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How to List Products on AliExpress

A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Listings in the AliExpress Channel

This article walks you through the process of listing products on AliExpress via StoreAutomator (SA). The steps are broadly as follows:

  • Create and connect the AliExpress channel in SA
  • Include the products in the channel
    • Connect Listing for the existing listings
    • Create and include a new Product
  • Create New Single Products
  • Create New Parent Products
  • Complete category mapping, option mapping, custom field mapping, and carrier mapping
  • Include/sync all products with the AliExpress channel

Step 1: Create and Connect Your Channel

The first step is to create your channel and enter your credentials securely in SA - this will establish the connection.

Create Your Channel:

  • Go to the Settings>Channels on the navigation panel.

  • Click on Add Channel and select the AliExpress channel icon.

  • Enter a name for your Aliexpress channel, then click “+Create”. No need to add the channel code, the system will automatically assign the code to your channel.

Connect Your Channel:

  • Go to the Channel>Channel Settings>API Connection (After creating the channel, the permission box pops up right away. If you would like to give permission later, you can follow the path as highlighted above)

 

  • Click Give Permission to StoreAutomator
  • Enter your credentials securely in StoreAutomator to establish the connection.

Step 2: Include Your Products in the New AliExpress Channel

For Existing Products in the AliExpress Portal

Create and Include New Products in the AliExpress Channel:

Prepare Your Products:

  • Products will be created in SA. There are several ways to do this - manually, in bulk, via our API, syncing with an existing channel, or via our DX Channel. Click here for a guide on how to do this
  • After creating the new products in the SA inventory, before including/syncing them with AliExpress for the first time, these must (1) have a local category assigned to them and (2) you must complete category mapping. For example, your category might be Woman Shoulder Bags, which you should map to AliExpress default categories (remote categories) of Shoulder Bags. The category mapping process for AliExpress is the same as mapping for other channels you may have already completed in SA. Please refer to this article Map Categories to Amazon Channel Taxonomy, for guidance.

 

Create New Single Products:

If your products are single, the most important part is the custom field mapping. 

First, you must create the custom fields (product attributes) with at least the required attributes by AliExpress. 

To do custom field mapping.

  • Edit the item at the channel level
  • Click on the Custom Field Mapping tab
  • Find the custom field and click “Add Category,” which will be the item's local category.
  • Click the empty bar and find and select the spec name, “Gender” in this case.
  • After you select the spec name, it will be automatically saved for that specific category. So, your gender field will be sent to the AliExpress gender field. 
  • Click the “Show Possible Options”, copy the value, and paste it into the custom field on the inventory level. (You need to find the correct valid value for each product in your inventory. Each product category may have different valid options.)

 

 

 

Below is the screenshot from AliExpress. The gender field is required and is set as a dropdown with valid options. 

 

Another example is for a required field, but it is a line text field, which is the Material Composition. You will not see the little downside arrow for the possible option. But you have to create this custom field and do custom field mapping, and you must add a value of your own. 

 

Note: The SA has a functionality to fill out the mandatory attributes automatically. However, this functionality is only available for the required field that has predefined values in AliExpress and is set as a dropdown, like the above field, gender. If the required fields are set as line text in AliExpress, such as Material Composition, then you must have the custom field in SA and do the custom field mapping for the specific category, and have the value for the field.  

 

Create New Parent Products:

If your products are in a parent group, in that case, you need to do the Options mapping for each category, and the values must be mapped as well. You can do this either at the channel item level or from the mappings on the navigation panel.

If you do this from Mappings, you will see your mapped local categories with the green plus sign, click on it, and the options will be opened. These options must be mapped to the specs from AliExpress, such as color to Color (from variant specs) 

Then click on the green plus icon on the left side of the option (color), and the colors you have will be listed. Each of those colors will be mapped to the corresponding colors in AliExpress. You can only use AliExpress values once, which means you cannot use black (193) for your other colors. 

 

 

You can do option mapping at the channel item level. Go to channel> channel products, since your items will not be in the channel, change the status to “Not in Channel”, find the parent skus that you want to include them, click edit, and hit the option mapping. The other steps are as follows. The only thing is that you will only be mapping for this specific item’s local category.

 

After completing the option mappings, the custom fields mapping is required for parent groups as well. Please check the custom field mapping details under the Create New Single Products header.

Lastly, you include the brand new products in your AliExpress channel in SA and click on the sync button on the channel, or you can select them and send the full data update and sync the channel. 

If the products are sent successfully, it means it was sent to AliExpress, and if you check your AliExpress UI, you will see the products in the pending approval status. This may take some time. So, please be aware of it.

 

Please note that if the products are in the pending status on AliExpress, you cannot send any updates to the product. To be able to update any data, the products must be approved and listed successfully.

Important Notes on the Requirement of AliExpress

Mappings and Fields are a must as follows;

  • Category mapping
  • Carrier mapping for shipment
  • Option mapping for parent groups
  • Custom field mapping
  • Ship days, which is set in the channel settings, but it can be overridden at the channel item level
  • The weight unit, which is set in the channel settings
  • The ship weight is required: If shipping weight has a value, the system will send the ship weight; if not, the system will check the package weight. If there is no value in the package weight, too, the system will look at the item weight. One of them must have a value to send and create a product on AliExpress.
  • The dimensions fields are required, which are length, height, and width. If there is a value in the package length, the system will use the package length; if not, the item length will be used, and the same logic for the height and width. So either package dimensions or item dimensions must have a value. 
  • Name/Title is required and cannot be longer than 218 characters.
  • The description field is required.
  • Every category may have different required product attributes, which you can check on AliExpress.
  • A maximum of 6 images can be sent, and at least one image is a must. Images are sent through single or parent SKUs, and variant images are sent separately as small images, like swatch images.

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