Partner Program
ShipStream × AliExpress partner application.
Supporting copy AliExpress's partner-approval reviewers can read end to end. It covers who we are, how deterministic order routing and supplier scoring work, the four Order API uses we will rely on, expected monthly volume, and the technical and legal posture that backs the integration.
Last updated 2026-08-13.
Who we are
A dropship automation layer between the storefront and the supplier.
Two paragraphs to establish what ShipStream is — and where AliExpress fits into the picture.
ShipStream is an AI-driven dropshipping automation platform that turns a Shopify or WooCommerce order into a routed, fulfilled, tracked shipment without a human in the loop.
What merchants sell is reach: the catalogs, the niches, the storefront traffic. What ShipStream sells builders is the layer underneath — score every supplier fairly, route every order deterministically, and keep the merchant's customer happy without a spreadsheet in sight.
How ShipStream works
Order → scoring → placement → tracking, in five deterministic steps.
No manual triage, no spreadsheet loop — every step is durable and auditable.
- 01Order arrives
A paid order comes off the merchant's storefront webhook with line items, ship-to address, and an internal id. No manual triage, no inbox.
- 02Composite scoring engine ranks suppliers
For every candidate that carries the SKU, a four-input composite score (landed price, on-time delivery rate over the trailing 90 days, lead-time variance, product-fit confidence) ranks them. Inputs come from supplier feeds and confirmed-delivered orders — not scraping.
- 03Routing decision commits
The winning supplier is locked onto a RoutingDecision row with the inputs, weights, and resulting rank. The audit trail is durable, not a transient log line.
- 04Order placement executes through the right channel
Depending on the winning supplier's channel (`aliexpress` | `cj` | `seeded`), the order is forwarded through the correct integration. AliExpress orders go through `aliexpress.ds.order.create`, signed with HMAC against the partner-approved app secret.
- 05Tracking flows back through the webhook
Every carrier event lands on `POST /api/webhooks/aliexpress` (HMAC-verified against the raw body), is persisted as a SupplierTrackingEvent row, and updates the supplier order with the latest status, tracking number, carrier, and lastCheckedAt timestamp.
Sourcing strategy
A composite score weights four inputs from primary sources.
AliExpress surfaces as one of several supplier networks (alongside CJ and seeded suppliers). We are asking for an approved channel for the AliExpress branch of the routing tree, not exclusivity.
The supplier's quoted price on this SKU today, converted into a single USD-cents cohort so Apple-to-apple comparisons survive currency noise.
Trailing-90-day delivery hit rate from confirmed delivered orders, not from scraped reviews. Carries the actual carrier-to-door outcome.
How predictable the supplier's ship-to-door window is. A supplier with a fast median but wide variance is not the same as one with a slower median and tight band.
Catalog-match quality between the order's SKU and the supplier's available inventory. Suppresses the cheap-but-wrong match that hurts the merchant two weeks later.
Scoring inputs are pulled from supplier feeds and confirmed delivered orders, not scraped from the public AliExpress storefront. The composite is recomputed on every routing decision so a supplier that gets faster this week moves up the leaderboard the same week.
Planned use of the Order API
Four uses, none outside the approved Order API surface.
Every AliExpress call ShipStream makes is one of these four. Each is mapped to the concrete surface in the Open Platform.
When the composite score elects an AliExpress seller, we place the order through `aliexpress.ds.order.create`. Line items, the ship-to address, and the merchant's internal order id are forwarded as AliExpress's `out_order_id` so the resulting supplier order correlates back to the originating Shopify/WooCommerce order on a single join.
We do not poll AliExpress for tracking on a timer. Every carrier event arrives on `POST /api/webhooks/aliexpress`, where the raw body is HMAC-SHA256'd against the partner app secret and compared to `x-ali-sign` (and `x-signature`) in constant time. Verified events land as SupplierTrackingEvent rows and update the supplier order atomically.
Confirmed delivered orders update the on-time delivery rate that feeds the next round of scoring. The same Order API that places the order is the same Order API that retrains the engine — a closed loop, not a one-shot fetch.
The inbound Order API is the only outbound call we make to AliExpress on hot paths. We retry on transient failures with exponential backoff and respect the published rate-limit window. We never burst, never scrape, and never exceed an approved quota even when traffic spikes.
- Place orders through `aliexpress.ds.order.create` only when the scoring engine elects an AliExpress seller.
- Sign requests with the partner app secret using HMAC-MD5 per the Open Platform rules.
- Verify inbound webhooks with HMAC-SHA256 of the raw body before any persistence step.
- Forward our internal order id as AliExpress's `out_order_id` so an order audit chain survives across systems.
- Honor the published rate-limit window and retry on transient failure with exponential backoff.
- Scrape seller inventory outside what is returned by approved Product API endpoints.
- Resell, mirror, or republish AliExpress platform data to anyone outside the merchant's own storefront.
- Reverse-engineer seller catalogs, pricing, or ranking signals beyond what the Order API exposes.
- Burst against the API quotas to gain an unfair ranking or pricing advantage.
- Use the Order API for any workflow that violates the Open Platform or Dropshipping Center terms.
Expected order volume
Conservative monthly ranges, anchored to actual pricing tiers.
These are best-effort ranges grounded in the published Starter / Growth / Scale tier math — not aspirational claims. The integration is rate-limit-aware; we never burst, and we pace outbound calls across the published window.
| Merchant tier | Monthly order range | Integration posture |
|---|---|---|
| Early ramp (Starter-priced merchants) | Under 50 orders / month | Linear; no burst. The Order API is invoked once per routable order, on a webhook trigger. |
| Steady (Growth-priced merchants) | 200 – 1,500 orders / month | Linear within the published rate-limit window; backoff on transient failure. Conservative best-effort, not a contracted SLA. |
| Scale (Scale-priced merchants) | 1,500 – 5,000 orders / month | Linear with rate-limit awareness across the day; we pace outbound calls rather than burst. Volumes above this band require an aligned quota conversation before they ship. |
Technical & legal
The substrate, the contact, and the signature scheme.
The detail a reviewer can audit without scheduling a call — the platform we run on, the endpoint in use, and the signing scheme both sides rely on.
ShipStream — operates on Polsia infrastructure; legal entity details available on request.
shipstreamer@polsia.app
Polsia (Next.js 16 + React 19, deployed on Blaxel).
/supplier-matching
aliexpress.ds.order.create on gw.api.taobao.com/router/rest
HMAC-SHA256 over the raw request body, hex-encoded, sent in `x-ali-sign` (also accepted in `x-signature`). Constant-time compare.
HMAC-MD5 per Open Platform rules; the `sign` field is excluded from the concatenated input string.
Our internal order id is forwarded as AliExpress's `out_order_id`; the returned `order_id` maps back via the supplierOrders row.
Order, tracking, and scoring data are stored in the ShipStream database for the merchant's operational window. No data is exported to a third party outside the merchant's storefront flow.
Closing
ShipStream is a fitting home for an AliExpress order channel — and we will treat the integration with the same care our merchants treat their customers.
The full company story lives on /about and the pricing math on /pricing; both back the volume table above.
Apply for partnership
Three fields and we will get back to you.
The merchant pitch above is the canonical read for partner reviewers. If you would like a hands-on evaluation from ShipStream directly, send the basics of your storefront below — your submission lands in the same review queue and we email you within a few business days.
We use these details to evaluate the partnership. They are not published and are retained only for the partner-approval window.