CHINASHOPS
For a while now I buy stuff at the site Aliexpress.com
Before I ordered regularly at DealExtreme, Focalprice etc.
But after DX made a fuss about problems with some faulty stuff I was looking for another source.
And after reading and experiencing I have the idea that AliExpress operates significantly differently than the other (China) shops.
AliExpress gives sellers a platform where they can sell their stuff.
AliExpress itself is not a shop and there are some benefits derving from this.
A shop like DX or Gearbest will suffer damage when a problem arises like a defective product.
However for AliExpress a faulty buy or product can cause damage to their reputation and thus to the platform.
That is why AliExpress itself wants everything to go well.
A shop like DX or Gearbest is mainly moving boxes, selling various products. The people who are doing the consumer relations there probably do not know al lot about the products they sell and maybe even never had them in their hands.
On AliExpress it s possible to find vendors who focus on one product or category and therefore really know what they are selling. Simon from Convoy is an good example of this.
When you buy via AliExpress the conditions are clear:
If a product is not sent on time by the seller you will get your money back.
If a product does not arrive on time, you get your money back.
If a product has a problem, and you can prove this (by a video of the operation or video of unpacking) you will get the money back.
Then AliExpress also verifies the sellers and I have had the experience of receiving a message that AliExpress did not trusted a seller, had cancelled the deal and a short while later I received my money back.
RATINGS
It is possible to evaluate products and the seller.
Sellers want nothing more then a good rating, which gives us buyers a way to put some pressure if needed.
Once you indicate that your product is received, this is immediately followed by the question whether you want to give a rating. I usually do it later and I do it only if I can say something sensible. For example I bought a pile of seeds but they’re not in the ground yet so I can’t rate them.
The rating for vendors and products do create interesting decision aids.
I sort by price and scan through the ratings,
I prefer a product with good reviews over something that loks the same, is a tad cheaper but without ratings
But of course it can happen that there are only very few product ratings.
10 or less, is not worth taking into consideration as aid for me.
But besides the producs there usually also are rating available for the seller.
For example I would rather go for the seller with 751 positive ratings then buying from some seller with just one or none
DISPUTES
I have now completed 118 orders of which seven were not going well (2 x canceled by AliExpress, one time almost incomplete receipt 2 x product is not working properly, one order is incomplete and one order not as described.)
In the remaining 111 were all up on time and I am satisfied with the stuff.
The seven failures than.
The first was a set with colored plastic balls that represend atoms to build molecules.
I received the package and the internal bag was open (probably customs), and there were hardly any atoms. To begin with i sent the seller an e-mail. Half a day later no response, so again a mail that I had to write a negative review in the absence of reaction and would open a dispute (oops I had not taken into account that there is a the time difference).
The seller responded the next day and asked for a photo and what weight was written on the packaging.
I sent the information and they wanted to give me a refund. In this case however, I wanted to have this set and what had arrived, was of very good quality. So I proposed to buy another one (you can’t have enough atoms now can you? :laughing: if they would send two as compensation. They did go along and 10 days later it arrived and I gave them a good rating.
Two times now I got a message one day after ordering something that AliExpress did not trusted the sellersand that the order would be canceled, soon followed by receipt of money.
The two non-working products, the disputes are very recent.
About a week ago I uploaded videos proving the stuff is not working correct.
I bought two peppermills from two sellers, they are the same and both not working.
1 seller wanted me to close the dispute and continue via email, so outside the dispute system of AliExpress.
I did not honour this request and want to keep it neatly in the diputeprocess.
The current situation is that the seller wants to refund 50% so I escalated the dispute today, we’ll see what will happen.
After seeing the video of the flawed working the other seller made a lot of apologies and refnded 100%.
Then there was an order in which things were missing. 10 glass heart pendants of which 6 were not included in the package. I checked the 4 that had arrived in the orderdetails and confirmed the arrival. I got refunded for the missing shortly after that.
Today I made a mistake.
I bought a coat (beware clothes are tricky because of the measurements) advertised as autumn coat but it was thinner then my summer coat. I asked for a partial refund via message and the seller blew me of. So I opened a dispute. When I checked things this morning I saw seller had accepted my claim for a full refund and there were a couple of options for me to click (accept decline cancel and escalate). Escalate means AliExpress will look into it and decides what will happen. So i clicked accept, I had missed that this also included I needed to send the coat back at my own costs. So this was educational, costs of sending it is half of the price of the coat. So either way I will lose 50% in case of a refund but sending it back means I got nothing left, so I will keep it. And next time I will make sure to excalate and clearly state that the shipping back is not an option unless paid by seller and see what happens.
COMMUNICATION WITH SELLERS
I now run all kinds of orders, including many flashlights. I have emailed many sellers asking for the specs. If these are not good then I have those vendors pinned.
Something to keep in mind;
I think most of these Chinese sellers pulling our messages through a google-translate like site or service.
So use short sentences, simple words.
Very clear and to the point and communication is perfectly fine.
Long complex sentences and chances is you just get copy/paste to specs.
FREE SHIPPING
I almost always choose for free shipping, then I run no risk of losing money if a product is not good or does not arrive.
The shipping process is often calculated in the price. So for example, product A can be bught for $5,- but if you click on free shipping is the cheapest starts at $8,-. Well so be it.
Sometimes you get the choice to choose for a paid shipping from Europe, for example.
Very rarely you get really lucky with free shipping from a location nearby (in my case Europe).
