I have a surprise for you if you think AliExpress sellers are not middlemen. Even the local Taobao, JD, and Pinduoduo are mostly professional sellers. D2C is on the rise, but still relatively rare in China. Ecommerce is extremely competitive and specialized here.
You go to a company saying "we sell your wares on Amazon.com," and sign a contract. Your goods come in from one end, cash comes out on another.
Usually that's all
If the guy sucks, you go to another one.
You can see a company called Ugreen, which ended up with multiple "official stores" on online marketplaces this way.
Contract enforcement in China is of course non-existent. It's good if you manage to get a prominent handle for your own brand, in worst case somebody else can do it for you!
I know a man who regularly have to smack pretender "official stores" of his brand few times a year.
This also works the other way around, somebody with a vicious lawyer can coerce Alibaba, or JD into handing your (likely well doing) online store to them on a claim that you don't own your own brand name.
I think I bought this Switch case from AliExpress that was listed on Amazon for like $18 but on AliExpress it was like $6. And if you went on a wholesale site, the same case was there for under $3 if you bought like 500+ units.
