How to Connect AliExpress to Shopify and Fulfill Your First Order Without Errors

Written by:

Rosie Doan|Last updated: November 13, 2026

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Shopify doesn't have a button that connects AliExpress to your store. The link comes from a dropshipping app that imports AliExpress products, sends your orders to the supplier and brings tracking back to Shopify.

In this guide, I'll show you how to connect AliExpress to Shopify with DSers in six steps, compare it with AutoDS and Zopi, and walk you through a test order that checks costs, variants and tracking before you run ads.

Quick Recap

Shopify needs a dropshipping app such as DSers or AutoDS to link AliExpress, because neither platform places orders for the other.
DSers' free Basic plan covers importing, pushing products and bulk ordering, while automatic price updates and cost sync start on the $19.90 Advanced plan.
AutoDS has no free plan but suits multi-supplier stores that want hands-off ordering.
Even with DSers connected, each AliExpress order still waits for your payment before the supplier ships it.
One test order shows whether variants, Cost per item and tracking sync correctly before you pay for traffic.

In this blog:

1. How AliExpress Connects to Shopify and What You Need First
2. How to Connect AliExpress to Shopify With DSers, Step by Step
3. DSers vs AutoDS vs Zopi: Which App Should Connect Your Store?
4. Run a Test Order to Check Costs and Sync Before You Spend on Ads
5. Final Thoughts
6. How to Connect AliExpress to Shopify FAQs

How AliExpress Connects to Shopify and What You Need First

Shopify has no built-in AliExpress connection, and it won't place AliExpress orders for you. A dropshipping app sits between the two once you authorize your AliExpress account inside it.

Here's what that connection handles, and what stays with you:

Products and prices: The app imports AliExpress listings and applies your pricing rule.
Stock and cost changes: Supplier price and stock updates can reach your store automatically, though DSers keeps this for its paid plans.
Orders: Each customer order appears in the app, which creates the matching AliExpress order.
Tracking: The tracking number flows back to Shopify once the supplier ships.
Payment: In DSers' standard flow, you still pay for each AliExpress order yourself.

Before you start, you'll need three things:

A Shopify store: Shopify offers a 3-day free trial, then $1 per month for the first 3 months on most plans. Our guide to the Shopify free trial explains what's included.
An AliExpress account: It's free, and it needs a payment method because you'll pay suppliers for each order.
Google Chrome (optional): It's only needed for the DSers import extension.

Our walkthrough on how to dropship on Shopify covers the wider store setup.

One more thing before you start: the Oberlo app is no longer on the Shopify App Store, so any guide that still recommends it is out of date.

How to Connect AliExpress to Shopify With DSers, Step by Step

I'll use DSers here because it has a free plan and describes itself as AliExpress's official dropshipping partner. The process takes six steps: install the app, authorize AliExpress, set your pricing and shipping, import products, push them to Shopify and fulfill your first order.

Step 1: Install DSers From the Shopify App Store

You can find DSers on the Shopify App Store or through Apps in your Shopify admin. When you click Install, Shopify shows an Install app screen listing the store data the app can view and edit, such as products and orders, so it's worth a read before you confirm.

Installed apps live under Settings > Apps. If the Shopify admin is new to you, our overview of what Shopify is and how it works explains where apps fit.

The free Basic plan is enough to start, since it covers importing, pushing products and bulk ordering. Advanced ($19.90 per month with a 14-day free trial, as of November 2026) adds automatic price updates and cost sync.

Step 2: Link Your Store and Authorize Your AliExpress Account

When DSers first opens, it asks you to create an account or log in, and that account links to your Shopify store. Then, under Settings > Application Management > Supplier, you add AliExpress, sign in and authorize the connection.

That authorization lets DSers create AliExpress orders for you and read back their status and tracking. The optional DSers Chrome extension also lets you import products straight from AliExpress pages.

Step 3: Set Your Pricing Rule and Default Shipping Method

Your pricing rule turns the supplier's cost into a selling price, so it's worth setting before you import anything. DSers offers two kinds:

Basic pricing rule (free): It adds a fixed amount to the cost or multiplies it, using either the product cost alone or the product cost plus shipping as the base.
Advanced pricing rule (paid plans): It works from a profit percentage or fixed profit and can factor in shipping costs and platform fees.

For stores that offer free shipping, a rule based on product cost plus shipping keeps that cost from coming out of your margin. Our guide on how to price dropshipping products goes deeper on markups.

A global default shipping method, added under Settings > Shipping Settings, keeps orders and costs on a method the supplier actually offers. Our breakdown of dropshipping shipping fees helps you weigh cheaper methods against faster ones.

Step 4: Import AliExpress Products and Edit Them in the Import List

DSers gives you three ways to import products:

Product search: DSers' own search lets you browse AliExpress items without leaving the app.
Product link: Pasting an AliExpress product URL imports that exact listing.
Chrome extension: The extension imports products while you browse AliExpress.

Imported products land in the Import List, where most of the cleanup happens. Supplier titles are often long strings of keywords, so a short, clear title helps shoppers and search engines. Our guide to Shopify SEO tips covers titles and product pages.

The rest is trimming: keeping the best images, rewriting the description and deleting variants you won't sell. It's also worth checking each variant's price, since one expensive variant can turn a flat markup into a loss.

Step 5: Push Products to Your Shopify Store

Once a product looks right, Push to Shopify sends it to your store, either as a draft you finish in Shopify or live straight away. Either way, a quick look at Products in your Shopify admin confirms that variants, prices and images arrived as expected. A missing variant is much cheaper to catch here than after a customer orders it.

