If you want to know about Alibaba Vs AliExpress, you are at the right place. Alibaba.com and AliExpress are two online marketplaces that have helped a lot of eCommerce businesses do well. These two platforms are owned by the same company, Alibaba Group, which is a leader in the world of online shopping.
But are Aliexpress and Alibaba the same? No, It’s not. Alibaba.com and AliExpress both offer different ways to buy and sell, with different features for different kinds of buyers and sellers.
In this post, we’ll compare Alibaba Vs AliExpress to help buyers and sellers figure out which one is best for them. We will talk about the most important parts of each platform, including typical buyers, typical sellers, costs, and other professional services.
About Alibaba.com?
Alibaba.com was started in 1999 as the first business unit of Alibaba Group. It has become a major force in the world of B2B eCommerce between businesses in different locations across the world. It connects over 150,000 suppliers with over 10 million buyers from over 190 countries and regions.
Business buyers go to Alibaba.com to find parts to make the final goods, buy finished goods to resell, or find things their business needs to run. Every day, 300,000 inquiries are sent from these buyers to sellers on Alibaba.com.
Alibaba.com sellers can show buyers their products and OEM/ODM production capabilities on a digital storefront, which is also called a “mini-site.” With the built-in marketing and CRM tools, sellers can reach out to customers and keep them as customers. They can talk to customers on their own terms and own the relationships with and information about those customers.
The platform also gives buyers and sellers a toolbox full of resources to make it easier for them to talk to each other. It also provides logistics solutions and payment protection to help them easily navigate the world of B2B eCommerce.
Important Features of Alibaba.
Alibaba.com was made thinking about both buyers and sellers. Here are a few of the platform’s features that help traders on both sides of a deal:
Distinctive Sellers
On Alibaba.com, there are many different kinds of sellers, such as manufacturers, wholesalers, exporters, trading companies, agents, and so on. All Alibaba.com suppliers have one thing in common: they all sell to other businesses.
Distinctive Buyers
Alibaba.com is a B2B platform, which means that businesses usually buy from it. Some types of buyers are B2C retailers, sourcing agents, wholesale distributors, manufacturers, and even other B2B sellers.
Professional Solutions Offered:
- Alibaba.com offers a wide range of business services, such as:
- Alibaba.com International logistics services for freight
- Help with getting started and services to help sellers do well
- Trade Assurance is a free service that helps protect orders.
- Services for inspecting and keeping an eye on products.
About AliExpress.
AliExpress is one of the best online B2C eCommerce marketplaces that sells to people all over the world. This platform was started in 2010 as a branch of Alibaba.com so that businesses could sell directly to consumers.
AliExpress is the retail division of Alibaba Group. Unlike Alibaba.com, which we talked about earlier, anyone from anywhere in the world can buy products “as is” without having to buy a certain number of them.
This platform works the same way as other general B2C platforms. Amazon, Etsy, and eBay are often used as examples. AliExpress is a place where people can buy high-quality items at low prices. It has become a great place for dropshipping because it has a wide range of products, competitive prices, safe buyer protection, and the ability to buy in small quantities. Independent sellers can sign up to sell directly to hundreds of millions of buyers around the world.
AliExpress Dropshipping Activities.
Dropshippers shop on AliExpress to find good products for their website, but they don’t buy anything from the suppliers until someone places an order on the website. Dropshippers then send the order to the supplier, who sends the products directly to the buyer and not to the dropshipper.
Important Features:
- AliExpress has a lot of great features. Some of these materials are:
- For a localised user experience, automatic translation to 18 languages is available.
- Changes from 51 countries’ currencies
- Support for 38 local payment channels to make transactions and payments safe
- Storefronts that are made just for sellers to protect the buyer
Distinctive Sellers
Most of the sellers on AliExpress are small businesses that sell to consumers. Unlike Alibaba.com, sellers on AliExpress are probably not the manufacturers themselves. Instead, they are third-party people who act as middlemen. They buy products in large quantities from factories and then sell them in small quantities on AliExpress.
Some of the most popular things to sell on AliExpress are clothes, electronics, beauty products, tools, home improvement products, and appliances.
Distinctive Buyers
AliExpress is set up as a business-to-consumer platform, so most of the people who buy from it are consumers. There are currently more than 150 million buyers on AliExpress from 220 countries and territories around the world.
Because the prices on AliExpress are so low, they are close to wholesale prices, and the site has a huge selection of almost everything, many of the people who buy on AliExpress are actually resellers looking for dropshipping. Dropshipping on AliExpress is a great way to start an online business without putting up a lot of money and without having to worry about inventory or shipping.
Active professional Solutions Offered:
AliExpress does offer both buyers and sellers a number of professional services:
Shipping from AliExpress
It is the one-stop shipping method that AliExpress and the Cainiao Network of Alibaba Group offer. It includes the first-mile pickup service, the consolidation service, the international line-haul service, the customs clearance service, and the last-mile delivery service.
The platform also lets you choose from different ways to ship, like UPS, FedEx, DHL, EMS, e-Packet, etc. Shipping costs depend on where you live and how fast you want your package to arrive. Most of the items are shipped for free by AliExpress Shipping and Cainiao Network. Most of the time, it takes anywhere from 1 week to 2 months.
Now let’s walk in through the differences between AliExpress and Alibaba.com.
Alibaba.com and AliExpress are very similar, but they are used for different things. The biggest difference is in the kinds of transactions that each platform is best for. Alibaba.com is a place where businesses can do business with each other. AliExpress is a B2C platform that helps businesses and consumers do business with each other.
Many buyers are drawn to Alibaba.com right away, whether they are businesses or not, because the prices of the products on the site are so low. But Alibaba.com has minimum order quantities, so to get the wholesale prices, buyers have to buy in bulk.
AliExpress, on the other hand, still has low prices, but you don’t have to buy a certain number of items at once.
Most of the time, sellers on Alibaba.com don’t have to pay any commission or take rates, whereas, AliExpress sellers have to pay up to 8%.
Even though these platforms are different, neither is better nor worse. Which one you should use depends on what you want to do, whether you are a buyer or a seller. AliExpress is a better place for consumers to shop, and Alibaba.com is a better place for businesses to find products or materials.
