As time goes by the whole madness of getting those bargains from China gets even more crazy! prices go up and down like yoyo’s, there are constant sales for any reason they can think up, then we have the voucher codes and games run by the shops, who in turn give you points to ‘gamble’ etc on other games for more vouchers……. oh man I get confused by it all!
How far do you go for that bargain? what are your thoughts on such frequent price changes? are they fooling anyone with this xxxx% off today only crap?
I saw a product on bg the other day which required you to put down a deposit of a $1 I think guaranteeing you the ‘best’ price, which funnily enough I’d bought the previous week for $1 less with a voucher code than their imaginary ‘best price’ guaranteed in this deal!!.
I know we kinda have it in the UK, but nowhere near to such an extent as China does.
Does this type of shopping encourage you to shop more or less - or does it make no difference for you?
Ugh, I got quite an experience with that during the last 11.11 AliExpress sale.
They had a plant-watering minigame to get coupons, so I spent several days doing tasks, collecting “water”, and growing the plant until finally…it gave me a $2 off $15 coupon, which really wasn’t that good relative to other coupon available.
I’ve taken a step back from following their sales so closely, since I really ought to be considering the time investment needed against the possible rewards. My time’s surely worth more than a couple bucks an hour!
I just look for sales without the gimmicks. Most of the BG coupons and credits can’t be combined.
Makes it so i don’t even use the other stuff you have to keep saving up. The coupons from deals on found on this forum are always better and less hassle.
- I have a running list of products and services I need in the next 90-120 days. There is a wide range of requirements; these can be car parts, a digitizer, iPhone battery, tools, an emitter or anything else. Best prices are typically from overseas, heavy/bulky stuff is local. On average, I need 25-30 items per month.
- Several email inboxes are stuffed with discount codes, flash sales, email only prices, rewards/loyalty programs, and a never-ending list of holiday/special sales. Then there is forum codes, affiliate discounts (sent to aff partners) and rebates you can purchase (ie BG).
- Reading, understanding, and combining all of these in relation to the products needed and the various platforms (ebay, AE, BG, GB, …) - is a monumental task. Also, all purchases are logged in a spreadsheet to catch the 5% of sellers that don’t ship, or the 5-7% of items that don’t show up after 45 days.
There must be an easier way of doing all of this.
I would never install any coupon finders addon, those are just invasion of privacy. 
I used rakuten.com last year. around this time they bump the cash back percentage up and you can combine that with cash back credit card and use on whatever coupon/sale you can find. You don’t need to install anything to use it. just add their adblocker whitelist and remove it after you’re done. I have a lot privacy centric addons and settings so it becomes a hassle to adjust. Making a new clean profile in chrome/firefox with tracking disabled or running in safe mode with addons disabled might be the easier solution.
Slickdeals and MyVipon have competing prices compared to Chinese stores with the bonus of fast local shipping. The paypal fees + tax fees + extraneous shipping fees have ruined Aliexpress for me. The Chinese stores Kaidomain and Fasttech have been good so far, and of course buying directly from manufactures like Sofirn and Emisar. I wish Convoy would open their own outside Aliexpress.
i just posted this comment in another thread, but i think it would apply here as well:
with this one time thing, its a lot easier than playing those AE mini games for a 10% off a certain amount.
I’m sure I’ve spent am hour looking around at deals, comparing different sellers and compromising on specs just to save £2. I still have a GT nano in my BG cart, waiting for a discount to come along.
It’s completely different in brick and mortar stores, where I’ll spend much more, just so I can pick the item up immediately or will spend £50 on something with barely a minute’s consideration.
I stopped with all that idiotic game-playing loooong ago.
Oh, way way back when GB would have codes that would go active at 0300 local time, and already in the cart and ready to go, click to buy it and in the 1.42sec after the code goes active, it hits the limit and is “expired”.
Then BG with “20buk-off coupon for new users!”, and it turns out to be 20 1buk coupons that don’t stack and can’t be used more’n 1 per order.
Only vipons and amazon “lightning deals” if I stumble across one, from now on. Let others chase the “sales”, I’m done.
ya GB coupons are such a scam, the ones i got are either cannot be used for items on sale, which if they arent, they are not really worth buying, cuz the mark up of the original price is ridiculous. or you can only use it if you place order with mobile app, and if you go to mobile app, the exact same item thats already in your cart suddenly becomes quite a few dollars more expensive, so that even with coupon, it actually costs more than regular web prices without coupon. its the dumbest shit
- Fake taxes (the big BendOver)
- Recently… unauthorized CC “cash advance” fees?
