First Experience With Aliexpress. Kind Of Bewildering!

I know Aliexpress is a collection of many different dealers but man, the prices are all over the ballpark for the same item. I was looking for a particular item and the prices ranged from $17.00 to over $40.00 from different dealers!

I know member downlinx started a thread listing trusted dealers and I commend him for that. I went to his thread and checked if the dealer that had the best price on what I wanted was on his list but they weren’t.

I took a crapshoot and went ahead and ordered it. The dealer had the best price and as a big bonus they were one of the few that accepted Paypal.

It seems like all the Chinese dealers on Aliexpress list shipping times at 20 to 60 days, (60 days ouch!). I would not order from one of Aliexpress’ dealers if they did not accept Paypal unless they were on downlinx’s trusted list because at least with Paypal you can put in a claim if you haven’t received the item within 45 days.

I have ordered from Chinese dealers at least a dozen times and the longest time from ordering to receiving an order was 41 days so Paypal’s timeline of 45 days seems right in the ballpark.

So if this dealer comes through, I’ll make sure they’ll get a mention in downlinx’ thread.

My first experience was the 11.11 sale and it didn’t go well.

So far it looks for me like that:
Aliexpress offers no Paypal payments. If a dealer goes with Paypal then the transaction will proceed outside of Aliexpress because the ordering process can’t be completed w/o using one of the official payment options. I bought 3 items so far from different dealers and payed by Paypal (one of them was Simon/Convoy). All went well although it was not the way Aliexpress wants to be used. The communication with the sellers was all the system had to do and not the shopping itself. And the communication was very short in all cases, they send me their Paypal adress and then a tracking number. Aliexpress warns both parties not to use other then offical payments - they get no share if you bypass their system. This “Escrow” payment system claims to be safe and includes some form of buyer protection. If you use it “money back if not satisfied or item not received” should be no problem?! My concerns were actually only to give my credit card data to Escrow…
I’m considering to do it the official way soon, to be able to buy something without first trying a PayPal payment. Maybe others can share their experiences with Escrow and credit cards to help me loose my doubts. Will the Aliexpress buyer protection work as well as eBay/Paypal? The proportion of unreliable sellers seems to be much higher as we know from eBay…

I generate a new E-card loaded with the amount of money needed everytime I buy something online. I do that even when I am paying via Paypal cause I dont want to give them my credit card data either. Better safe than sorry :slight_smile:

I’ve been ordering a lot from Aliexpress, sometimes they don’t deliver but I have no problem getting the money back.
the seller don’t get their money until the customer get the goods and satisfy with it.
Although I never have anything that need returning, usually the seller compromise

Interesting! I’m a little confused though because the day after I paid the dealer through Paypal, I received an e-mail from Aliexpress itself, (not the dealer), telling me my order had shipped. It also said my order was protected through Aliexpress’ exclusive buyer protection plan.

So if I paid through Paypal and Aliexpress frowns upon it’s dealers using Paypal, and if you do, the order is then outside of Aliexpress and not covered by their buyer protection plan, why would Aliexpress send me that e-mail stating my order IS protected by them? It doesn’t make any sense according to your post.

Oh well, all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and just hope the order is received in a timely manner.

That’s because the seller need to notify Aliexpress that the goods is shipped already and Aliexpress can start “the timer” of protection windows and when you received the goods you will get another e-mail from aliexpress to confirm you received the goods in satisfactory condition or you can dispute it…
And if you like what you receive then the payment will be release to the seller. I usually paid through with Credit card

During my last order (a LiitoKala Lii-260 - seller sent me his Paypal adress through the communication channel) there was no way to finish the order process because I could not choose Paypal as source of payment. Some weeks later Aliexpress cancelled the order because “officially” this order was unpaid. It would be new to me and very welcome if this procedure has been changed.

WOW, I’m impressed! Received my order in 16 days! Maybe I got lucky but received next day shipping after ordering it with a shipping confirmation and a day over 2 weeks to receive it? It doesn’t get any better! :bigsmile:

I placed my first order with some people’s favorite seller here, Banggood recently. After a few days, I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to find out if it had been shipped and it was but no e-mail confirming it was shipped and no tracking number. What’s up with that?

My item from Aliexpress was nicely packed and the item is as advertised. Again, I was able to use Paypal and it was also protected by the Aliexpress’ guarantee. I’m very impressed all the way around with my first Aliexpress experience!

I have used Aliexpress about 5 times, first time took over 60 days to get item but it finally arrived. The last three took 17, 17, and 20 days. On average a lot quicker than most Chinese flashlight dealers.

I placed my first order through the AliExpress page yesterday. The purchase part was simple.

Now it gets interesting. I hope this transaction goes without a hitch, and it gets here faster than the claimed "reasonable" amount of time.

Dear FlashAholic,


This is an e-mail notification to inform you that your order .xxxxxxxxxxxx has been shipped by the seller on 2017.03.13 00:09. You are advised to contact the seller for shipment information.

The Purchase Protection of order .xxxxxxxxxxxx will end on 2017.04.07 00:09.

1. If you are satisfied with the items you have received, then you can click 'Confirm Order Received'.
2. If you have not received your items, or you are not satisfied with your items, you can click ’Open Dispute.’ before Purchase Protection deadline or Purchase will be automatically finalized.
3. If you would like to extend your Purchase Protection you can contact the seller directly or click 'Request To Extend Purchase Protection' to ask for the seller's approval.

Please note if there is no action taken within Purchase Protection, your order will be automatically finalized with payment released.

Sincerely,
AliExpress.com
2017.03.13 00:09

Apparently the Aliexpress announcement about accepting PayPal late last year was not made very clear. After a bit of research I’ve found out that it was restricted to 3 days around Cyber Monday and only for purchasing from Aliexpress sellers who were expected to sell large amounts of stock. :frowning:

I have had around 30 orders with AliExpress and it`s mostly been smooth sailing, and i have an "JETBeam E01R" on order at the moment.

Sellers don't get paid till you have received your order and are happy.

1: My first order went missing, I got a refund, and it was easy.

2: I bought some usb charging wall sockets, they were faulty, I got a refund and did not have to return the faulty items.

free shipping can take a while, I have had orders within 10 days and as long as 30 days, I was going to make a claim and then it turned up.

I wish they took Paypal i dont like giving my DD card details.

But overall i have been quite happy with AE.

John.

heheh just checked, total of 589 orders, from a few cents to €355,- per order.
20 in transit
A few went missing, got refunded or reshipped
A few were false advertised, got refunded
A few didn’t work, got refunded or reshipped

I started shopping at AliExpress last May. No complaints so far. Bad quality or no-show stuff get refunded by talking to seller or escalating to Ali. For late delivery I just ask the seller to extend protection time because it’s likely they ship with the cheapest option for free-shipping. Twice or 3 times it went beyond 2 months, but I still got the item in the end.

11.11 sales were fantastic thanks to an abundance of $5 off $25 order coupons, but you do need to keep an eye on the price a month before 11.11, the price discount is not as big as the %. Still, discount was pretty real (something with original price $70, normally sells at $37, drops to $35 on 11.11, minus another $5 discount).

Hoping the March anniversary would be as good!

I just had my first full refund (not received, but refund processing with AE).
Seller advertised rosin core solder as “50g” in title but shipped 30g. both weights mentioned in description as well.

AE support team intervened in dispute process and “forced” seller to refund or refunded on behalf of seller.

went smoothly so far, I just don’t know where/when the money will end up.