I haven't bought many flashlights in recent years...
Are Banggood and Gearbest currently worse than your average Chinese web shops?
Not light related, but last night I checked on (BG, GB and Aliexpress) looking for some deals on Xiaomi rechargeable screwdrivers/drill combination and guess what, the one that had the best list prices AND still free-shipping was FT (Fasttech) on the same exact models in their shops.
Ordered a few items from BG on 03/04/21. Arrived at FedEx today 03/12/21 with an estimated delivery date of 03/14/21. Ten days from CN > LA is outstanding considering that a few optic covers from GA > LA via USPS is going on day six 
. BG has a quirky coupon system, but their CS has been excellent with high-quality communication via chat in English. Ali(Express/Baba) remain our preferred portals, but BG is a viable alternative in our experience.
That certainly hast been my experience with Banggood. Very slow response and unable to answer my questions.
I have turned away from Gearbest, probably for good.
- worthless GB points that you collect but that can somehow never be redeemed
- customer service replies that require you to log on
- many items I ordered where never shipped or returned at Chinese airports again
- requesting support on these orders and eventually getting a refund was a PITA
- GB did NOT fully refund some of these orders (shipping fee was deducted), which I consider as thievery
- GB points given to me from their customer service as an apology for waiting too long on some items were never actually credited to my account. If I asked them for a reason they simply lied to me and said they never promised any points.
- last but not least...nothing to buy that you can‘t get cheaper anywhere else
Banggood has improved their customer service (better availability and less translation issues) but they somehow stopped using proper transport protection when shipping items. Everything I recently ordered arrived in a razor-thin plastic bag only. No bubble wrap or foam wrap anymore. Fortunately, nothing was broken so far but if you like to keep the retail box of your items it can be a problem.
i abandoned both for a year now and I was on VIP4
Never look back.
Banggood is only good for astrolux deals and anything else is available on aliexpress for a lower price. Gearbest never shipped my giveaway prize from last year and they haven’t had any good deals I’m aware of.
Ordered 2 lights, 1st week of January:
- Mastercard that works on Ali and everywhere else was rejected
- declared shipment after 5 days, shortly postponed by 1 week
- postponed by another week, then each single day for 2 weeks in a row expected shipment was delayed by 1 day
- during Chines new year shipment date travelled in time to mid January
- then was set to beginning of March
- and shortly after that to 3rd week of March.
I’ve talked with support 2 or 3 times - copy-pasted answers from template, not clarifying situation a bit. I’ve cancelled my order and got money back, but lost welcome coupons, discount etc. Few days later lights were available for the price bigger than in manufacturers online store.
Now same lights have nice Askmeforcodetobeignored (banggood) prom by guy on this forum, so I can say nothing but best about banggood.
My two purchases at once - first and last one.
TL;DR - Shipment of my order was postponed multiple times, reaching 2,5 months delay from declared date; goods were never shipped, as I finally cancelled the order.
Pretty much everything can be bought on AliEx for cheaper - I’ve found. Only thing worth buying from BG are, as others have mentioned, their house brand Astrolux lights. Sometimes you get pretty good coupon codes which are BG-exclusive. Other than that I steer clear from them. Communication, service, shipping etc is slow and unresponsive.
From the UK perspective, since Brexit:
BG. Before, the shipping cost was free or minimal. But now, have to be wary of say 9.60 GBP shipping on purchases ranging from a ‘cheap’ Convoy S2+ to a 100GBP + Astrolux. Can still be some good savings on their electronic flyers, but need to compare prices to check. Have had the very best of experiences with customer service to the worst…
AliEx. Has now started adding VAT, although when I made purchases a few weeks ago, they had not got a GB Vat registration number. Have dealt with a couple of complaints very quickly and in my favour, with quick refund.
Kaidomain. Painfully slow processing time. OK, so I allowed 2 weeks for the Chinese holidays, but it was a further two weeks before items shipped. However, the package did arrive within a week with air-mail.
GBest. Again, can be some savings on their Offers. Some Convoy deals can even be a bit cheaper than Simon’s store. Shipping still free or minimal.
