AliExpress is famous for cross-border shopping and a good platform for customers to buy cheap Chinese daily necessities. Meanwhile, AliExpress is often used by e-commerce stores for dropshipping.
There is an incredibly wide range of products on AliExpress with relatively lower prices. Still, there are people who think the shipping time for products bought on AliExpress is too long and people who want single-niche products only, so in this article I’ll introduce 23 AliExpress Alternatives for those who want to know more sites like AliExpress.
I believe we all know that AliExpress in not just a C2C or B2C platform, there are many suppliers on AliExpress also offer dropshipping services. So, among the sites mentioned in this article, I’ll sort out the ones that are better for shopping, and the ones that are better for dropshipping.
Notice: The websites listed in this article are all legit, but it doesn’t mean all the sellers on them are reliable. Please excise caution when buying on these platforms.
1. LightInTheBox
LightInTheBox is a Chinese online retail sites, it doesn’t have a product range as wide as AliExpress’. Instead, it features in three core categories: apparel, small accessories & gadgets, and home & garden. One thing of LightInTheBox in common with AliExpress is that you can also find dropshipping suppliers there.
The highlight of LightInTheBox would be its innovative data-driven business model which allows itself to offer customized products such as wedding dress or evening dress. You may consider trying this site if you are running a business of these product categories.
2. American Greenwood
American Greenwood is a niche wholesale website in the United States selling mostly small items, and there are not many product categories. Their paper products come from sustainably grown forests and are chlorine free. Any plastic materials used are made from either compostable material, recycled material or can be recycled. Almost all of their products are compostable and will leave no waste behind.
Same as DHgate, the wholesale price on this website is related to your purchase volume, the more you buy, the lower the price will be. So, this website would be more suitable for small wholesale instead of shopping or dropshipping.
3. Doba
Just as some Doba user says, “Doba is a Dropship Aggregator which essentially is a consolidation of many different wholesalers in one convenient place.” That is to say, Doba acts as a middleman connecting dropshipping supplier with retailers.
What’s more, Doba also offers some technologies include finding & filtering products, inventory management, curated product lists, and proactive inventory & price change alerts.
Because Doba is a middle man, the wholesale price of 90% of the products on Doba would be exactly the same or even higher than the retailing prices on Amazon. And the price of the remaining 10% of the products is just slightly lower than the going prices on Amazon.
4. DealXtreme
DX is one of the Chinese B2C e-commerce websites like AliExpress, established in 2005. The shipping time on DX can also be long if you chose economic shipping methods such as postal.
DX doesn’t have any special dropshipping program. If you want to do dropshipping through DX, you just have to register a regular account, and make sure to fill out your customers’ shipping address right, then your supplier will ship out the item to your customers on your behalf. All packages from DX are sent without DX logo or any information indicating DX.com
Before you start dropshipping from DX, I’d like to suggest you to read their Returns & Warranty terms carefully to make your business smoother.
In addition, DX also offer wholesale option. You just need to submit the form below and bargain with the seller to get a lower wholesale price.
5. Banggood
Banggood focuses on B2C cross-border export e-commerce, founded in 2006 and headquartered in Guangzhou, China, it is the largest online cluster for clothing, bags & luggage, and accessories. So, if you are looking for products in those niches, you can try to find a direct manufacturer on Banggood.
Banggood does have independent dropshipping program, you need to apply for a dropshipping customer account and choose the products you want to sell. Banggood has 37 overseas warehouses covering all regions of the world. If you want to shorten the deliver time of your goods, you’d better check if there is any warehouse of Banggood located in your country. Learn more about Banggood guarantees & Return policy.
Same as DealXtreme, you can submit a wholesale inquiry if you need to buy products in bulk.
6. Kole Imports
Kole Imports is one of the long last wholesale websites in the USA, based in Carson, CA. For the past 30 years, it has been one of largest direct importers of general merchandise in U.S. It offers a broad range of products such as apparel, fashion accessories, automotive supplies, toys, and pet supplies.
This website also provides dropshipping service. Their dropshipping program will be available to you when you’ve registered for a free account on this page.
There is one thing special about this website – besides being a wholesale and dropshipping site, Kole Imports also sells closeouts. They resell the overstock products, excess inventories and closeout products from third-party individuals and companies to customers. So, you may check their dynamic product offerings of closeouts once in a while to see if there is anything you want.
7. Worldwide Brands
Worldwide Brands is a wholesale and dropship websites targeted to home business and Internet retailers, featured in giving customers direct access to 100% certified manufacturers.
On this website you can search for a product name by product type, by brand name, by category, or even by state or city. If you can’t find a product that you want to sell, simply submit a product request and the platform will work on tracking down the wholesaler for that product.
And this website provides both iPhone and Android App, so, it should be rather convenient when using this website to manage your business.
But before you can enjoy the services of Worldwide Brands, you have to become their member by paying a subscription fee of about $274 for life time access.
8. SourcingMap
SourcingMap is a Hong Kong – based wholesale platform, started in 2004. Its featured product categories include car equipment & accessories, home & kitchen tools, hardware, and stationeries. SourcingMap also runs a special dropshipping program for small businesses.
