We’ve previously pitted Banggood vs. Wish, Banggood vs. DHGate, Spocket vs. AliExpress, and YesStyle vs. Express. In today’s article, we shall compare AliExpress to Wish.
First, we shall cover their key features, discuss each platform individually, including the pros and cons, then move on to the differences between the two and a verdict of which platform is better.
Let’s get started:
目录
A Features Comparison
Below is a tabular representation of both platforms’ features:
| Feature | AliExpress | Wish |
| Business Model | B2B and B2C | Primarily B2C, but also open to self-serve dropshipping manufacturers |
| Product range | Over 100 million products | Over 300 million products, according to Business Of Apps statistics |
| Supported Payments | Credit/debit cards, PayPal, Wire transfers, AliPay, and other country-specific payment options like iDeal and WebMoney | Credit/debit cards, PayPal, Google Wallet, and most known payment options |
| Buyer Protection | Several buyer protection guarantees, including a returns and refunds policy and a genuineness guarantee | 30-day refund policy and buyer protection |
| Returns and refunds | 15-days, no-explanation-needed policy | 30-day returns and refund policy |
| Suppliers | Over 200,000 suppliers | 0.5 million in 2020, but the number has decreased as Wish actively boots merchants off its platform for selling fake products |
| Integration | AliExpress—AliDropship—integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Big Commerce, Wix, and other 35 services | Integrates seamlessly with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Printful, and others |
| Customer Support | Direct communication with merchants, with an in-house customer support team reachable via email: [email protected] | Customer support is available via phone, live chat, social media, and email: [email protected] |
Let’s now focus on each platform individually:
What is AliExpress?
Owned by Alibaba and launched in 2010, AliExpress is one of the most popular eCommerce marketplaces.
It started as a business-to-business portal then later ventured into business-to-consumer (B2C) services and consumer-to-consumer services, and even cloud computing and payment services.
AliExpress is a multi-seller platform; it does not participate in the marketplace. Sellers can be individuals, suppliers, and even manufacturers—mostly from China—who want to sell products to the global market.
The Pros of AliExpress
Some outstanding things about AliExpress are:
1. Easy to start a dropshipping business
Since it’s B2C and B2B, AliExpress has very low or no startup costs. For example, there are no subscription costs for using the platform, and as a dropshipping business owner, you can find products, order samples from suppliers, and then start selling on your storefront fast.
Worth noting here is that if you don’t want to spend time creating a dropshipping business from scratch, AliExpress, through AliDropship, can make a done-for-you turnkey store:
2. API integrations
AliDropship, AliExpress’s dropshipping app/platform, offers seamless API integration for most eCommerce storefront platforms, including Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, WooCommerce, to mention a few.
Seamless integration makes it easy to start a dropshipping business because, in essence, all you have to do is follow a few steps to import product pictures and descriptions to your store.
3. Lots of supplies and product variety
Since AliExpress has over 200,000 suppliers, you won’t struggle too much to find an ideal and reliable supplier, nor will you lack something to sell, no matter how niche your target audience is.
On the product variety front, AliExpress has over 100 million products, most of which you can dropship through Alidropship, making AliExpress one of the best places to find products for your dropshipping business.
The Cons of AliExpress
Some standout AliExpress cons are:
1. Quality issues
AliExpress does not directly sell products to consumers. Instead, it facilitates the transactional process between suppliers, manufacturers, and individuals with worldwide buyers.
Because of this, the platform does not have an in-house quality control system or assurances. Instead, suppliers and manufacturers are responsible for maintaining quality control standards.
Compared to a platform like Spocket that goes out of its way to vet and even interview suppliers to ascertain that their products are high-quality, this lack of a quality control system within AliExpress can complicate and lengthen your product sourcing process.
2. Shipping issues
As you probably already know, shipping from China does not have the best reputation, especially when it comes to efficiency and speed. That’s perhaps why shipping issues and delays are the most common AliExpress complaints.
3. Race to the bottom
AliExpress is a top dropshipping source for most dropshipping businesses owners. While it has a wide catalog of dropshipping products, because of the many people sourcing products from there, AliExpress dropshipping is highly competitive, and you can expect high competition from other dropshipping business owners.
This competitiveness can create a race to the bottom situation where business owners sourcing products from the same AliExpress supplier compete to outdo each other by offering the lowest price possible, which can eat into your profit margins.
What is Wish?
Wish is a mobile-first eCommerce platform founded by Peter Szulczewski and Danny Zhang; in 2018, it was the most downloaded eCommerce app. The American-based platform connects over 107 million users to third-party merchants and facilitates the transactional process.
The Pros of Wish
Here are some remarkable things about Wish:
1. User-friendliness
Wish is a mobile-first eCommerce platform. Because of this, the platform has a very intuitive and user-friendly app that is very similar to an Instagram feed, making it very easy to navigate and use.
2. Affordable prices
This is one of Wish’s selling points, and the platform lives up to its mission of “giving users an affordable, entertaining mobile-first shopping experience.” The platform is full of bargains and discounted products for all buyers, including dropshipping business owners.
3. Variety
With over 300 million products and over 1 million sellers, Wish stands tall as a top source for dropshipping products, and no matter which niche you’re in, you won’t struggle to find products to populate your store.
4. Easy to start dropshipping
Getting started with Wish dropshipping is as easy as finding a supplier, checking out samples, and marketing your products. This ease of getting started means a savvy dropshipping business owner can create an income-generating Wish dropshipping business in no time.
The Cons of Wish
Some of Wish’s cons are:
1. Low-quality product concerns
Although Wish is constantly booting suppliers of low-quality products off its site, it’s such a massive, popular platform that a few unscrupulous sellers who compromise quality creep in here and there.
