How to add products into a Dropshipping online store
In this post I will show you how to add products in a Dropshipping online store from AliExpress. I will also give you some tips to choose good suppliers and products, and how to edit and publish them to optimize your online store. This is the fourth and ...
If you have already read my article How to create an online store for Dropshipping, you are now in a position to follow the next step.
Adding products to your online store from AliEXpress is a fairly easy and almost automatic process, but it can become a monotonous and tedious task.
And like almost all things automatic, they are not very satisfactory.
My professional experience in this type of task has led me to the conclusion that it is necessary to define a routine and always respect it for all products.
In this way you make sure to maintain a graphic, aesthetic and conceptual coherence throughout the store, no matter how many sessions you do.
It happens many times that, after a while without publishing products in the store, we forget the criteria that we had used previously.
Step-by-step tips for publishing your products with AliDropship
Here is a basic routine to import and synchronize AliExpress products in your own online store.
The first three items are made from the AliExpress website, while the last two will be done within your WordPress store.
1. Choose a product
Register and log into your AliExpress account, always using the Chrome browser.
Use AliDropship's statistics tools to choose the most convenient product.
Before choosing a product, I suggest you follow the following tips:
- Choose a supplier: Make sure that the supplier or manufacturer is reliable and has a good reputation, as it will become your allied partner.
- Choose the best price: You will see several identical products from different suppliers with different prices. Use the Search tool.
- Availability: Make sure that the product has a lot of availability in stock.
You must think that this same product is available to thousands of customers around the world and can sell out quickly.
I suggest you have a stock of more than 5000 units. - Delay time: Verify the established times for the delivery of the product to the customer.
- Type of shipping: I recommend that you choose products with free shipping to the countries you sell, that will give you a greater profit margin and will be more convenient for the buyer.
In the previous image you can see identical products, from different suppliers and with different prices.
Always take care of the institutional image
AliExpress is a mega platform for online sales of Chinese origin, but its aesthetic is really horrible.
It is full of advertising banners that distract the customer's attention and it has too much information that is not relevant to the product.
Many products of Chinese origin have a bad reputation in the rest of the world for their quality and originality, but there are also others that are really very good and their wholesale prices are excellent for resellers.
It is only a matter of choosing those products that you consider appropriate for resale, that they are not easy to find in local stores in your area, and that justify the wait in the delay of delivery.
As you can see, the products shown here look "very Chinese", with all the bad reputation that this brings.
Even some images may have texts in Chinese or logos of the manufacturer, which you would like to remove.
The texts Descriptive statements are often very poorly written, poorly translated, and misspelled.
You probably do not want to publish products in your online store as they are presented in AliExpress, nor do you want your store to have an inappropriate aesthetic. So I advise you to take the time to edit the products before exporting them to your online store.
Download product images
Although you can publish the images as they are presented by the provider in AliExpress, I suggest you edit them beforehand with Photoshop.
AliExpress publishes millions of articles from different providers, and that means that there is no graphic and functional coherence in all products.
But it is highly advisable that your store maintain an aesthetic, logical and personalized criterion, which will give corporate identity and robustness to your brand and your business.
That is almost impossible to achieve when the content comes from so many different sources.
By That is why you must unify the graphic and textual criteria so that your products are displayed in your store as you wish, and not as AliExpress indicates.
In the following image you will see what the original product looks like on AliExpress (unedited)
Now we will see the same product already edited by the seller for his own online store.
As you can see, it has a cleaner and more organized design, adapting to the general aesthetics of the online store.
The best way to edit a product is to get all the elements separately (photos, videos and texts).
I advise you to save them in a separate folder for each product on your computer and edit it according to your preferences.
Save all the images on your hard drive, both those in the gallery and those found in the product description.
Select the ones that you are going to publish on your website and edit them with Photoshop.
It is advisable that they all have the same size and resolution, to speed up the download in navigation, and control the design grid of your website.
Furthermore they will take up less space on your web server since providers tend to publish photos in large sizes which are unnecessary.
A square size of 700px at 72 dpi is optimal for displaying products on your website and on your social networks.
Always save them using the SAVE FOR WEB option to optimize their compression and facilitate online download.
I also suggest that you install an image optimization plugin for the web .
I use WP-Optimize which is free and gives excellent results.
The following image shows the same photos from the online store published on Instagram.
Delete all the manufacturer's logos and texts in Chinese, and if you wish, translate also the ones you consider necessary.
Leave the images as clean as possible since these are the ones that will define the aesthetics and quality of your own website.
