Step 1 - Create a new connection
Go to the project you are working in and navigate to the API tab. Click '+ Add new API' and then ‘Add new connection'.
Now, select AliExpress, name the connection and click on 'Connect with AliExpress'.
Step 2 - Login to AliExpress
You will automatically be redirected to your AliExpress environment. Sign in with your email or username and password (or AliExpress shows if you want to use the account you are logged in with).
You need to grant access to Channable, and then you are redirected back to Channable.
Step 3 - Add the new connection
Back in Channable you can finish creating the connection by clicking on 'Add connection'.
Step 4 - Setup AliExpress API
Once you have created the new AliExpress API, you can give the API a name and select the country and unique ID per item. The country setting is used to pull the business policies (i.e. shipping profile) from your AliExpress account for that specific country.
Step 5 - Create your product listings
Follow the four steps below to configure your product listings for AliExpress.
1. Categories
Setup AliExpress categories for your products by using the generate categories feature or create new categories from scratch.
2. Rules
Create different rules to optimize your product data. For examples take a look at our common rules support article.
3. Build
In the Build step you can find our pre-set template for the product listings. All you have to do is to fill it out by clicking on the field itself and selecting the corresponding value. For instance, the field 'Brand' should display the 'Brand' of your product and so on.
The ‘Item group ID’ field is used to combine multiple variant items into a grouped listing. If you want to setup a grouped variant structure for AliExpress, follow this guide to configure it.
Note: 'Unit' is often'piece/pieces', but you can change this to another static value or connect it to a dynamic field.
Tip! Hover over the question marks next to the fields to see a description of the field and suggestions for possible values.
In this step you can also configure Localized prices. This step is optional, so the already existing price fields in the "item" tab are still present and will be used if no localized prices are set. The localized prices tab allows you to set different prices for your products based on the country they're bought from:
In the Build step you also find a tab for Title & description. Here, you need to select a title and description for your products per language. You need to select the language of the title and description and connect the fields you use in Channable (which fields contain your title and description).
In this step you also need to set your Shipping information, for example weight, length, height, width, dispatch etc. A part of this is to select a profile for service policy. If you have set this policy but can't find them, you might need to enable them first. In Channable, you can automatically select the profile you have configured in AliExpress. You also need to select a freight template ID, more information can be found on this page. 
Note II: The AliExpress profile is a static value we retrieve from AliExpress, so you cannot find them in the project fields when trying to select them. Instead, click on the ‘back’ arrow and go to static values. Now you should be able to select the profiles from AliExpress.
The last tab in the Build step is the Images tab. Here you can link field(s) which contains your images.
4. Attributes
Next you need to fill in the attributes per category in the Attributes step. See the screenshot below for an example of how the attributes look. A more detailed explanation of what to do in the Attributes step can be found in our Attributes support article.
Note: If you want to configure grouped variants for AliExpress, you can configure the Variant attribute here as well. For more information, see this article.
Step 6 - Send your product listings to AliExpress
Once you have finished configuring your product listings, you can start sending your listings to AliExpress. If you have not activated the project yet, navigate to ‘Settings > Project settings’ and activate the project. Then, go back to APIs and go to the Settings of your AliExpress API and activate the API here. When you click on 'Run now' your products will be sent to AliExpress!
You do not need to erase your existing listings on AliExpress before sending your products from Channable for the first time. The following three scenarios may apply:
- Product listing exists on AliExpress, and the product is in Channable: In this case we will synchronize your existing listings and add them to our tracking. This way, these existing listings can be updated from Channable.
- Product listing exists on AliExpress, but is not in Channable: In this case we will ignore the existing listing. You will not be able to update this listing from Channable.
- Product is in Channable, but is not an existing listing on AliExpress: In this case we will create a new listing on AliExpress. These new listings can be updated from Channable.
Step 7 - Results
After you have sent your listing to AliExpress go to the Results tab. By clicking on 'errors' you can see which product listings have errors and will not be placed. Click on an error to see what the error message is and which products have that error.
Note: If you get an error on one variant in a listing this error is shown for every variant in said listing.
Clearing the API
If you for some reason want or need to clear your API, you can navigate to APIs > Settings > cog wheel in the top right > Clear API. Note that clearing the API will delete all the listings. In the case of AliExpress, this means losing all listings' reviews, history, ratings, etc.
Clearing the API will only delete the products that you have pushed through the API, it will not delete products that you manually uploaded in your AliExpress account.
Order Connection
We also support an order connection with AliExpress. Channable will automatically retrieve your orders from AliExpress and send them to your eCommerce platform. After you have handled the order there, Channable will automatically send the shipping information back to AliExpress. Please contact us to set up the order connection with AliExpress and don't forget to include this information!