aliexpress dropshipping, honest experiences?

The thing nobody warns you about is payment holds. PayPal and Stripe both get nervous about a new store with long delivery times and a few disputes, and they can hold your payouts while you're still paying for ads up front. Have enough cash to run a month or so without any payouts coming in, or a bad week turns into a real problem.

It can work, it's just a lot harder than the videos make it look. Shipping time is the big one, and customers expect a few days now. Quality varies between batches from the same seller, and returns are a pain because nobody wants to send stuff back overseas. If you try it, order samples of everything yourself first, pick suppliers with faster local warehouses where you can, and be upfront about delivery times on the product page. Most of my support emails came from vague shipping info.