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.
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.
Yes, that has happened to me several times, the last time was an Astrolux K01 cu a few months ago for around $35. I was very disappointed.
I won’t mention Gearbest here as I’ve had several bad experiences and I’ll end up writing 2 pages, I’ll just say never again.
Fasttech has been pretty OK for me, only a couple of problems that got worked out.
A few weeks ago a Banggood CS person accused me of lying and scamming them. When I strenuously objected someone else stepped in and found it was their mistake. To apologise they gave me some of those wonderful points. I get tired of the “smoke and mirrors” and the cleverness of BG, and also the shipping delays. That being said, I now use BG almost exclusively as they have by far the fastest shipping to this country which has a horrible postal system. 14-20 days delivered to my door. Amazing, the first time it happened I was stunned. They are partnered with a local courier company so they bypass the local postal system.
I’ve been buying online for 20 years and from China for about 8 years. In some things I have very little choice but to buy online as many things are simply not available where I live. I’ve had some problems but try not to get into the hothead mode (I really try!) as it usually doesn’t do any good. I remind myself that to them I’m just another customer among millions that they will forget about within seconds while I can have a burning resentment against them for years.
in my case they just stole 65$ of affiliate reward. never sent these money to me, had to to it in 11.2020
there is the same story from another BLF member.
i wrote to GB several time from different adresses. they replied, but never wrote me back after i describe sitiution
GB got as much worse as BG got as much better. great choice of flashlights.
in NO situation i`ll recommend gearbest. ALL the managers who worked there for years left company. heard the same even about GB boss.
damn, even store rep didnt log in at BLF for months...
one of my subscribers told story that when his Skilhunt H03 broke soon after purchase, he tried to solve it wia warranty, but his orderd just disappeared from order list
no issues with banggood to sweden, usually 10-12 days and package is in my hands from china…- not bad… for me they have very good logistic shipping considering its corona times.
gearbest i havent bought in forever… seems they are crap now .
I bought an LT1 from AliExpress last month. I was concerned at how long it would take to arrive with Brexit etc, but it came in 2.5 weeks, which surprised me.
I’ve not bought anything from Banggood for a while but they always were fairly quick.
Ordered an Astrolux EA01 on March 21st and the tracking number said its out for delivery today, 3/29/2021. If so this will be the fastest I have ever recieved a flashlight from Banggood in the last 3 years. I also ordered a set of Vapcell 26350’s from AliExpress on 3/22 but not expecting them till late next month.
Amazon & eBay seem to be heading the same way as Aliexpress & the other Chinese dealers.
Using the same Tricks of the Trade.
I don’t buy from Bangood anymore as their delivery costs have rocketed up.
Buyer Beware for ALL online shopping.
I’ve had a few orders from Banggood this year to the UK. Can’t complain, items all took between 7 and 12 days to arrive, as long as it is showing in stock then their logistics seem good for CN to UK. Have to watch out for items that now have £9 shipping charges since brexit, most lumintop/convoy/sofirn seem to have this. However on a flash deal I managed to get a Lumintop B01 for £19 shipped as the ‘EU priority line’ shipping was free for 24hrs as part of the deal.
I steer clear of gearbest, the orders I’ve had with them in the past took 6 months to arrive. Couldn’t reach anyone for support, and not even any automated communication other than the invoice. Not worth the hassle.
Rarely have a problem with BG, won’t use GB since the data leak. FT, KD etc are all fine by me too.
I see a few of people saying they won’t use one or either because of waiting for items in post, not really the sellers fault - express delivery is always available at a higher cost and if you don’t want to pay that fee, then as we all know very well it can take from a week to 2 months (lottery basically) - it’s just the way it is. If you want cheap or free postage, don’t expect stellar shipping times, just be happy if it arrives quickly. Also items going missing in the post is not the sellers fault either (so long as they make it good, refund etc afterwards).
Obviously lying about stock, false tracking numbers etc are not on nor is 2 weeks or more delay in shipping, but if it does track and the post loses it or takes a silly amount of time delivering it or even it being stuck in customs, well a bit harsh blaming the seller for those delays.
I think people need to take a good look at what is ‘promised’ which is basically nothing - you get it when you get it, anyone who half regularly shops in China knows that, why people expect more I have no idea.
Complaints wise, well you have to add it all up - yes, we are probably mostly genuine on here, if something is wrong/missing it’s probably the truth….BUT there are a whole load out there who are not genuine and try regularly to fleece the seller! sifting the good from the bad must be quite the task for sellers, and I can see sadly why the genuine on occasion get treated like liars - how are they supposed to know? not excusing it, just being realistic.
Generally I give the item at most 2 months, if it hasn’t arrived by then (which is very rare in the last year or so) I go straight to Paypal, no arguing, mass emails etc that get nowhere.
Their roots go back to the original 409shop that put online millions of cheap Chinese electronics.
If you choose not to patronize any of them, you are locking yourself out of significant technology.
Don’t forget, its the Chinese that lead in flashlight technology.
If an American company were to build something like the FT02S, they would charge $400 and it would be available a year after Astrolux produced it for $40.
Exactly, ppl complain so much on chinese flashlights etc but dont realize if they were made in usa they would cost so much more… better be grateful we can all buy cheap stuff for less money.
It is not even just flashlights. All those thousands and thousands of Chinese engineers, designers, product managers, salespeople and manufacturing lines produce millions of different products that are reliable, affordable, even cutting edge and available.
We would be in a bad place without China.
Still, I prefer Aliexpress and Fasttech over other shops now. Kaidomain is also good.
