How To Deal With Long Shipping Times When Dropshipping With Aliexpress

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ou might have just started dropshipping or are considering starting a dropshipping store and you just noticed that the shipping times on Aliexpress can get a little crazy. Well, in this article I will try to explain how you can deal with it.

1. Typical Shipping Times

The shipping Times on Aliexpress are really all over the place depending on where the item is sent from exactly and where it is going.

Usually though if you are shipping to the United States regular shipping will be 19-39 days and if you do ePacket it will be 12-20 days.

Those are very long shipping times even with the ePacket it can take up to 3 weeks for the item to be delivered.

Sometimes the shipping can be as long as 60 days, but that is more often the case if you are shipping outside of United States.

Related: ‘Why 95% Of Dropshipping Stores fail‘

2. How Important Is Shipping Time

This is the most important question. Can these long shipping times kill your dropshipping business or not.

Everyone is getting used to super fast shipping these days, especially with Amazon Prime delivery, so tolerance for long shipping times seems to be down.

Interestingly enough though long shipping times actually do not have a drastic effect on your sales.

There are a lot of case studies out there and having these kinds of long shipping times reduce the conversion rates not that much.

So, you should not really be afraid to show and have long shipping times on your dropshipping store.

3. Should You Show Your Shipping Times

This question seems to always be very confusing for people and I think a lot of people make a mistake here.

I have come across many people that do not mention shipping times because they are afraid that it will drastically reduce the number of their sales.

But as I already mentioned above, the conversions actually do not reduce that much due to long shipping times.

However, if you do not mention shipping times you can actually have some very serious problems that could potentially ruin your dropshipping business.

First, if you do not tell people long dropshipping times, well then do expect a bunch of emails from customers angrily asking where their items are.

Just having it written down can reduce your customer support work drastically, which in return saves you money.

So, even though you are getting a few sales less, you are saving up on customer service.

Second, and even more important, if you do not write shipping time customers can require a refund.

You definitely want to avoid customers requiring a refund as this can actually shut down your account.

Depends what payment gateway you are using but some of them are really strict and if you get too many refund inquiries your account will be closed.

 So, I personally would definitely lose a few sales rather than risk my account being banned… 

Related: ‘100k Instagram Followers Autopilot Hack‘

4. Where To Write Shipping Times

Not sure if I have convinced you yet or not, but in my opinion, you want to avoid getting banned and having extra customer service work as much as possible.

This means you should be very clear on how long the shipping might take putting it in couple different places.

You should, of course, have it in your product description, your FAQ section and even in order confirmation that is sent out to the customer.

Sometimes, and in fact, I would say pretty often even if you have it written down in all of these there are still going to be people emailing you about shipping.

The great thing now though is that if someone requires a refund you can tell them that it was said clearly how long the shipping might take.

In this case, if it is not past that time yet they do not really have any right to a refund yet, and you do not get your account closed.

Just as a quick tip I would say it is the best if you just write shipping times in weeks rather then days.

So, usually, 2-4 weeks rather than the amount of days seems to work better.

Also, if there is a choice for an ePacket, just pay those couple extra dollars and get the faster shipping.

Your customers are going to be happier that they receive the item quick and they might be more likely to come to your store again.

5. How To Solve Shipping Problem

There is one simple solution that can drastically help with this problem or even eliminate it.

You can find products that are not easy to come by near your customers, so they cannot just buy an item driving to a shopping mall.

If I see a product might take 4 weeks to come but I can go to a store that is 15mins from my house, I most likely will just go to a store.

However, if that product requires me to go to a different city to be able to buy it, I will not really mind the long shipping time.

Another way to do this can also be if the product is very unique and in general hard to come across.

If a customer comes across a unique design that they have never really seen before they will likely to forgive the long shipping.

Great bargains can also help, but of course, you do want to think about your margins when doing this.

It is a little bit hard to explain this, so I will give you an example I have done myself.

I found a niche that is only shipped from one country, so all of my customers automatically expect long shipping times.

They know that it is not shipped from one American town to another, but it is shipped overseas, and thus, obviously, it will take a long time.

If you can find a niche like this it is amazing because it almost completely eliminates the long shipping problem in dropshipping.

Also, people cannot buy these products near them, so they are way more likely to be willing to buy it from your dropshipping store.

Related: ‘How Much Money You Need To Start Shopify Dropshipping‘

Conclusion

People are more scared of long shipping times than they should be. It will not influence your sales as much as you may think.

So, make sure you have the shipping information written clearly, so you avoid customer support and issue with refunds.

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