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Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

nytimes.com

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Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#101

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jordache wrote: post #97
djaychela wrote: post #19

I've only bought a few things from Alibaba over the years, but most of them have turned out to be either faulty or a typical case of 'chinese manufacturer disappointment' which has led me to being reluctant to buy anything larger/more expensive. When I was in Marrakech a couple of years ago, the guy who owned the riad we stayed in referred to many things in the souks as being "China quality", and I guess that's the p…

lol the laptop you type on is likely made in laptop as is the phone you reach in your pocket. You keep typing "China Quality" Like it's a novel concept.. china is the world's manufacture. Your anecdote is just that...

Foreign outsourced production to China SEZs (and therefore aren’t even considered domestic for tariff reasons) is hardly indicative of Chinese domestic goods quality.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#102

Post by Pxtl »

jordache wrote: post #97
djaychela wrote: post #19

I've only bought a few things from Alibaba over the years, but most of them have turned out to be either faulty or a typical case of 'chinese manufacturer disappointment' which has led me to being reluctant to buy anything larger/more expensive. When I was in Marrakech a couple of years ago, the guy who owned the riad we stayed in referred to many things in the souks as being "China quality", and I guess that's the p…

lol the laptop you type on is likely made in laptop as is the phone you reach in your pocket. You keep typing "China Quality" Like it's a novel concept.. china is the world's manufacture. Your anecdote is just that...

Yes, but in this case there's a big name company putting their name and reputation on the line. AliExpress primarily sells no-name Chinese stuff where reputation is disposable.

I've purchased things from AliExpress that were useful products, but everything was fragile or had substantial bugs I had to work around. Always was happy for the price, but would rather find something in between the AliExpress price and the western price if I could get non-brittle plastic.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#103

Post by lobster_johnson »

neves wrote: post #89
djaychela wrote: post #19

I've only bought a few things from Alibaba over the years, but most of them have turned out to be either faulty or a typical case of 'chinese manufacturer disappointment' which has led me to being reluctant to buy anything larger/more expensive. When I was in Marrakech a couple of years ago, the guy who owned the riad we stayed in referred to many things in the souks as being "China quality", and I guess that's the p…

Nowadays everything is made in China. A lot of things we buy are just repackaged stuff that sells for 3x the original price. I've bought decent stuff like a manual coffe grinder, or glass bottles, usb cables, or cheap gopro accessories. You are just cutting the middle man.

Given the number of not-up-to-spec cables on Amazon (there's that Google guy who reviews them and found a lot of them to be faulty), I would be extremely wary of buying anything USB on Alibaba.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#104

Post by Milner08 »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #103
neves wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays everything is made in China. A lot of things we buy are just repackaged stuff that sells for 3x the original price. I've bought decent stuff like a manual coffe grinder, or glass bottles, usb cables, or cheap gopro accessories. You are just cutting the middle man.

Given the number of not-up-to-spec cables on Amazon (there's that Google guy who reviews them and found a lot of them to be faulty), I would be extremely wary of buying anything USB on Alibaba.

Wasn't it only USB C he was finding issues with?

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#106

Post by ivm »

anilakar wrote: post #99
ivm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipping via regular post from AliExpress is often free or very cheap while the same items on Amazon cost 3-5 times more and shipping to my country is $10-15. The downside is 1-2 months waiting times vs. a week from Amazon but I can wait.

You're paying your saved shipping fees in taxes. It still costs the postal services the same amount to deliver the package from the import warehouse to your door but they cannot charge you nor the seller according to international agreements.

Still significantly cheaper, also I'm paying only for the domestic part.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#107

Post by sokoloff »

sokoloff wrote: post #68
praulv wrote: post #66

For someone having never ordered from alibaba or aliexpres - other than briefly fleeting with drone spare parts - what exactly of use and purpose would you buy from there? I can see large scale uses for industrial machinery / commodities but what about the day to day consumer. Pointless gadgets? I briefly looked at lightinthebox for female accessories and they seemed tacky, overly glittery and just plain cheap lookin…

I order 3D printer parts, physical hardware (fasteners, typically), electronics components (Arduino work-a-likes and shields), small tchotchkes for kids [birthday party giveaways], cheap computer accessories and cables (USB chargers, USB cables, USB-C adapters, audio adapters and cables, etc). That's all aliexpress. Alibaba is more industrial, negotiate for pricing; Aliexpress is a pure marketplace. With the subsidiz…

As I re-read my comment above, it seems hyperbolic, so I went to check the actual data on the last time I tried to buy something at Staples.

I needed a 1/8" stereo mini to 2 RCA male cable.

Staples: $15.59 - https://www.staples.com/Staples-7-3-5mm-to-Dual-RCA-Y-Adapte...

BestBuy: $9.99 - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-6-3-5mm-mini-to-rca-st...

Amazon: $4.76 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IE7Z628

Aliexpress: $0.56 / $0.82 - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1-Mini-Plug-3-5mm-Plug-Jack-...

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#108

Post by dmoy »

Milner08 wrote: post #104
lobster_johnson wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the number of not-up-to-spec cables on Amazon (there's that Google guy who reviews them and found a lot of them to be faulty), I would be extremely wary of buying anything USB on Alibaba.

Wasn't it only USB C he was finding issues with?

Benson was focusing his efforts on usbc, presumably cus it's got a higher propensity for damage, what with the higher voltage and all. I wouldn't be surprised if he could find issues with non usbc stuff too though.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#110

Post by dmoy »

code_duck wrote: post #98
duckwheat wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a ridiculous and overly broad statement to say that of the tens or hundreds of thousands of companies selling on these sites, none have a QC process in place.

I think the intent is to say that there are no site-wide quality standards.

Sure but then by that measure neither does Amazon. I bought a metal plant off of Amazon stand that literally had half the nuts and bolts with no threading. There's no way that passes any kind of QC.
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