AliExpress, logged-out US.
What the page actually sells.

Slide 2 · What it is

Alibaba’s international B2C rail

The homepage SEO block states: “AliExpress is an international B to C cross-border electronic commerce platform under the Alibaba group.” It positions itself as a one-stop site connecting shoppers to a “global network of suppliers and manufacturers,” and as a wholesale market for entrepreneurs.

The seller landing restates the same parent: “AliExpress is the e-commerce retail platform of Alibaba, serving buyers from all over the world.”

Sources: source/home/page.html (SEO block) · source/seller/page.html

Slide 3 · Logged-out promise

Cheap first order. Choice as the trust layer.

Trust copy on the hero: “Free shipping on Choice orders · Fast delivery with easy refunds · Free returns within 90 days.” That is the logged-out contract. There is no Plus/club price on this page.

Source: source/home/page.html visible text (trust strip + Dollar Express)

Slide 4 · What we could not find

No public /pricing, /plus, /club, /coins

Probed analogs all 404 or login-walled:

• /pricing /membership /rewards /plus /credit /sell /club /choice /coins /points → /s/error/404
• Dedicated coin, ae-plus, choice-home, shoppingplus URLs → 404 or maintenance
• Coupons and shopping-credit → login
• sell.aliexpress.com/en/__pc/fee.htm and commission_rate.htm → bounce to seller home, no table

Source: NOTES.md probe table · research/probe_results.json

Slide 5 · IA · header & search

Search is the product. Categories are a rail.

Header: AliExpress logo · full-width search with image-search camera · EN/USD · Account · Cart. Search placeholder on the later HTML: “I'm shopping for...”

Category model on the home HTML is a 24-node catalog (Automotive through Business, Industry & Science). Promo chips sit under it: Dollar Express, WelcomeDeal, Local Shipping, SuperDeals, AliExpress Business.

Right rail (first capture): Account, wishlist, messages, cart, feedback.

Source: source/home/page.html · source/home/screenshot.png (first clean capture)

Slide 6 · IA · page stack

Consumer home is a stacked conversion machine

1. Campaign hero + threshold coupons
2. Today's deals = Dollar Express (new shopper) + SuperDeals (countdown)
3. AliExpress Business (identity switch to wholesale)
4. Local Shipping (2–8 day domestic-feel promise)
5. More to love (infinite recs; still spinning at capture)
6. SEO essay + keyword cloud + 4-column footer

Source: source/home/screenshot.png · text_home.txt

Slide 7 · IA · pricing analogs

Four real analogs. Zero membership SKU.

Sources: source/seller, source/affiliate, source/inbusiness, source/buyerprotection meta.json

Slide 8 · Psychology · new-shopper lock-in

The first order is priced to be irresistible

Dollar Express headline: 3 from $0.99. Captured SKUs: butter-stick fidget $0.33 (was $5.68), MacBook case $5.33 (was $18.00), precision tool $5.19 (was $16.13). Every card is stamped New shoppers only.

This is not a catalog price. It is an acquisition coupon implemented as a product rail. The sunk cost of the first order (account + address + payment method) is the real product.

Source: source/home/page.html — Dollar Express block

Slide 9 · Psychology · threshold coupons

Three rungs. Spend more to “save” more.

Effective discount if you exactly hit the floor: 55/369 ≈ 14.9%; 75/499 ≈ 15.0%; 85/599 ≈ 14.2%. The site does not print those percentages. The design prints the dollar off and the floor, which is the AOV pull.

Source: source/home/page.html codes USNS85 / USBS75 / USBS55. Percentages are derived from those two captured integers only.

Slide 10 · Psychology · anchoring + countdown

Almost every price has a ghost price

SuperDeals rail, captured:

• CUSU M2 SSD — $45.41 / $110.03 / -58%
• Tesla Model 3/Y sunshade — $104.96 / $273.68 / -61%
• CUSU DDR4 — $44.88 / $93.65 / -52%

Header: Ends in: 18:51:11 (timer as captured). Local Shipping cards add N sold (71, 11, 12, 74, 22…).

Source: source/home/page.html SuperDeals + Local Shipping blocks

Slide 11 · Psychology · Choice & local

Choice is a badge. Local is a speed claim.

Home trust strip: free shipping on Choice orders, free returns within 90 days.

Local Shipping module: Free shipping | 2-8 days delivery + Shop now. CN seller page adds the operational version of Choice: 包邮、免运费退货、承诺时效送达, and “全球平均送货时效缩短50%”, “全球5日达” covering 50+ countries.

There is no Choice subscription price on any captured logged-out page. Choice is a fulfillment SKU, not a club fee, in this capture.

Sources: source/home/page.html · source/seller-zh/page.html

Slide 12 · Psychology · B2B on a B2C home

The home page sells a second customer

A full dark module — AliExpress Business — sits mid-home with Tax exemptions / Express Payments / Financial Support and four scale claims:

Footer also pushes DS Center, Affiliate, and Seller Registration. The consumer homepage is a multi-sided marketplace billboard.

Source: source/home/page.html Business + footer “Collaborate with us”

Slide 13 · Revenue action · coupons

Exact coupon math (captured)

Actions on the hero: copy / apply USNS85, USBS75, USBS55. Floors are $599 / $499 / $369. The page does not state expiry, stacking rules, or whether Choice items are excluded.

Do not invent a take rate from these. They are demand-side discounts funded by campaign, not a published seller commission.

