How to Automate AliExpress to Shopify Product Import with AI (Step-by-Step Guide)

If you run a dropshipping store, you already know the pain: find a product on AliExpress, copy the title, download the images, clean up the description, set your margins, push it to Shopify. Do that 20 times and your evening is gone.

I got tired of doing this manually, so I built a tool that lets an AI agent handle the whole thing. You type one sentence — "import this product, mark it up 2.5x, push to my store" — and it just happens. No scripts, no browser extensions, no Zapier glue.

This guide walks you through setting it up. It takes about 5 minutes, and you don't need to write any code.

What You'll Need

Before we start, make sure you have:

• A DSers account (free plan works) with at least one Shopify or Wix store connected
• Cursor or Claude Desktop — these are AI coding assistants that support MCP (Model Context Protocol), the standard this tool uses to talk to AI
• Node.js 22 or later — if you don't have it, grab it from nodejs.org

What you don't need: coding experience, API keys, or any paid subscription beyond what you already have.

Step 1: Log In (One Time, 30 Seconds)

Open your terminal and run:

npx @lofder/dsers-mcp-product login

Your browser opens to the official DSers login page. Log in the way you normally do. That's it — the tool picks up your session automatically.

Your password never touches this tool. You're logging in on DSers's own website. The MCP server only receives a session token, which is encrypted and stored locally on your machine. No passwords in any config file, ever.

Sessions last about 6 hours. When one expires, your AI agent will tell you and ask you to run login again. Takes 10 seconds.

Step 2: Connect to Your AI Client

If you use Cursor

Add this to your .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dsers-mcp-product": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@lofder/dsers-mcp-product"]
    }
  }
}

If you use Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dsers-mcp-product": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@lofder/dsers-mcp-product"]
    }
  }
}

Restart your client. You should see "dsers-mcp-product" appear in the connected tools list. That's the setup — everything else happens in conversation.

Step 3: Import Your First Product

Open a chat with your AI agent and type something like:

"Import this product and push it to my Shopify store as a draft: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006372921430.html"

Behind the scenes, the agent will:

1. Discover your connected stores (which Shopify/Wix shops you have)
2. Import the product from AliExpress into your DSers workspace
3. Preview the result — showing you the title, price, variants, and images
4. Push it to your store as a draft listing

You'll see the preview before anything gets pushed. The agent asks for your confirmation at each step, so nothing happens without your say-so.

Works with product links from AliExpress, Alibaba.com, and Accio.com (Alibaba's AI sourcing tool). Just paste the URL and the agent figures out the rest.

Step 4: Bulk Import with Pricing Rules

One product is nice. But the real power is batching. Try this:

"Import these 5 products, mark up the price by 2.5x, and push them all as drafts: [URL1] [URL2] [URL3] [URL4] [URL5]"

The agent imports all five, applies a 2.5x markup to every variant, and pushes them in one go.

Pricing options you can use

• Multiplier: "mark up 2.5x" — sell price = supplier cost × 2.5
• Fixed markup: "add $5 to each variant" — sell price = supplier cost + $5
• Compare-at price: "set compare-at to 3x supplier cost" — shows a crossed-out "original" price on your store
• Combination: "2x markup with compare-at at 3x" — both at once

You can also mix it into natural language:

"Import this product. Set the sell price to 2x supplier cost, add a compare-at price at $29.99, and only keep the first 5 images."

The agent understands all of these and translates them into the right tool parameters.

Step 5: Push to Multiple Stores

If you run stores in different markets, this saves a lot of time:

"Push this product to all my connected stores"

The agent calls store.discover to find every Shopify and Wix store linked to your DSers account, then pushes to each one. You can also be selective:

"Push to my US store with 2.5x markup and my EU store with 3x markup"

Per-store pricing, per-store visibility — one conversation.

Step 6: SEO Before You Push

AliExpress product titles are usually keyword-stuffed garbage. Before pushing, you can ask the AI to clean things up:

"Import this product, rewrite the title and description for SEO, then push to my store"

The agent will:

1. Import the product
2. Generate a clean, search-friendly title and description
3. Show you the rewritten version for approval
4. Push after you confirm

You stay in control — it won't publish anything without showing you first.

Safety Nets Built In

One thing that kept me up at night with manual imports was accidentally pushing a product with wrong pricing. The tool has automatic safety checks:

Hard blocks (push won't go through):

• Selling below supplier cost
• Zero sell price on any variant
• All variants out of stock

Warnings (push goes through, but you get a heads-up):

• Profit margin below 10%
• Stock under 5 units
• Sell price under $1

Pricing rule conflict detection: If your DSers store already has its own pricing rule enabled (basic/standard/advanced), and you also set pricing through the MCP tool, the push gets blocked — not just warned. The agent shows you two options: accept the store's pricing rule, or disable it in DSers settings to use your MCP pricing instead. No more silent price overrides.

If you're 100% sure about an edge case, you can tell the agent to force_push. But the default is to protect you from mistakes.

What's Under the Hood

The tool is called dsers-mcp-product — it's open source, built in TypeScript, and uses 9 specialized tools and 4 workflow prompts to handle the full import-to-push pipeline. It's published on npm, the official MCP Registry, Smithery, Glama (AAA rated), and several other directories.

If you're curious about the architecture and the decisions behind the tool design, I wrote a separate technical post: I Built an MCP Server to Automate Dropshipping Product Imports.

Quick Reference

Install:

npx @lofder/dsers-mcp-product login

Config (Cursor / Claude Desktop):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dsers-mcp-product": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@lofder/dsers-mcp-product"]
    }
  }
}

Common commands:

What you want	What to say
Import one product	"Import this product: [URL]"
Import with markup	"Import this, mark up 2.5x: [URL]"
Bulk import	"Import these products: [URL1] [URL2] [URL3]"
Push to store	"Push this product to my Shopify store"
Push to all stores	"Push to all my stores"
SEO rewrite	"Rewrite the title for SEO, then push"
Clean up titles	"Clean up the AliExpress title"
Check push status	"Did that push go through?"

Links:

• GitHub: github.com/lofder/dsers-mcp-product
• npm: npmjs.com/package/@lofder/dsers-mcp-product
• MCP Registry: registry.modelcontextprotocol.io

If you run into any issues, open a GitHub issue — I'm actively fixing bugs and adding features. This is still early days, and feedback from actual store owners is what makes it better.