So, ive probably saved hundred over the past few years using a combination of buying from China, and buying with provided coupons, but a friend and i have hit a little cluster of bad luck with lights arriving DOA.
Take into account the time to run down the usual suspects (Banggood, Gearbest) with the half dozen emails with arbitrary questions designed to test your resolve, do you think that paying the sometimes double price in your native country and supporting local businesses for more expensive units might be something to consider?
Not that Australia really has to many options.
so far my Klarus XT12GT dead after small amount of use dead, cost me $80 from the $140 Australian dollars from a Aus online, but no resolution from banggood, or klarus headquarters.
Nitecore ec11, had issues from the star, cost me $50, would have been $100 local.
various cheaper light over the years
and today. not gonna hold by breath from banggood.
sorry to hear. so far I never had any DOAs on light orders. out of 450+ orders I only had 1 item not work/break immediately (that was a Flexible Hex Screwdriver Extension Bar from Gearbest).
Maby thats how i should look at it, if im saving 50% buying from OS, and having 20% issues, im still 30% ahead, damb annoying tho, takes almost 2 months to arrive in Western Australia, only to have dead lights.
0% chance of finding spare parts and batteries locally too.
I understand where your coming from. I try to purchase most of my stuff in my home land but those deals across the pond are to good to let go.
Years ago over time I had purchased probably a $1000.00 worth of flashlight stuff over at Dealextreme. Decided I wanted to build me a high powered laser turning the host out of aluminum myself. Purchased all the necessary parts from DX and started turning my host out on my lathe. I got it finished and my parts showed up. The laser module was broke. Not Dx fault as the package was tore. Had to take pics and your usually run around email crap. They decided to send me a new one if I sent back the broke one. Made a trip to the post office and paid for postage. Waited my usual 2 weeks and bam its in my mailbox. Tested it with a li-ion and bam DOA! :rage:
The usual back and forth crap again with pics. This time I told them they could just refund my money and I wasn’t sending this DOA module back (not worth the hassle). Gave them the option of either a refund or I would not be recommend them for anything again nor would I be making anymore purchases. They choose to keep asking for me to return the DOA laser module. That’s been 5 years ago or so and I have kept my promise to them. I lost out on the whole project, I never did buy another module to fit my host, Its still laying around in my basement.
Anyway if I had just bought A laser module from my home land, it would have been of better quality and actually have worked. The money I lost to the deal to DX and you factor in the time spent dealing with them, I could have bought a better quality one in the USA, shipped to my house in days, and finished my project with some coins left over. A deal is not always a deal. I take into account this experience a had with DX ever time I buy over seas. About half the time I just buy from my home land.
Out of (far too many!) orders, I’ve had exactly one DOA. That was a few years ago, and it was a very cheap Garbagefire WF-501B of negligible value. The package reeked of cooked electronics when I opened it. It simply became a cheap P60 host, it’s still kicking around here somewhere. I didn’t bother to complain to the seller.
Recently the UT-01 issue brought me a few challenges, but I resolved the problems myself and now feel very fortunate to have those delightful little lights.
Otherwise, my Chinese buying experiences have all been satisfactory.
You have access to batteries, are their no battery recycling bins in Australia? You break them down harvest the cells and test them with analyzing charger. In the last year I’ve found 4 brand new tool packs that were displays. When they swap the tools out on the display shelf they have to recycle the batteries. Gotten 20 brand new Samsung 20rs that way. The 1.5 packs usually have Samsung 13q or some LG cells. All high discharge I use them for vaping and flashlights. Laptop packs in the bins are hit and miss sometimes you get lucky one or two cells short out and the others are fine. Last two packs thus month had 2600mah cells and tested at 2450. One pack had 9 cells the other had 6. Only 2 were dead. I’ve found brand new laptop packs before in the bins don’t know who put them there but it happens. And another option is to order replacement laptop batteries off eBay or Amazon for oz and harvest the packs if you wanted them 100% new