Source: source/home/page.html coupon nodes

Slide 14 · Revenue action · seller recruitment

US seller page sells supply, not a fee

• CTA repeated: Start selling now / Login
• Social proof: 32%+ YoY partner revenue; 150M+ active shoppers; 30% new-customer acquisition growth in FY24
• Reach: 200+ countries; 16 languages
• Onboarding: 5 steps (register → review → list → first order → grow)

Logged-out US seller landing does not print a commission %, annual store fee, or listing fee. Probed fee URLs redirected home.

Source: source/seller/page.html · NOTES.md fee-URL probes

Slide 15 · Revenue action · CN seller stories

ZH landing uses case-study GMV, still no rate card

Captured testimonials (seller-zh), not independent audits:

• BMAX: orders +300%; Q1 sales 70万美金
• FDIK: March volume +430%; inventory +600%
• JOYOR: 1000% March GMV YoY
• SUPERun: 1334% March GMV; Q1 90万美金
• Easun power: 1798% 海托 GMV YoY; 100万 monthly peak
• Anenji: 2143% 海托 GMV YoY
• DOOGEE: 1600%+ 海托 GMV; Q1 200万

These are marketing claims on the captured page. They are not a take-rate.

Source: source/seller-zh/page.html

Slide 16 · Revenue action · affiliate rate card

The only public take-rate on this crawl

Adders on the same page: up to 4% extra for beating incentive targets; up to 1.5% rate increase for publisher growth. Reach: 200+ countries. CTA: Start earning / Register / Join now. Contact: affiliates@service.alibaba.com.

The page does not state cookie length, min payout, or Hot Products cap. Those are omitted.

Source: source/affiliate/page.html · portals.aliexpress.com/affiportals/web/portals.htm#/home

Slide 17 · Revenue action · wholesale

Business page sells units, not a membership

Hero: WHOLESALE FEST · Aug 14–26 PT · Up to 90% off top items. Search is “Describe what you need” + AI Search + image search. Tabs: AI Personalized sourcing, Shop Radar, Source now.

Unit economics on cards: “$0.94 each, ≥2 pcs”; “$3.91 each, ≥20 pcs”; “Buy 20, save $1.60”. Social proof is N peers bought (92, 242, 139, 306, 120 on the captured row).

Footer copyright on this property: ©2023 Created by AliExpress.

Source: source/inbusiness/page.html

Slide 18 · Revenue action · protection as conversion

Refund rules that un-risk the first order

• Protection lasts 15 days after the shopper confirms receipt
• Change of mind: buyer pays return shipping
• Defective / not as described / wrong item: store pays return
• Refund timing: 1–10 working days to original payment, or faster to AliExpress Bonus
• EU overlay: 2-year conformity + 14-day return. Brazil: 30/90-day warranty + 7-day regret

CTA on the page: 24/7 LIVE CHAT.

Source: source/buyerprotection/page.html

Slide 19 · Coins — weak source

Coins exist in IA. The wiki is labeled AI.

Home later-capture nav mentioned Coins; dedicated /coins and coin-index URLs 404’d. The article “How to Use Your Coin on AliExpress” was captured and says coins expire in 90 days and gives examples (100 coins ~ $1; 200 coins ~ $2).

The same article prints: “This content is provided by third-party contributors or generated by AI.” Treat conversion examples as unofficial. No official coin table was captured.

Sources: source/coin-wiki/page.html disclaimer · NOTES.md coin URL 404s

Slide 20 · What we will not claim

Omitted because it was not on the page

• Seller take rate by category (5–8% blogs exist; not on captured seller pages)
• Annual technical service / $1,500 store fee (third-party blogs only)
• 2026 “tiered 5/8/12% by order value” (shopappy-style posts; not captured)
• Plus / club subscription price
• Official coin-to-dollar rate card
• Affiliate cookie days, $16 min payout, $50 Hot Product cap (third-party reviews)

Rule: if it is not in source/*/page.html or a cited official legal URL we captured, it is out.

Slide 21 · Steal

Patterns worth copying

Slide 22 · Skip

Patterns not to cargo-cult

Slide 23 · Clone status

What was rebuilt

• clone/index.html — home IA, coupons, deals, business, local, footer
• clone/seller/index.html — US seller recruit
• clone/affiliate/index.html — portals rate card + FAQs
• clone/inbusiness/index.html — wholesale fest + bulk cards
• clone/buyerprotection/index.html — 15-day / who-pays rules

Match: copy, prices, codes, section order. Not a pixel-extract of live CSS (JS app + later captcha). Product tiles use images whose URLs were in the captured home HTML.

See NOTES.md “Clones” and research/clone_shots/

Slide 24 · Sources index

Where every claim lives

• Home — source/home/{page.html,screenshot.png,meta.json} · live https://www.aliexpress.us/
• Seller US — source/seller/ · https://sell.aliexpress.com/us/
• Seller ZH — source/seller-zh/ · https://sell.aliexpress.com/zh/
• Affiliate — source/affiliate/ · https://portals.aliexpress.com/affiportals/web/portals.htm
• Business — source/inbusiness/ · https://inbusiness.aliexpress.com/
• Buyer protection — source/buyerprotection/ · https://www.aliexpress.com/p/buyerprotection/index.html
• Coin wiki (weak) — source/coin-wiki/
• EU seller agreement (no rate table) — source/eu-seller-agreement/
• Probe log — NOTES.md · research/probe_results.json · research/probe_more.json

Keyboard: ← → Home End. Click dots or buttons. 24 slides. No invented metrics.