Though SourcingMap claims to have a business history over 10 years, but their website seems to be poorly maintained. And I found more than a few product links on their website led me to an item that is out of stock which they may not update the information on the website too often.
The orders places on the website are under a 14-day buyer protection program, you can check their Return & Warranty Policy for more details.
9. TVCMall
TVCMall is a cross-border online wholesale platform specialized in cell phone accessories. This website was released in 2008, and later in 2016, their automatic warehouse management system was introduced. Now it has over 1.5 million registered users.
It is based on Shenzhen, China, where the most efficient and complete electronics supply chain of China is located. So the electronics products on this site could possibly be cheaper than AliExpress.
In the product page, you can see a price match table which you can utilize to crosscheck the product price listed on this website within certain purchasing volume frame with the product prices listed on other wholesale websites, by doing so you can figure out the more cost-effective wholesale channel.
TVAMall also provides dropshipping services, if you intend to do dropshipping or shopping on this website, I suggest you to read their user guide page and dropshipping page first.
10. SaleHoo
SaleHoo is a New Zealand based online wholesale market, started in 2005. But the biggest difference between SaleHoo and other wholesale websites is that it only offers a wholesale directory subject to a yearly subscription fee of $67 ($127 for lifetime) instead of offering listed products directly. Once you subscribed this SaleHoo Directory, they’ll give you access to their supplier database and plus some market research tools.
Besides the wholesaler directory, SaleHoo also provides dropshipping and e-commerce training courses as their two other core services. For dropshipping, you have to pay for a subscription fee which is charged on a monthly basis or annually basis.
11. Lightake
Lightake is a China based B2C online store featured with toys such as magic cubes, tactical apparel, educational toys, jigsaw, and building blocks. If you run a business in these product categories, you may expect to find the newest models here with a relatively lower price.
Dropshipping is also available on this Lightake. According to their dropshipping policy, for orders of which the value below $50, they can provide dropshipping service without limitations, while for orders whose value above $50, you are suggested to contact them for the availability of your qualification.
12. Geekbuying
The name of this website indicates its featuring product categories to some extent: sports & outdoors, consumer electronics, computer & phones, wearable devices, and automobile accessories. The business model of Geekbuying is basically the same as AliExpress, it support retailing, and meanwhile, you can buy in bulk with lower wholesale prices.
And if you need to customize or label your products bought on Geekbuying, there are relevant services provided by Geekbuying also.
Dropshiping is available too, Geekbuying offers discounts varying from 1% to 5% related to the order amounts – the higher your order amount is, the better the discount you’ll get. But you can still negotiate directly with their service people for a lower price.
13. TOMTOP
Tomtop is featured in pet suppliers and pet accessories, though there are daily use products in other categories available too. TOMTOP was established in 2004, it is a trading company that has its reputation among the Alibaba suppliers.
Tomtop has a partnership droship program, which you can access by signing in your account on a website called Quarkscm.com. And if you want to do dropshipping through this channel, you have to make sure the balance in your account is sufficient to cover your orders.
14. Gearbest
Gearbest is a China based wholesale website featuring in electronic products including mobile devices, smart wearable devices, and other electronic accessories. It might be considered as one of the major potential competitors of AliExpress.
One of the highlights about this wholesale website would be its complete process of shipping and quality inspecting. The goods on Gearbest can be dispatched from their local warehouses all over the world, and currently they have set up warehouses in Germany, Belgium, France, Poland, Italy, Spain, USA, Australia, Japan, Czech, Russia, and UK. You can set your default location to any of these countries and regions.
As for dropshipping, Gearbest does not officially offer any special program for it. So, it might not be that much of a dropshipping friendly marketplace. If you really want to do dropshipping on Gearbest, you can try submitting a wholesale inquiry to the seller and see if you can manage it through any other channels.
15. Printful
Printful is very special one among all the websites listed in this article, because it is a rather creativity-oriented dropshipping website featuring in printable products or products that can be customized with printable contents such as t-shirts, hats, posters and stuff like that.
The word “printful” is a combination of “print” and “fulfillment”. With 7 fulfill centers located over North Carolina, California, Mexico, Canada, Spain, and Latvia, Printful is specialized in dropshipping for customized products.
If you’ve got a design to be realized or any business idea that’s printable, printful might be just the platform you need.
16. Pet Stores USA
With decades of experience, Pet Stores USA is now one of the leading wholesaler and dropshipping service providers in the pet industry of the USA.
Pet Stores USA is a pure wholesale platform – they don’t offer any product for retail to compete with their retail partners, as said by themselves. The product categories on Pet Stores USA are classified based on different types of pets such as bird, cat, dog, and fish.
To start dropshipping on Pet Stores USA, you have to fill out a contact form on the website and wait for them to contact you to finish the sign-up process, or you can call them directly during their worktime.
17. Chinabrands
Chinabrands is one of the most commonly used dropshipping and wholesale platforms in the world. The good things about Chinabrands it that there is a vast number of SKUs listed on the website, and prices are good enough for any small business owners.
