I’m fairly new to the ordering from China option. Had a few lights and accessories that I wanted and I thought it was a good opportunity to give this “direct from China” option a try. I placed 6 orders with 6 different vendors. All orders were small in physical size and value (nothing physically larger than Manker Timeback nor more than $120.00). According to web description all items were “in stock” at time of order placement. All shipping requests were just normal default at order entry - I was able to select “tracking” for all orders. According to 17Tracking most orders shipped via China EMS (see exception noted below). Below are the results:
Ordered——Shipped——Recv’d——Vendor—-# of days from order placement until delivered
11/5/2015——–11/9/2015———11/30/2015—— A——————— 25
11/5/2015——–11/7/2015———11/16/2015—— B——————— 11
11/8/2015——–11/9/2015———11/21/2015—— C ——————— 13
11/9/2015——–11/12/2015——–11/21/2015—— D ——————— 12 (This order went via Australian Post according to 17track)
11/9/2015——–11/10/2015——–11/23/2015—— E ——————— 14
11/14/2015——11/16/2015——–11/27/2015—— F——————— 13
I guess the moral of my story is that if you can wait between 10-25 days, you can indeed save some money (in some cases a good amount) by order direct from country of origin. I see lots of threads with some fairly significant horror stories about shipping related issues/vendor problems but my experience wasn’t all that bad. Based on the historical data I see documented various places on this site I’m fairly certain my luck will run out at some point. YMMV.
, I can promise I have absolutely no affiliation with the International Trade Dept (lol) and am normally a “buy American” consumer (when possible). I’m one of those that think buying products manufactured in your home country is an important part of economic stability for your home country. Over the past few years I had a couple experiences ordering direct from China. All experiences previous were via fleabay for an item that cost me less than $5 (which at the time kind of blew my mind - I bought a couple lighted loupers). It was an item I needed for a project and the price was ridiculous compared to US made (or even China made but US stock). It took them a long time to be delivered - more than a month as I recall - and I wasn’t expecting much in terms of quality. Granted they’re not top of the line but they worked for my project and I still use them today. As I’m fairly new to modern flashlight technology (and finding this forum) I saw a number of discussions about buying direct from China dealers. Like with many things I do, I figured I’d test the waters hard and fast. I ordered several lights to see what my options were and how quality compared. Along with the 4 lights (and a couple lanyards) I ordered above I also bought 3 US manufactured lights (that I wouldn’t describe as “budget”). The purpose of my thread was simply to share my recent delivery experience with a few budget dealers. After I had placed the orders with vendors direct in China I started to have some serious concerns about my chances of all orders actually arriving before the end of 2015 (because of loads of comments here about order issues others were having). I have no doubt ordering direct is a gamble, just thought it was kinda interesting all mine made their way to my doorstep in what I would consider a reasonable amount of time. Just thought my experience was worth sharing. As an addendum to my original post - I only bought direct from China vendors that accepted paypal. At no time would I consider ordering via credit card direct. As always, YMMV.