Last thing I ordered from BG took 25 days in May 2020 from PP to doorbell. Nothing to complain. Sometimes I look at their site, but the prices are not appealing. Same for shipping fee, insurance, etc.
Because GB refused to honor their GAW, I never returned there since Dec. 2019. Last actual buy was in Dec. 2018. Not that I have not tried. But the A-brand lights with reasonable prices were all “out of stock”, and the funny-brand lights all had A-brand prices.
Since 2020 I bought from AE, Drop, eBAY, FT, HKE, KD, Lumintop, Manker, and Sofirn. All went fine.
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Several of us are in the ‘No Delivery Boat’ this year with Neal, we feel your dissapointment. :weary:
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Strange these stores are being so unprofessional.
They want sales and use us for advertising purposes but do not care about the negative picture they make of themselves. 
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I had several negative experiences with Banggood, ordered items that were mysteriously canceled and refunded. Product was then “deleted” on their system. Refund took days. I can’t use my affiliate points in a way that makes sense. Please don’t use BGpay, it is disastrous.
Gearbest was a little bit better, bought a flashlight and it arrived.
Fasttech is still my favorite, even though they don’t ship knives to my destinations.
Haven’t purchased anything from BG or GB in three years because of problems. GB once shipped a flashlight that took a couple months to arrive. I was able to track the package, and it toured the world. After brief stops in Sweden, and a few countries in Europe, it made a tour of the middle east. Finally arrived in the US, but was shipped back to Europe for another tour including Sweden before finally arriving in the US for a second and final time. After it arrived, I inspected the shipping label and the address was correct. The last time with GB, I ordered a common folding Ganzo knife. After about a month, they finally sent me an email saying it was illegal to ship to the US, and they refunded my money. Same day, I ordered the exact same knife from Fasttech, and it arrived within two weeks.
Banggood would never seem to honor sales, so I quit buying from them. Never had a problem with Fasttech.
If there were truth in advertising laws in China they would be called Gearworst
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That is a special light to get a World Tour. :sunglasses:
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I got back into online purchasing in 2017 to buy a mobile phone from Gearbest. My previous experience was with DealExtreme from around 2007-2011.
Gearbest was doing good deals in 2017 and had a good reputation but these days they seen to be a shadow of their former selves. I bought a TIP SE from them a few months ago but they took 3 weeks to ship the order when the claimed shipping time was much sooner.
Banggood easily usurped Gearbest’s position. A Sand FW3A kicked off a round of torch purchases for me. I felt okay about buying from them. Shipping costs to Australia have increased which is unfortunate.
I have tried Fasttech and liked that they didn’t charge the Australian Federal government’s 10% GST (which the other large sites including AliExpress do). I trust them but they don’t seem to have much worth purchasing on there. A cool bonus is they photograph the package as proof that it’s been sent.
I’ve recently made a bunch of orders via AliExpress and wonder if that’s the “new Banggood” for the global torch enthusiast community. I ordered an S21B from the Convoy site which arrived no problems.
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I ordered my first big light MT35 PLUS from AliExpress, took 3 months to arrive, 3yrs ago. Just make sure the item you want is in STOCK.
Or you may be waiting a long time for it. 
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CNCman nailed it. Make sure it is in stock before ordering. You will save your self a ton of potential headaches.
I say this every time someone brings up BG/GB/Ali discussions. A simple search will tell you all you need to know. Some good experiences and some bad. It will also tell you that patience is a must and, if you have to communicate with them, super simple sentences with no complaining about how you feel about something, is a must. 5000 word messages probably won’t be read.
People will say BG/GB/Ali is doing better when they have a good experience and, will complain they are doing worse when they have a bad experience.
Purchase at your own risk. We are buying from China, not Amazon or Ebay. Lower your expectations and increase your patience. It will all work out one way or the other. This is why we all have PayPal/Credit Card protections.
the inventory management system on these shops isn’t accurate enough. Also, the items don’t show the correct countries they can ship to. happened to me at Banggood several times that products were sold, then canceled and then refunded. Weeks later the items is “no longer available for country x”.
they will never tell you to your face what or why, the email is very generic.