For example I wanted to get my wife a telescope a week before Sinterklaas (a Dutch tradition of giving familymembers presents December 5th) and to be sure I looked and found one on AliExpress. The same one I wanted for half the money WITH shipping from Germany. Three days later it arrived at our home and it is a wonderful thing of good quality.
Normally it may take a lot of time for things to arrive.
I do not expect anything to arrive sooner then about two weeks after orderng.
It may be faster but usually is slower though.
I wrote that AliExpress will give your money back if a product does not arrive in time.
About one week before the deadline for receipt expires AliExpres will send you a mail to remind you followed by three more reminders.
You can also specify to extend the shipping period to give the seller (a little) extra time.
If the seller agrees with the extension request all is fine, if not you start a dispute (thus a vendor always agree with your proposal (which is nothing more than clicking a button, choose an additional period in days and click OK).
CUSTOMS AND WARRANTY
If you exceed a certain value then it may be that you have to pay import duties. It depends on the provisions in the country where you live.
I do not know about here in France, but the Netherlands is possible to be charged the V.A.T from €22,- onwards and inport rights from € 150, - onwards.
Now they almost always label packages as “GIFT” with a low value.
Personally I do not buy really expensive stuff.
The two most expensive things I bought from China are a 20L stainless steel distillation set at € 130, - and a Doogee Titans2 phone which was less than that. The postman did not ask for payments.
I would be reluctant to buy real expensive things like notebooks. Because in case of any problem within warranty it will cots you monay and a lot of time. Sending stuff for repairs is expensive and the process will take much longer than going to your local store.
So when something breaks, most of the times it can be considered lost and that’s something to be aware of.
Example, I wanted the LED lamps in the bedroom of my son replaced by others. The ceiling element contain three E27 LED lights that were too bright and worked at 3W.
The LED had cost me € 7.95 each. And then I found lamps rated at 2W with those beautiful yellow LED filaments for less than a dollar a piece. They are indeed less bright and look pretty even when off.
If these fail I will not be claiming warranty with such low prices. They are working prefectly for ore then a year now, so well worth their cents if you ask me.
COMMUNICATIONS with Aliexpressss
To start here I must say that I do not like to opt-out of newsletters or adds. So I am happy to inform that I have not received spam from AliExpress. Very nice, while Gearbest and Banggood like to send out lots of emails about nothing. Thus any mail from AliExpress is indeed an email with a reason.
The following e-mails you will get (or with an * can you get) when ordering
1 order confirmation immediately
2 payment confirmation, after a few hours
3 shiping confirmation, if the seller has shipped
- Warning that end deadline for receipt is coming (week before it expires and you have not clicked on confirm order reeived if it is not already entered)
- Warning that the deadline receipt term (five days before it expires and you have not clicked on confirm order if it is not already entered)
- Perhaps more warnings about the expiration of receipt period but I have no experience with that.
- If you have signed when the mailman dropped the parcel off several days thereafter a requst whether you also want to acknowledge receipt
4 after receiving a confirmation email with the request of the seller for a rating
All logical mails in English that contain little text and refer to the order with the number clickable.
I believe it is possible to change the language of the site but I only use the blobal English site.
APP
There is an APP.
This gives you a quick overview of all orders and messages.
I like order tracking and communication with vendors via the app, it seems clearer then the site.
They often give a percentage extra discount when ordering via the app so that’s nice, It is also logical, with the app it is very easy to order anywhere so I can imagine they would want all customers to have it installed and checking them when they are in a mall for example.
The APP has the following permissions
Turn on data (which is not a real positive thing imho but I got it disabled and the app still works fine)
Turn on WiFi (ditto)
send MMS (ditto)
And the APP just works nicely without being able to use the permissions (We use Android V4.4 or 5.0).
Browsing for stuff in the app is harder then finding things on the normals site via a computer.
on the site it is easier to choose and select the properties and I especially the option to exclude keywords in a search on the site. For me this is very useful and is not possible in the app.
The APP very handy to have if you want to buy something at a store. A quick scan and you can make a choice, but it for X now or for Y and receive later. Vey nice to see that some BIG SALES seem rather small after a glance at the AliExpress app.
TO CONCLUDE
You can pay for by credit card.
You can choose to add a credit card to your account to checkout faster, but this is not necessary.
I formerly did everything with Paypal and did not like that a real credit card was needed here.
But after more than a year of experience I’m confident that they properly handle the data and the trust given to them.
For me AliExpress an ideal platform and preferred China Shop.
PROS
Large choice
More protection then other China shops against rotten apples (both products and sellers)
Seller only get their money if a product is confirmed to have arrived (or in case no action is taken at the end of the protection period
Rating system for a general idea about sellers and products
Seller can be found who know the things they sell
When a seller proves to be not trustworthy AliExpress will cancel the orders and refund you (bo action required)
Easy to use APP (see cons for a note on this)
CONS
Sizes of clothes are mostly wrong, unless you have a kid that can wear the things you order t is best to avoid buying clothes on AE.
It usually takes a long time for things to arrive
Not the cheapest for a lot of things
A lot of fake stuff is sold
Fake discounts (claiming a high discount because starting price is set to high just to make it look like a better deal
Shipping methods not always as described
It takes action from buyers to get money back when something goes wrong
Not everything arrives, and in these cases action from buyer is required from buyer to get money back
No Paypal payment option
APP wants permissions that it does not need since it functions when the permissions are denied after installing (user actions required to deny the permissions on Android)
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This is a rough translation and actualisation of a blog I wrote in Dutch.
Sorry for any strange typos or grammar f@#kups, please PM me if you want me to correct something_