I had ordered something from GB, which was apparently not available for some reason. They sent me a message to ask whether I wanted a refund to PayPal or store credit. Of course, I clearly stated to refund the money to PayPal. They replied with something like, ‘Yes, we will add the store credit to your account within a couple days’ :rage: :confounded: I had to reply immediately with a blunt ‘NO! Send the refund to PayPal!’. The replied they would and they did, but that whole experience seemed a bit shady to me. However, that hasn’t turned me off to them completely.
Cool. Just order in the USA then, pay 200% and don’t moan when some products are not available. I hear the weather is nice in Florida. Enjoy.
This.
I’ll even wait 6 months just to obtain the Astrolux MF01. It’s better than any Nitecore, Fenix or Foursevens that you can get from local stores or Amazon… Although bonky wonky, I nevertheless enjoy Haikelites as well. Just great design and performance for the money. :sunglasses:
How about Fasttech? Any comments?
My friend who works in China and tell me the followings:
China internal shipping is fast but when you are trying send stuff to other countries, it is common to take loooooonnnngggg time.
Singapore Post has a tight custom checking —> Very easy to delay your shipment.
Try not to buy expensive stuff during Chinese New Year. Not enough worker —> Too many parcels —> Worker will through your stuff rather than pass it to other people
I can only sigh in exasperation from the above… I suppose, in the first world/developed countries, everything usually happens very fast.
I suppose in a 3rd world/developing country like ours, we’re sort of accustomed to everything slowwwww…… (not that we don’t complain, we do, but it’s just we get accustomed to it).
My location - Philippines is just less than 2 hours plane ride from China — I believe much of AliExpress/Banggood/Gearbest is near the vicinity of Guangdong/Guangzhou/Shenzhen, which is very close to Hong Kong; based on tracking several shipments from BG, I notice that many of the ‘free shipping’ options [assuming it comes from the Guangdong province] seem to travel first to Hong Kong before they ship out (sometimes they have to detour to Malaysia or Sweden — eg. stuff with small magnets or small built-in/button-cell batteries).
If the shipment has to go to Sweden (ie. from Asia to Europe and back to Asia), then it takes a much longer time to arrive, typically a month or more. For other stuff, then I seem to be seeing around 20+ days shipping time (for non-expedited shipping option). I would consider 20+ days as already quite fast. The fastest shipment I’ve gotten so far (for non-expedited shipping) is 15 days from China to the Philippines.
I have ordered some 18650s from AliExpress which used BPost — it’s over 40 days and counting (it has arrived in the Philippines a few days ago, but just released from Customs Exam yesterday). I’m still thankful the batteries arrived. Because I think that’s the last economy shipping option from that store where I bought the 18650; because right now, it says “cannot ship to the Philippines” already or only expedited shipping options that cost $30-50 shipping fees).