I wanted to share my experience (although you can find many reviews of AliExpress online). Because in terms of reviews, there can't be too many. Well, where can I start. - The price : First and foremost, if you are buying from China you are doing so to save money. And you probably will. The items are much cheaper that anything you might find in a store (sometimes you even find the exactly same things but with a 200% increase in the price tag ). - Worldwide shipping : Most sellers will send their product to anywhere in the world for free (free shipping) or for a small fee. - Quality : This is where things start to get bad. You can't get top dollar quality if you are only spending a few cents. So buy things like cheap jewelry but I wouldn't risk to buy diamonds there (you'll probably end up with a fake). Apply that sentence and turn it to everything else like cheap clothes versus real leather, or funny gadgets versus an expensive laptop. You aren't sure of the quality of the product. I've bought jewelry and clothes for a few cents that turned out to be really pretty (it looks a lot more expensive imo), but the clothing items that cost the most weren't the best in terms of quality. - Shipping time: I've waited for almost 2 months for a bracelet to arrive, but I've received things in 1 week and a half.
I've used AliExpress before and it did indeed take quite some time for my items to get here. But then again, the shipping is really cheap, so I guess it's okay. This is where I buy my beads and charms for wholesale.
I've had AliExpress on my radar for a while now. I know of a whole lot more horror stories than positive ones. From what I gather, there are a lot of scams on the site, but you can get some really good quality stuff via reputable sellers, too. However, it's really about finding the good ones, which can be like finding a needle in a haystack. For that reason, I won't be shopping there any time soon, unless a good friend recommended a seller they'd used and were happy with the service and quality of the products they'd purchased . It's just not worth the hassle to me.
Thanks for your review, I've been very curious to try it out for myself. I'm just worried the seller I'll get might not be very trustworthy or something like that but after seeing a few reviews that were positive online I'm more willing to risk a few dollars just to test it out. I'm also mostly worried about the taxes I'd have to pay for when the products arrive here since I'm not really that experienced with buying items internationally.
After all the bad reports and complaints I've heard about Aliexpress over the years - I'm really glad to hear that you've had good experiences with buying goods from them sissibombix - especially as the majority of complaints are not only about the length of time it takes for items to arrive - but also those of receiving broken and defective goods or not even receiving the goods at all and then - more importantly - not being able to get the money back when that happened However - good as your experience has been so far - even though Aliexpress may offer cheap prices and free shipping - its one site that I shall continue to stay away from - as I can't say that I feel at all confident about using a site - where the bad reports still far outweigh the good ones.
I don't know that it is worth the risk. I would not like to wait that long for a product to arrive either. I bought a top from a Chinese vendor on Amazon one time and the ship by date kept changing, and changing...until I finally cancelled the order. Unless it was something I really didn't care about having that much I wouldn't use them.
I know many people that buy from Aliexpress and I'm always tempted to get stuff from there. However I get really scared due to the time period to receive the products. 2 months is such a long time and the longest it takes to arrive, the bigger the changes your shipping will get lost.
There was only one time where I didn't receive the goods, but I asked for my money back and was fully reimbursed. I guess you just have to be careful and choose the stores that are trustful and have lots of positive reviews.
I've only ordered from Alibaba a handful of times over the past few years, and out of all the orders, only one of them was a genuine item and all others were low quality knock offs. In fact one of the orders never shipped to me in it's entirety and the seller gave me the runaround for months about shipping the rest or giving me a refund until I finally just gave up with her. If you're buying the items for yourself, obviously buyer beware - there are plenty of people sharing their experiences ordering from there. But if you are trying to buy products in bulk from there with the hopes of selling them on sites like Amazon at a profit, I would caution against ordering a large amount at once, because the odds are what you will get will be counterfeit. You should at least make sure you find a reputable seller on there first before placing large orders.