Step 6: Place and Pay for AliExpress Orders From DSers

When a customer pays, the order shows up in DSers under Orders > Awaiting Order. Fulfilling it takes three actions:

You choose a shipping method the supplier offers for that order.
You click Place Order, which creates an unpaid order on AliExpress.
You click Make Payment, then Pay Now on AliExpress to pay the supplier.

After the supplier ships, DSers pulls the tracking number from AliExpress and sends it to Shopify, which marks the order as fulfilled and emails the tracking to your customer. DSers syncs order data from AliExpress five times a day, so you don't have to copy anything by hand.

Our guide to dropshipping fulfillment explains the wider flow from your store to the supplier to the customer's door.

DSers vs AutoDS vs Zopi: Which App Should Connect Your Store?

DSers isn't the only app that connects AliExpress to Shopify. Here's how three common options compare, as of November 2026:

App	Free plan	Starting paid price	Automatic price and stock sync	Ordering	Best fit
DSers	Yes, Basic (3 stores, 1 supplier account)	Advanced, $19.90/month	Advanced plan and up	You place and pay for each AliExpress order from DSers	AliExpress-first stores that want to start free
AutoDS	No (3-day free trial on the Shopify App Store, as of Nov 2026)	Import 200, $26.90/month for 200 products	Starter plan ($39.90/month) and up	Automatic ordering is a $9.90/month add-on	Stores with several suppliers that want hands-off ordering
Zopi	Yes, up to 20 products and 15 orders	Launch, $19.90/month	Scale plan ($49.90/month) and up	Orders are fulfilled from the app within each plan's order limit	Stores that also source from Temu, eBay or Amazon

AutoDS is built around many suppliers rather than AliExpress alone. You link your store, bring products in through its importer, and its price and stock monitor keeps listings current from the Starter plan up.

If AliExpress is your only supplier, I'd start on DSers' free plan and upgrade when cost sync starts to matter. Our roundup of the best dropshipping apps for Shopify reviews each app in more depth.

Run a Test Order to Check Costs and Sync Before You Spend on Ads

Most setup problems only show up when a real order goes through: a wrong variant ships, the cost in Shopify is off, or tracking never reaches the customer. One test order to your own address, placed before you spend on ads, catches all three.

Here's what to check on it:

Variant mapping: Each Shopify variant should point to the matching AliExpress variant, so a customer who picks blue in large gets blue in large.
Cost per item: On the Advanced plan and up, DSers can send the product plus shipping cost to Shopify's Cost per item field. If the supplier doesn't support the shipping method you set, the shipping part is pushed as $0.
Automatic updates: With automatic price updates in DSers' product settings, supplier price changes reach your store's prices and costs. On the Advanced plan and up, stock changes sync to Shopify too.
Tracking: The tracking number should land on the Shopify order, and the shipping confirmation email should reach the customer, which is you in this case.

Cost per item matters because Shopify's profit reports use it as the cost of goods sold, and products without one are left out of profit, so every margin figure depends on it.

Once the test order is paid, the actual AliExpress charge should match the Cost per item in Shopify; any gap comes straight out of your margin. What's left between your selling price and that real cost is your gross profit margin, and it still has to cover ads, payment fees and refunds.

Pro Tips: Our free dropshipping profit margin calculator shows whether your selling price leaves enough margin. Its answer is only as good as the costs you enter, so I'd use the real charge from your test order.

Final Thoughts

Connecting AliExpress to Shopify comes down to one app and one authorization. DSers' free plan is enough to install the app, link your AliExpress account and push your first products.

The setup only proves itself when a real order goes through, so your next step is one product and one test order before any ad spend.

Cost per item only covers the supplier's side of each order, though. Your net profit also depends on ad spend, shipping and payment fees, and that's why we built TrueProfit, the net profit analytics platform for Shopify merchants, to pull your revenue and all of those costs into one real-time P&L. With TrueProfit MCP, you can also connect your store to ChatGPT or Claude and ask which AliExpress products actually make money.

One order done right means every order after it starts from numbers you can trust.

How to Connect AliExpress to Shopify FAQs

Can I Connect AliExpress to Shopify Without an App?

Yes, you can order each Shopify sale manually on AliExpress and track links, costs and prices in a spreadsheet. That works for a handful of orders, but it breaks down on stock and price changes and on copying tracking numbers back by hand.

Can One DSers Account Run Several Shopify Stores or AliExpress Accounts?

Yes, within plan limits. As of November 2026, the free Basic plan allows 3 stores but only 1 supplier account, and Advanced raises that to 10 stores and 3 supplier accounts. DSers' pricing page lists the current limits for every plan.

How Do I Stop Suppliers From Adding AliExpress Invoices or Inserts to Packages?

DSers has a supplier message template that sends your request with each order, such as no invoices, promotions or supplier-branded inserts. Your test order shows whether the supplier follows it. If you want branded packaging instead of plain parcels, our guide to branded dropshipping covers suppliers that support it.

Rosie Doan

Senior Content Specialist at TrueProfit

Rosie Doan

Senior Content Specialist at TrueProfit

Rosie Doan is a Senior Content Specialist at TrueProfit with over 4 years of experience creating content for the ecommerce and SaaS industry. Having worked closely with Shopify merchants and ecommerce businesses, she has developed a deep understanding of the challenges store owners face, from growing revenue and acquiring customers to tracking performance, managing costs, and improving profitability.

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