Additionally, since it does not sell products directly to buyers, Wish does not have an in-house quality control system, leading to compromised quality. Quality complaints are, in fact, some of the most common among Wish buyers, as shown by this screenshot from a Trustpilot review:
2. Lackluster customer support
Wish does not have a reputation for A+ customer support, and wanting customer support is another common complaint.
The Primary Differences Between AliExpress and Wish
Let’s now focus on the primary differences between AliExpress and Wish:
1. Accounts
First, you can browse AliExpress without signing in or creating an account. For example, when you go to AliExpress’s home page, you’re like to land on a page that looks something similar to this, with all categories available for you to peruse:
Wish is different. When you land on the homepage, products are behind a login modal set to true, which means you cannot browse products without setting up an account. Fortunately, you can sign up using your Facebook, Google, or Apple account:
You’re probably wondering, “why would Wish do this?” Well, Wish needs you to sign up because it uses an algorithm to personalize your shopping experience and your feed, thereby making it easy to find the products you need that match your profile.
2. Different commission rates
AliExpress charges sellers a commission rate of between 5-8% of each sale. For example, a product costing $20 will attract a $4 commission at the 5% commission rate.
On the other hand, Wish has a tiered revenue-sharing model ranging from 5-25% of the sale price.
This model is why, in most cases, products listed on Wish are a bit pricier than those listed on AliExpress: sellers have to make enough to cover the wholesale prices and Wish’s commission. As a dropshipping business owner, this means Wish suppliers will increase prices to cover the commission, and you may pay more to drop ship from Wish than you would on AliExpress.
3. Accepted payments methods
Here is a table illustrating the accepted payment differences between AliExpress and Wish:
This table clearly shows that AliExpress has more supported payment options.
4. Suppliers
Most of AliExpress’s suppliers are from China. On the other hand, while Wish also has Chinese suppliers, it’s more global-oriented, with suppliers from all over the world.
5. Communicating with suppliers
AliExpress and Wish are multi-seller platforms. However, while both have in-house customer support teams, AliExpress allows you to contact suppliers directly through their intuitive message system, with the customer support team stepping in when buyers and sellers cannot find amicable resolutions.
On the other hand, Wish does not facilitate one-on-one communication between sellers and buyers. Instead, you send issues to the customer support team. After receiving your complaints, the team forwards them to the seller for resolution.
The Verdict—Which is Better?
The truth is that, as you have seen from our detailed analysis of both, both platforms have merits and demerits. Therefore, which platform is ideal for you boils down to a personal choice.
Overall, however:
Even though Wish has more products —over 300 million— AliExpress is the better choice from a dropshipping business owner’s perspective, especially if you want more product variety at user-friendlier prices. The commission percentages AliExpress charges sellers are lower, which means they can transfer this advantage to dropshipping business owners by offering lower prices.
On the other hand, if you want to work with Chinese and other suppliers around the globe, Wish is your best bet because it’s globally-oriented, while most suppliers on AliExpress are from China.
If you want to communicate directly with your supplier, perhaps to negotiate prices for bulk purchases, AliExpress is the better option because, unlike Wish, AliExpress facilitates direct communication with sellers.
Parting Tips for Dropshipping Success With AliExpress and Wish
Whether you decide to use AliExpress or Wish as your source for dropshipping products, keep the following pro tips in mind to ensure you achieve the business success you rightly deserve:
⋄ Automate as much as possible
AliExpress and Wish integrate seamlessly with platforms like Spotify, WooCommerce, and even WordPress; take advantage of this to reduce your workload. Automating as much as possible makes it easier to scale and grow your dropshipping business.
For example, importing products using one-click options will make your work easier because you won’t have to take product pictures—if the provided ones are fine— or write product descriptions from scratch. All you will have to do is customize the product description.
⋄Niche Down
Because both platforms have so many products you can dropship, it’s very tempting to be a jack-of-all-trades kind of eStore. There isn’t anything wrong with this; after all, Amazon has found great success as a multi-product store.
However, if you’re new to dropshipping, it’s better to focus on one product —at first anyway; we call this niching down. Niching down allows you to direct your marketing efforts, which will enable you to generate consistent sales.
Once you have one successful product that sells well, you can start selling another product —perhaps even venture into another category— and keep doing that until you create a multi-product store. Remember that Amazon started as an online book store before it became what it is today; take a page out of Jeff Bezos’s playbook; you’ll be happy you did.
⋄ Always, Always order samples
Failing to order samples is one of the most common mistakes and the worst mistake you could make, whether you’re sourcing products from AliExpress or Wish.
Remember that both platforms work with third-party suppliers and sellers, some of whom may not be as ethical as you are, and some who, in a race to offer the lowest prices possible, compromise quality or use low-quality source materials.
Ordering samples ensures you’re only selling high-quality products, which is one of the best—if not the best—ways to retain repeat customers. Do more than order an initial sample; order samples periodically to ensure that a supplier you’ve been working on hasn’t compromised quality.
⋄ Work with a trusted dropshipping agent
Working with a professional dropshipping agent gives you more control over so many things.
As you know, AliExpress and Wish have many China-based suppliers. In this case, working with a reliable dropshipping supplier like BESTFULFILL gives you more control over the dropshipping process and your business.
For example, BESTFULFILL can help you source products from local Chinese suppliers, inspect these products for quality, warehouse them, and even fulfill them with custom packaging, which can make all the difference in your business
Conclusion
Whether you’re sourcing dropshipping products from AliExpress or Wish, the secret to success is to find the right, high-quality products at the right price, price them correctly, and market the bejeezus out of them.
If you can do that, and yes, everyone can do that, you will achieve dropshipping success on AliExpress and Wish.