What’s the best 1688 agent for dropshipping? It is a choice similar to shopping on the supermarket after you compared material, price and tested feature, it is a procedure similar to sourcing the best dropshipping supplier, it is totally depended on how you define the best 1688 agent qualified your dropshipping requirements. There is a thousand Hamlet in a thousand people’s hearts, of course different dropshippers have different business requirements, we can fundamentally analyze the problems in the 1688 dropshipping mode and combine our own needs to find a reliable 1688 agent for dropshipping.

Why dropship from 1688?

Does it cheaper than dropship from Aliexpress? Does it more convenient or any other reasons make dropship from 1688 better than other platforms? In another words what’s the advantage to dropship from 1688? From Baidu Wiki, 1688 is the biggest Chinese B2B platform for dropshipping and wholesale, it covers 16 industry categories and 36 first-level industry categories including 3C, clothing, home furnishings, accessories, etc. Among them, the dominant industries are mainly: clothing and apparel, mobile communications, shoes and bags, beauty and health, jewelry and watches, consumer electronics, computer networks, home furnishings, automobiles and motorcycles Car accessories, lamps, etc.  There are around 10 millions factories and suppliers on 1688 listed more than 1 billion product skus, nearly 500,000 small and medium-sized suppliers provide services for Taobao, AliExpress, Amazon, Wish, eBay, lazada and other platforms through the 1688 cross-border platform, covering 220 countries and regions around the world.

How to dropship from 1688?

Unlike Aliexpress, mostly dropshippers and wholesalers cannot order from 1688 directly due to the language, payment,shipping and aftersale issues.

Language issue. 1688 is in Chinese which means you will face the language issue when you sourcing on 1688, communicate with suppliers and import product info from 1688 to store, of course, import product info is related to 1688 API but product description and photos are in Chinese.

Payment issue. Different to Aliexpress dropshipping, 1688 doesnt support international credit card, international Alipay, paypal and other international payment gates unless you can register a trading company in HK, but very few suppliers support USD payment.

Shipping issue. 1688 platform only support domestic shipping in China, it doesnt support china post air mail, ePacket, Aliexpress standard shipping, 4PX, Yunexpress, FedEx, DHL or UPS as well as other international shipping couriers.

Aftersale issue. Although mostly 1688 suppliers offer 7 days free return & exchange policy, which means you can only return and exchange flaw products within 10 days, it equals no aftersale as the international shipping and return far more than 10 days.

How to dropship from 1688 then? Partner with a reliable 1688 agent to dropship wholesale from China.

What kind of service you need to dropship from 1688?

Sourcing service. You need agent help you source from 1688 if you dont know Chinese and 1688 platform rules;

Purchasing service. You need agent to help you pay on 1688 since you cannot pay on 1688 directly;

QC service. To reduce the aftersale rates caused by product quality, you need agent to help you quality check in China and return exchange flaw products within 7 days;

Repacking service. The products especially fashion clothing products need to be repacked in good condition to ship from China;

Warehousing service. If you need to stock best seller products or you have multiple suppliers from 1688 you may need agent provide warehousing service;

Order fulfillment service. The agent pick and pack one or several items in one order to fulfill once the order is complete;

Stable and fast shipping service. Compared to 30 to 50 days Aliexpress standard shipping, mostly 1688 agent provide 5 to 15 days shipping delivery service from China to UK, EU and USA;

Tracking upload service. Once the orders being fulfillment, you may need agent upload tracking to your store and notice clients via email automatically;

Aftersale service. You may also need agent provide aftersale service for tracking update, package broken, product flaw etc.

In addition, you may also need some add-on service based on your dropshipping business, for example,

Private label packaging. Mostly dropshippers who prefer dropship from 1688 already have stable order sales and best seller products, custom private label packaging may required to brand store;

Barcode service. If you have more than 50 skus, the barcode service is required to distinguish products for pick pack in agent warehouse;

Photo shooting service. If you need unique product photos different with other online sellers for marketing, you may also need photo shooting service to make the products unique.

You may wonder what’s the procedure to dropship from 1688? You can take a look ShipAnt 1688 dropshipping service and procedure in details.

Costs dropship from 1688

When you dropship from 1688 you may not only need better qualities but also cheaper cost than Aliexpress. Does it definitely cheaper dropship from 1688 VS dropship from Aliexpress? The answer is no. Let’s take a look the cost composition.

Costs dropship from Aliexpress. Mostly Aliexpress sellers provide free shipping service, thus the cost dropship from Aliexpress is the product cost only, if Aliexpress sellers doesnt provide free shipping service, then the dropshipping cost is product cost and shipping;

Costs dropship from 1688. Unlike Aliexpress, mostly 1688 suppliers do not provide free shipping service, thus the dropshipping cost is product cost, domestic shipping cost, agent service fee and international shipping fee.

From the cost composition you can see dropship from 1688 isnt cheaper than dropship from Aliexpress as it has extra costs although the product price is cheaper for startups. However, when you have best seller products or stable sales from one supplier, you can definitely get even more lower wholesale price or discount while Aliexpress cannot offer.

Dropship from Aliexpress VS dropship from 1688, which is better? It depends on the dropshipping stage, each platform has its own advantages and disadvantages. You can take a look our previously blog Aliexpress VS 1688 Taobao what’s the best one for dropshipping as a reference. When you planning your dropshipping business, the key point isnt on provide cheaper price products at competitive price briefly but to built a supplychain and provide better user experience to continually make profits in the long term running, from this point of view, dropship from 1688 is better than Aliexpress.

After you know why dropship from 1688 and how to dropship from 1688 as well as service you may need to dropship from 1688, we will need to come back to the topic.

What’s the best 1688 agent for dropshipping？

When you looking for 1688 agent you may apply Google, Facebook, Quora, Reddit and even dropshipping communities to find the answer, does it mean the best 1688 agent for you? You should have your own judgement based on your dropshipping requirements, the procedure similar to sourcing products and supplier for dropshipping,  the following are the steps to help you find the best 1688 agent.

Step 1. Collect 1688 agent list. You can take advantages of Google, Facebook, Quora and Reddit as well as dropshipping communities to make a 1688 agent list;

Step 2. Make a question list of your concern. When you looking for 1688 agent you cannot randomly check their websites and compare which one is more beautiful, you should list your problems and concerns dropship from China and ask for a solution;

Step 3. Compare 1688 agent service. No matter what kind of services provided by 1688 agent, they should meet your business requirements;

Step 4. Compare service charge. Similar to product and shipping cost, it is also one of your biggest concern; Some agents charge per service, ShipAnt charge per order;

Step 5. Compare communication skills. It is very important if the 1688 agent could speak fluently English as it saves time in the daily communications for order fulfillment;

Step 6. Compare respond time. Due to different time zone location, the respond time of the 1688 agent is very important as it related to the orderly can be proceeded and fulfilled efficiently;

Step 7. Compare agent qualification. Such as years of experience, scale such as warehouse volume, employee quantities, daily order fuflillment abilities, reviews, hardware and software environment etc. Which potentially affect the order fulfillment efficiency.

Via the above 7 steps I am sure you will find the best 1688 agent for you business although it might take longer time but it worths.