, which is a key factor that can make or break your business.
Read more: Optimize Your Spending With Shopify Cost Calculator
You will find that the shipping fees shown on Aliexpress are usually much cheaper than on CJ Dropshipping, some even provide a free delivery. What lies behind a free delivery is the shipping price is included in the product price, which is another reason why Aliexpress always price higher than CJ Dropshipping.
By comparing the shipping fees for a same knife sharpener from the two platforms. It’s obvious to find that the costs of the former 2 carriers are cheaper than CJ packet, a best shipping method on CJ. But when you pay attention to the estimated delivery time, you will see that the delivery time could be more than a month while CJ packet takes 6-15 days. When it comes to a faster delivery, the costs are much more expensive than those on CJ.
VI. Parcels that customers received
Generally speaking, you will not sell only one product in your store. Most dropshippers are marketing on a niche, usually tens to hundreds of products. If a customer shops in your store, and places an order that contains 3 items, what would happen if these items are from 3 vendors on Aliexpress? Your customers will receive 3 parcels at different times. Your buyer might not be happy if they place one bulk order but the products come from different packages and dates. They will open a dispute once they receive the first order because they might think the order is shortened.
By contrast, CJ combines orders for you, puts different products into one parcel. It will save your time, shipping cost and the customer will feel convenient. When you have a problem with orders, you won’t need to contact different vendors as CJ is the only one after-sale party you’ll need to deal with.
Moreover, CJ can do customized packages for you by having your orders packed with a unique package printed with your logo, image or text. Alternatively, you can only leave a sentence or wish for your customer on the mailbag, which will also differentiate you from other sellers. This is a good way to leave a strong impression to your customers. And service requires no MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity), CJ can do it for you for every order.
VII. Payment methods
When checking out on CJ, you will see 8 common payment ways covering more than 200 countries. CJ also provides COD (Cash on Delivery) for authorized clients.
For Aliexpress, the payment methods differ from store to store, because you are paying directly to vendors, and many don’t support PayPal, which is now an important payment way in western countries.
Sometimes Aliexpress will reject your payments when you place a lot of orders due to security reasons or system error. There is no need to explain how much this can trouble, bring your business to a screeching halt, causing refund requests from angry customers.
Read more Automated Dropshipping: Everything You Need To Know About
VIII. Product details
There is no doubt that Aliexpress did a much better job in enriching the product details. The reason behind is that CJ has limited staff to enrich the product details. But CJ will enrich the details for specified items. if clients require. To cover this shortage, CJ provides another service: video & pictures shooting service. You can send a request to make unique videos or pictures for your product, which could enhance your competitive force.
IX. Warehouses
Most vendors on Aliexpress have no warehouses or just store products in their homes, this will lead to a low inventory. Some big vendors may have their warehouses, but they are small in proportion.
As for CJ Dropshipping, currently, they have two warehouses in China, two in the US, one in Thailand, one in Germany and one in Indonesia. Warehouses in the UK and France are about to launch.
Take the US warehouse as an example, if you buy a product from a US warehouse, it could be delivered to your customer within 2-5 days via USPS+. And if you have winning products in hand, you can buy private inventory to our warehouse, which means a faster processing time and guaranteed inventory, and no storage fee will be charged.
Read more: Everything You Need To Know About Shopify Fulfillment
Final words
Aliexpress and CJ Dropshipping have their own advantages and shortages. It is important to carefully make decisions when doing business, especially choosing platforms when you want to scale up in a long term point of view. The good thing is, both work well with Shopify and allow merchants to create a winning dropshipping store with ease!
