Today, we’re announcing a new partnership with one of the world’s largest retail service marketplaces, AliExpress. This marks one of the most anticipated partnerships within the Krepling to date. The partnership will open AliExpress’ marketplace to Krepling’s merchants, allowing them to benefit from a fully automated fulfillment model (commonly referred to as ‘dropshipping’) in a way that truly transforms how a merchant thinks about personalized fulfillment channels.

The partnership will also greatly expand the reach and ability of Krepling merchants, allowing them access to AliExpress’ 100 million products with the ability to list, sell and ship them directly on their Krepling store through a click of a button, or through dedicated workflows.

As online fulfillment channels continue to grow, dropshipping remains one of the most underutilized fulfillment methods for many mid-sized brands and retailers today. As the global dropshipping market is expected to reach $196.78 billion this year, global e-commerce sales are projected to reach $5.54 trillion, meaning dropshipping will only account for 3.5% of total online transactions by the end of 2022 and heading into 2023.

The global dropshipping market is expected to grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.56% over the next several years and take up a larger piece of the e-commerce market. By 2025, it’s projected to soar to a global market value of $372.47 billion, which means it will account for 5.5% of the $6.77 trillion global e-commerce market in three years. 

Krepling’s partnership with AliExpress is going to be taking the capabilities of this soaring segment of commerce to new heights, and here’s how:

Why this partnership matters

Given the continued growth and the market size of dropshipping, it comes as no surprise that the adoption rate of this lucrative and viable alternative, or supplement, to the traditional retail model is growing.

However, many retailers have rushed into dropshipping without a well-defined strategy, only to encounter problems later on. Lack of experience, unrealistic expectations, inadequate knowledge, and inadequate preparation have all resulted in costly and time-consuming mistakes that have harmed retailers, vendors, and customers alike.

This, alongside constant changes to the retail calendar has led to various changes in fulfillment, inventory, and product allocation for the foreseeable future. Krepling’s partnership with AliExpress will allow merchants to create highly curated and specialized dropshipping consumer channels and workflows, thus enabling them to adopt dropshipping as a permanent method to retail expansion and solve most of the early hiccups that come with a fully automated shipping model.

We look forward to expanding more on the application of dedicated fulfillment channels and the effect that can have on merchants in later product announcements.