What is the least shitty shit store? Never had a good experience with any of the shops such as, wish, aliexpress and the rest of em. But which one of them is considered the better one, or more likely to actually arrive with the correct item? Is etsy considered better than the rest? Are there any of these “low priced” stores that actually have some sort of guarantee to deliver what is purchased? Let me know your experiences and tips!
Aliexpress is basically amazon with longer shipping time in my experience. Each seller has their own store rating similar to ebay so as long as you exercise judgement ie. Dont buy from brand new stores with 0 feedback or things that are too good to be true and avoid certain things like batteries and storage media unless you know exactly what you’re buying you should be fine. I’ve bought a lot of stuff from there (mostly electronics) and haven’t had bad experiences
I’ve ordered everything from audio stuff to knives on aliexpress. Find a good reputable seller and you’re good. That’s pretty much the same for any platform like Ebay. Amazon has increasingly gotten worse. Now it’s either really big name brands or cheap chinese clones
Edit: check out Louis Rossman’s video buying electrical equipment from Amazon. If you buy the top rated results, you’ll probably fuck yourself over. One of the top products is a fuse that won’t blow like it’s supposed to, if you put this in your system, it will be catastrophic and life threatening.
Aliexpress surpassed amazon, change my mind
Amazon is only slightly better than AliExpress here, lots of bullshit recently, but at least they are faster. But if you look closer you often find the same stuff from AliExpress for more than three times the price there. So far I only had one or two issues with AliExpress, but as a rule I tend to not buy anything that goes on my body or food, has batteries in it or is worth more than 20 (very rarely more than 100 due to my countries custom rules) bucks with the exception of microelectronic components.
Etsy has been good for me if you look for actual local sellers or digital products - Only once has an issue there,that was clearly dropshipped. But most of the stuff I buy there is a digital download from some obscure graphic artist anyway. Nowadays I more and more tend to use Fiverr for that and get properly made to order graphics anyway.
AliExpress screwed me recently. A vendor sent me the wrong items. I mean, they weren’t even the same kind of items. I disputed it with the vendor and they said they’d sent the right things, so there.
I opened a case with AliExpress. They asked me for a whole lot of information, some of which didn’t make any sense, along with some pictures. I sent them everything. They sided with the vendor.
Fortunately, I had paid with PayPal. PayPal looked over the information from both sides and promptly refunded my money.
I don’t expect to be doing business with AliExpress again any time soon.
I have ordered so many things over the past 8 years on AliExpress and the only issues I had was shops not delivering the right amount. Disputing that was never an issue. I wonder why so many other people have serious issues with it.
I bet they’re waiting too long to open the dispute.
How did you pay with PayPal on AliExpress? They haven’t supported it in years?
I dont know what you are talking about, I use it all the time (although I am in Germany)
It’s the default payment option for me.
AliExpress has never failed me. I bought some Nintendo DS reproduction carts and they work flawlessly.
Ali isnt even a shit site.
The sellers are what you have to look out for.
It’s basically Amazon but more obvious amd with less protection for the buyer.
I bought some stuff from Ali express. Mixed results. Bought a video adapter for my wife’s car so an aftermarket radio could use the factory backup cam. Worked great. Bought a ‘billet’ camshaft for a Suzuki. Was obvious it was cast, because they didn’t bother to align the two halves together they were off 1/8". Left a bad review about it, they deleted the entire part listing, then re-posted it to hide my review, then blocked me as a customer.
Support from AliExpress is quite good. They don’t take any bullshit from their sellers and often refund at least a partial amount of your purchase.
I think I got 30% back once because the wrong color was delivered.
The biggest issue is that they tend to fake delivery time by switching around old tracking numbers. If you want something quick, I really wouldn’t recommend it.
My success rate with Aliexpress has been only slightly worse than with Amazon. I’ve gotten screwed over on a few lost shipments, but never had a problem getting a refund. Shipping times are much longer though, considering where it’s coming from. But often I’ll get items much faster than their estimates, so it’s not completely terrible. And you can always look at the shipping options to see if a few dollars more can get it to you faster or with a better carrier. As for quality, I find it’s not much different from Amazon since half the stuff there was made in China and just sits in a warehouse in North America.
Don’t bother with Wish or Temu, which is just Wish with warehouses in North America.
The best part is that it’s typically not their fault. The actual transit time to the US is only like 1-3 days.
Then it sits in customs for a week.
Im not a regular shopper or anything, but I’ve had good experience with AliExpress so far.
AliExpress is a rock solid platform. You just need to know official Chinese brand accounts there. It’s just like Amazon - you order random shit there, you get shit in the mailbox. You order from a reputable branded shop there and you get a high quality item.
Is there a newbie guide to reputable brands on AE?
Find an official Chinese brand web site and they usually have a link to their shop on Ali. For example, you want to buy some eSun filament for your 3D printer. You go to their web site https://www.esun3d.com/pla-pro-product/ and BOOM! Ali link!
Sometimes they don’t have a link on their web site, so you search for a brand on Ali directly and search for a gold rated shop with loads of followers and a properly maintained product catalogue. Here’s an example https://m.aliexpress.com/store/5793617?trace=store2mobilestoreNew&spm=a2g0n.order_detail.order_detail_item.1.24a0f19cuwE2kw