But it seems that they need to do more about their shipping and after-sale services for there are quite a few users expressed their dissatisfaction towards Chinabrands’ late shipping and unsatisfying customer service.
So, when you choose a product on Chinabrands, you’d better confirm with the supplier that its stock is sufficient and the shipping process will not run into any big trouble.
Registered membership on Chinabrands is free, while the VIP membership is not. And the higher your membership level is, the more discount you’ll be entitled to. You can’t level up your membership by paying Chinabrands, instead, the membership level is directly related to the sales performance of your store.
18. Yaaku
Yaaku is a Chinese fashion clothing wholesale and retail website, featuring in products including dress, T-shirt, skirt, sweater, pants, underwear, jacket, coat and other fashionable clothes. If you want to buy clothing in bulk, Yaaku can be a good alternative for AliExpress.
Yaaku is known for its cheap pricing, the unit price of most of the products listed on it will not be more than a few dollars. But you have to remember, if you are buying in larger quantity, let say an order more than $1,000, you should always try contacting their customer service team first to negotiate a lower wholesale price than the unit price listed on the product page.
Yaaku supports dropshiping, though you can’t find any detailed webpage elaborates on that issue now. So, make sure to talk with their customer service and get everything settled first before you start the dropshipping process.
19. BrandsDistribution
BrandsDistribution is an online B2B marketplace for clothing and fashion accessories started in 2006. But it is nothing like the other clothing-centered wholesale website Yaaku we talked above. The products you can find on BrandsDistribution are mostly branded clothes or shoes and high-end fashionable products such as watches and sunglasses.
Gathering more than 120 fashion brands, BrandsDistribution provides both wholesale service and dropshipping service.
To begin bulk purchase, you will be asked to fill out a request form covering the description of your business, the brand you are looking form, your annual purchase budget and other personal information. And for dropshipping they offer a special self-developed system called BDroppy to give their customers a turnkey dropshipping solution.
20. Wholesale2B
Wholesale2B is under the operation of a software development company with a focus on the dropshipping field. For this reason, wholesale2B has its advantages regarding the technical dimension of dropshipping. They can provide features that can facilitate your business like inventory tracking, order managing, and site building.
But it seems that the customer service of Wholesale2B is less than satisfying to some users. You can only reach their customer support team through email or a live chat channel, and they are available only in their work time.
Wholesale2B offers various service plans to meet the demand of different customers. You have to pay for these plans to start dropshipping. But you can still register a free account, only you can basically do nothing other than browsing their listed products with that account.
21. DHgate
DHgate is a China based cross-border B2B and B2C online marketplace, it is one of the earliest established e-commerce platform. Seeing AliExpress as its major rival, DHgate choose to operate in a similar business model.
The name “DHgate” means the gate of Dunhuang – a Chinese city that connected China with the rest of the world back in the ancient times. With over 2.2 million sellers, DHgate has expanded its market coverage to more than 200 countries and regions globally.
For dropshipping, you can do it through MyyShop – a dropshipping platform launched by DHgate. There is an easy-to-start tutorial on the dropshipping page of DHgate, where you can log into MyyShop directly using your DHgate account.
22. Global Sources
Global Sources is one of the oldest and largest B2B marketplaces in Asia, it has over 1.5million buyers globally spread across over 240 countries and regions.
Global Sources’ mission, as they stated on their website, is “to connect the world’s high-quality buyers and suppliers with the right information, at the right time, and through the right channels”. That said, they should have been striving to make their services and products as easily accessible as possible for any potential users. Yet the truth is that it is hardly the most dropshipping-friendly website for small businesses now.
The products listed on Global Sources are not directly accessible, for each product, you have to submit an inquiry to the supplier.
So, if you intend to buy many different products on this website, it could take a rather long time since you have to submit an inquiry or RFQ (Request for Quotations) for each of your target products.
23. Jingsourcing
Jingsourcing is a leading Chinese sourcing company started in 2015, located in Yiwu – the largest small commodities distribution center of the world. With all the sources of manufacturers and wholesalers, Jingsourcing can help customers import products from China with the most competitive prices.
In addition to bulk purchase and dropshipping, Jingsourcing also provides private label, product customization, quality inspection and other services. For small-to-medium sized businesses, working with a sourcing agent like Jingsourcing can be much more cost-efficient than directly buying from online wholesale markets.
24. Spocket
Spocket is a US and EU based dropshipping website, featuring in product categories such as clothing, jewelry, automotive, home & garden, and gifts. And Spocket provides dropshipping plugins that can be seamlessly connected to mainstream e-commerce platforms including Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Aliscraper.
Spocket offers different plans for dropshippers: if you pay on a monthly basis, there is Starter plan, Pro plan, and Empire plan priced respectively $24/mo, $49/mo, and $99/mo; if you pay annually, there is Pro plan, Empire plan, and Unicorn plan priced respectively $29/mo, $59/mo, and $115/mo. The available product range will vary between different plans. And there is a free plan you can use for browsing Spocket’s catalogue of products only.
The End
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We are Jingsourcing, a leading sourcing agency in China, dedicated to helping our clients to source products from China with the most competitive prices. If you are interested in importing from China or dropshipping from China, please feel free to contact us.