I also advise you to rename the files sequentially with the name of the product. This is very good for SEO.
For example: Pet Sling Bag 01.jpg; Pet Sling Bag 02.jpg; etc.
If you decide to publish the images directly from AliExpress, they do not take place on your server as they remain on the original site, but you will not be able to edit them later or use them for other publications on social networks.
You will not be able to optimize their size and file names for SEO either.
That is why I advise you to download and use them as you wish.
2. Edit the product
Once you have saved all the edited images, you must edit the textual contents of each product, to adapt it to your web store.
It is very important to define here how you want to display your product on your website.
Discard what is not you need the original publication and add all the information that you consider useful for your clients.
To edit a product on AliExpress you must click the EDIT button found in the gray AliDropship bar at the top of the page.
Never click on IMPORT since that makes the product be published as it is in your store, and it will be more difficult to edit it later.
All edits can also be done later, editing the product in your own online store, although some are preferable to do from AliExpress.
Edit title
Clicking EDIT opens a new window where you can modify the product information.
The first thing you should do is choose an appropriate title, which is short and concise and contains the keywords for your search on Google.
It is important that you think in advance about the optimization of textual content and images to promote SEO.
If you want to know more about SEO, read my article How to improve SEO on your website.
In the example of the following photo, the original title is: "Pet Puppy Carrier S / L Outdoor Travel Dog Shoulder Bag Mesh Oxford Single Comfort Sling Handbag Tote Pouch"
As you can see, the title is very long and inconsistent and it is not in your best interest to keep it.
Let's change the title to "Pet Sling Bag". With 3 words we define the product.
It is important that this name is brief since it is the same that appears below the image in the general catalog of the website and in Google search engines.
That same title must be copied in the permanent link (permalink) and that will be part of the product's URL
We also define the categories to which the product applies, which we will analyze later.
Edit description
I recommend that each product have two descriptions: a short and a long one.
The short description is the one that appears below the title as a complement and is the one that is seen in Google searches, so it is important that it be brief and concise.
You should try to summarize in a single sentence the main characteristics of the product.
This description also invites the customer to continue reading the long description for more information.
Create relevant textual content
The long description is the one that appears in the body of the article and is the most important for your products.
A good description is the one that will distinguish your store from the competitions that offer the same product.
That is why I advise you to contain relevant information for your products.
This will also favor SEO and will make your products stand out in Google search results.
The long description should show technical data, modes of use, specifications, general characteristics, functionality, etc.
In addition, this description allows you to add complementary photos and videos that will make your product look more attractive to customers.
The original textual descriptions from AliExpress are usually very bad, but you can take them as a starting point to create a more adequate description.
Pay close attention to spelling, grammar, typos, punctuation, correct use of upper and lower case letters, etc.
It is important that you take care of the writing of these texts to provide as much information as possible to your customers.
This way you will avoid them asking you unnecessary questions that can delay the online purchase.
Do it strategically trying to include key phrases by which you would search that product in Google.
All those well-kept details give quality and credibility to your store, and separate it from the low quality of Chinese publications.
Do not include HTML code
In the editing screen there are three boxes: Remove text, Remove images and Remove packaging information, which allows you to control which elements to include.
I advise you not to include the images, but choose which ones to add later in the edition in your store.
If you decide to include the texts, you should know that you will be able to edit them right there or later in the edition of your store.
You can also delete them there and write them directly in your store, or as you wish.
If you prefer to edit them there, I advise you to select all the text and press the last button DELETE FORMAT .
We will return to this topic later in Complete the editing of the product section.
This causes all the HTML code on the page to be deleted (headlines, bold, italics) and you can apply your own styles later on your website.
If you do not delete the format from here, it will be very difficult to do it later in your store if you do not have knowledge of HTML code editing.
The following image shows the result after deleting the style format of the texts.
Notice that the boldface has disappeared from the title and the spaces and line spacing would be deleted, if any.
Spaces between words, punctuation, bulleted texts, and the final description of the product remain to be corrected.
This can be done from here or later at complete product edition section.
I recommend doing it later since there you can also alternate the text with images and videos, and you will have a better idea of the final result.
Edit the photo gallery
The photo gallery is the main image that we see when entering the product page.
It can be viewed as a grid or as an image slider in your online store.
I suggest you remove ALL images from this section and upload them later to the Complete product edit section.
As I said before, if you decide to publish the images directly from AliExpress, they do not take place on your server, but you will not be able to edit them later or use them for other publications on social networks.