- Endless coupons (that rarely work like they used to)
- Hours of looking for the deal you DID get just a few months ago… WTF?
- And all these worthless coins
— Ya man… Couldn’t say it better than these guys
[quote=niajef]
Usually it’s a lot of effort to save 1-2 bucks at most. Most of the brands periodically give out good discounts/coupons during certain seasons.
Those cashback type coin systems are alright since some of them are automated - you get a bunch of coins/points for each purchase you make, but again - we’re talking about accumulating enough coins over 30-40 purchases to get something like a 2 dollar discount. At least it is sort of automated.
I have only one way I deal with all that. I don’t. Too much work for too little savings. It’s like driving 60 miles to save a nickle a gallon for gas.
The time I would waste chasing around coupons or being there just in time for the big sale of the week, I could use paying more attention to my family and other things on my to do list. I work for a living, if I want or need something and I can afford it, I get it. Even getting half off wouldn’t get me to jump through all those hoops. If I couldn’t afford $40 then I couldn’t afford $30 either.
I don’t know how many lights, knives etc etc etc, that I have bought only because it was on sale. Just for it to sit in a drawer or eventually just given away. I will just stick to paying for the price for the product I need verses one that isn’t needed but on sale.
Same here.
Such list saves a lot of money.
Also can recommend using “add to watchlist” function on ebay - many sellers send personal offers to subscribers.
I found out that using seach function (through e-mail sibscribed to all this e-mail only offers) is much more effective way to spend some money than checking each e-mail (and getting something that you never needed).
Quality of local available goods (mostly outside 1st world) forces to use more online services for getting goods. When each person in supply chain has only one target (lowest price), products that are available localy can look like they should look, but they almost never work like supposed to work. Opportunities of e-commerce are breaking this fundamental system - now buyer makes his choice directly, without many extra persons that decide if this product should be available for sale in one place but should not in another.
a Lot of these games are a con, BG cash for instance, you can get Millions of it, but it`ll do you no good because They decide if you win your `gamble` or not, so you have no real say in the matter ultimately.
the VIP points is another con, I`v used some in the past only to find the same item a day later at the same price I paid using my VIP points!
Very transparent and Lame dopamine tricks really… sigh
forgot to mention:
Flash sales used to be good, like they had 50-100 items at 50% off. Or better.
Now almost every item is constantly on promo or some flash sale, at no real discount at all.
At BG, as an example, you can’t use any points on “promo” items, which is basically everything except the least desired items.
Previously, you could use up to 30% of the item value in points, that isn’t possible at most places either. Best I could find was 10-15%.
Hey Chinese Sellers! LISTEN-UP…
Why sell to Amazon for LESS net profit? - when you CAN sell DIRECT into the US (my market) and MANY other world markets for the SAME MONEY and make the SAME net profit?
Here is why you should stop the price jacking, time wasting games, cash advance fees, adding of fake taxes, and all that crap- KEEP DOING THIS AND WE WILL STOP BUYING! I ALREADY HAVE! No AE, No BG, no FT.
“When you have no sales on these “casino” sites after burning us enough times - you will HAVE to go through Amazon when THESE direct channels no longer exist.
And THEN… Amazon WILL jack the selling fees and everyone will lose.
GET AWAY from AliExpress, BG, and these sellers who are on the way to failing. Listen to our feedback please.
Get your own sites going and KEEP pricing competitive! Look at Sofirn’s site as an example of how the FUTURE will look for any makers selling direct and making money.
I never played any games because I could see it was a waste of time right from the get go.
My buying is much more to do with my own mindset. I’ve had a few lights pass through my possession so I’m a little more discerning nowadays. Additionally I have a lathe so I can make and modify hosts which makes me a even more discerning.
I’ve not bought much this year for a combination of reasons, the ones mentioned above plus the covid factor (i tried to avoid buying due to shipping times and poor service) and the last couple months I’ve been too busy with work to worry about hobbies.
I think jp9mm said it best…
1. How far do you go for that bargain?
three clicks.
2. what are your thoughts on such frequent price changes?
their business model.
3. are they fooling anyone with this xxxx% off today only crap?
apparently.
4. Does this type of shopping encourage you to shop more or less – or does it make no difference for you?
no difference.
Yeah, I got an email with that. My first thought “some spammer or trojan” but I clicked on the Unsubscribe button. Got me to BGs marketing page and unclicked all such emails. They wanted a reason for terminating their “forced policy”. Non given
This thing doesn’t work for me. I buy when I see a good price. Or when a good price takes nothing else than entering a code somewhere.