You will not be able to optimize the sizes and file names for it. SEO.
Edit prices and attributes
In this section you can apply the price formulas that you have previously established in the configuration of your web store.
You can also change the attributes of the items, if they have them.
Items with attributes are those that have different versions of the same product, either in color, size, size, origin, etc.
If you click the box APPLY TO ALL VARIATIONS, all variations of the product will have the same price. This is not advisable if your product has variations in size or design.
Therefore I suggest you not activate this option.
These versions allow you to create an individual product for each attribute, and so the customer can choose the one he wants to buy and the prices are displayed automatically.
For example: Yellow bag, large size (L)
It is very important that you take care of the details at this stage before importing the products to the store.
Some aspects of the publication CANNOT BE EDITED later in WordPress.
Once you have imported it, AliDropship will not allow you to edit or import them again from AliExpress, showing a message in the top bar.
This is to avoid duplicate products in your store.
For this reason, I advise you to make the main edits here, and correct only the details later in WordPress.
3. Add the product to the import list
Once the product is edited in AliExpress, you can now synchronize it with your online store.
There are two ways to do it:
- Add to import list (Recommended): Save the product in draft mode for later editing and publication in your online store.
- Publish: Publish the product directly as it is in your store and it is visible to the public. This option allows it to be edited later in your store and republished.
The only difference between both options is that the first does not show the product in the catalog until you finish editing it, while the second shows it as it is without the final edition.
That is why I recommend the first option .
4. Complete product edition
Once the product is imported into your store, you can finally edit it and publish it.
You must log in to WordPress with your administrator account and look for the newly imported article in the Products panel.
If you have published it in IMPORT LIST mode, appears with a green label in the list that indicates that it is not yet published and is not visible to the public.
Click on EDIT and the product editing window will open.
The following image shows the product editing window.
All the elements you see here can be edited, as I mentioned before.
Here you will see the Title, the permanent link (URL), the featured image, the categories of products and short and long descriptions with added images, etc.
Featured image
This image is very important since it is the one that will be seen in the general catalog of your store and in the Google search engine.
If you want to highlight your product and differentiate it from the rest of the sellers, I recommend you change this image to another from the gallery that you consider appropriate.
This way it will look different and you will not see yourself as “one more” that sells the same product, although actually you are ...
Always try to choose simple images, without text, preferably with a white or neutral background.
This allows you to stand out at "first glance" and leave no doubts about what the product is about.
Keep in mind that this will be the first image that the customer will see in your catalog and on Google.
Through it they will feel motivated to click to see the rest of the information, and finally to buy it.
This image fulfills the same role as your profile photo on your social networks.
Its mission is to quickly identify the product and highlight it from its peers.
You cannot configure this image in AliExpress, as it has been assigned by default.
You can only do it from your WordPress store.
To change this image to another of your choice, you must click on the photo and choose another in your Media Library.
It is important that you complete the metadata of the image with consistency with the title of the product to improve SEO.
It is important that you complete the metadata of the image with consistency with the title of the product in order to facilitate SEO to facilitate reading for people with visual disabilities.
Product Categories
The categories allow you to organize the store's products by category and facilitate filtering in searches.
It's like when you go shopping at the supermarket and you have the sections for Drinks, Meats, Dairy, Cleaning, etc.
You can assign the categories to each product in the initial edition of AliExpress, or during the final edition in your online store. It is indistinct and there are no preferences for it.
I advise you to pay special attention to the definition of the categories because it depends on them that customers find the products easily.
You can create as many categories as you need but do not abuse that, since they do not look good in the store, especially in the visualization in telephones, where the screen is very reduced.
It is preferable to create categories with general thematic ranges, and add more specific subcategories for better organization.
A product can belong to more than one category, for example: Dogs, cats, puppies, transport, bags, etc.
You can create a main menu using these categories to give direct and featured access to the main items of your products.
Product description
As I mentioned before in Edit the Product before publishing it, this section is very important and you should not underestimate it.
It may take a lot of time and work to write the texts, but I assure you that together with the photos they are the soul of your online store.
Here are some tips to optimize your product descriptions:
- Always start the description by copying and pasting the title of the article here, and assigning it the format of Title1 (H1)
This will favor SEO since surely the name of the product contains the main keywords, and the more times they are repeated, the better positioning you will have. - Then continue with the short description, which is a text that complements the title in a few words.
You will also copy and paste this description in the SEO section and it will be displayed in Google searches. - Add the long textual description, where you can detail the characteristics of the article, technical specifications, modes of use and everything you want.
The longer the text, the more information you will provide to your customers and avoid delays in the purchase when asking questions waiting to be answered.
It is important that you understand that the success of an online purchase resides fundamentally in the immediacy.
You should not allow your potential customer to hesitate about what you offer and end up buying in another site.
Imagine that a customer has a question.
He writes you an email and you reply the next day, and in the meantime, he has already found the same product in another store … And you lost the sale!
Also, the longer the text, the more likely you are to include keywords so that your product is relevant to Google.
Make sure the text contains the phrases for which you you would look for that product on the web, and thus you will favor the positioning of your store. - Add images and videos that you can import from your media library by pressing the button ADD MEDIA
These images complement the descriptions and provide additional information to your customers.
I suggest you not repeat the images in the descriptions with those in the product gallery, unless you consider it necessary.
Edit product options
In this section you will be able to edit various publishing options that we had seen before in AliExpress, and I suggested doing it later.
Normally it is not necessary to change anything except for the Gallery, Comments and SEO.
Photo & Video Gallery
They make up a slide carousel with photos and videos of the product that is fixed on the main page of each product in your online store.
That is why I previously suggested that all the photos have the same size, to give visual and functional harmony to the galery.
In this section you can upload the photos you want to the gallery, change the order of appearance by dragging the thumbnails, or delete them.
If your product has a video you can also change it, delete it, or leave the AliExpress video by default.
You can change the cover image of the video by clicking on the SELECT IMAGE button and choose one available in your Media Library.
Do not forget to click on SAVE CHANGES to finish editing the gallery.
Import Comments
If you want to include the comments, ratings and reviews that users around the world have left on that product, you can do so from this configurable section.
It is highly recommended that you do so as they increase the rating of the product and will give you stars.
Having products with several stars on your website indicates that you sell articles of high quality and acceptance by customers around the world.
This favors the reputation of your store and improves your positioning with respect to your competitors.
The reviews written by customers are absolutely real, and that builds prestige and trust.
I personally choose to import reviews of 4 stars or higher and that only have images.
Don't forget to click the IMPORT NOW button. Wait for the import progress and they will be published automatically on your product page.
Set up SEO
Finally, you should configure SEO, copying and pasting the Title and the short description in the corresponding fields.
You can also add a list of keywords separated by commas.
Don't forget to click SAVE CHANGES before exiting SEO.
If you want to further improve your SEO performance, I suggest you install the Yoast SEO plugin and configure the options for each product.
Finalize and publish the product
Once you have finished all the editing you must publish the product, clicking on the PUBLISH or UPDATE button of the right sidebar.
In this way, the product will be added to your store's catalog and will be visible to all users.
5. Share the product on your social networks
Once the article is published, you can share it on your social networks directly from the product page.
Click on the SHARE button and choose the network you want.
The advantage of sharing from here is that you are sharing the URL of the product.
In this way, if a user clicks on your Facebook post, it will take them directly to the product page and they will be able to buy it, without having to search for it in the store .
In the following image I show you how to share on a Facebook fanpage.
You can publish it as it is presented or, add a complementary text, location and sentiment in the Facebook post.
I advise you the second option, since leaving it blank would be wasting a good means of dissemination.
I usually copy and paste the textual description of the product in the comment field and add the geographical location.
Finally, this is what the Facebook post looks like.
Final conclusion
I hope this article has been useful and clarified your doubts about How to add products in an online store for Dropshipping.
It has been a very hard work but I wanted to share with you my own experience as a web designer of these types of stores and the way I found to optimize the work.
If you could follow the previous advice, you will be in a position to create a great looking online store and professional functionality
You already know the aesthetic differences between AliExpress and your own online store, and you have learned how to edit and publish the products.
It was worth the work, right?
If you wanted to have your store for Dropshipping and you consider that I am a suitable professional, do not hesitate to contact me and I will advise you with great pleasure.
In the Related Articles section below, you will find many articles with specific topics that complement the one you just read. Thank you!
Adrián Pablo Conti
I am a Graphic and Web Designer graduated from the University of Buenos Aires (FADU-UBA)
Since 1993 I have run Web4, my own freelance graphic and web design creative studio, located in the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Me I specialize in the development of visual identity, institutional communication, web sites and online stores, editorial design, catalogs, magazines and packaging design, among others.
All the images shown in this article are their own or were obtained from the web for illustrative purposes and belong to their respective authors.
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