161–170 of 177 posts
My dad just looked at the last three orders he had on AliExpress, all from more than a month ago. They appear now on the website as if they have 30%-50% discount, but the end price is exactly the same, for all of them. I'm not sure how much of a sale it really is...
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China quality is fairly meaningless considering iphones etc are also manufactured in China. Overall I've never been disappointed with what I have purchased from China. Always does what it says on the tin.
The stuff you order from sites like aliexpress has no quality control.
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 have ordered Lepin from AliExpress, which is a Lego knockoff—the sets are the same, but the prices are 25%, and the quality is 90%.
US name brand stuff like this is particular troublesome for me because I am not living in the US. So I pay big shipping costs and then risk corrupt and extortionate customs actions. If I buy local the cost is just as high.
Also, have you seen anything that looks like Vex Robotics knockoffs? Same story - I have a Vex IQ kit and want to buy more but shipping costs are way more than the price of the item I want to buy.
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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…
Monoprice: $1.76 - https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id...
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More reasonable reason, the online shopping experience in China is much much better than in US. In China, if you are living some metropolis, the logistic is really faster than in US without any prime membership (normally within two days). And also the price is much cheaper compared with physical retail store. So, most people would prefer online shopping if possible.
Online shopping works pretty well in the USA. My wife (Chinese) doesn’t see too much difference since we moved to the USA from Beijing last year. We no longer buy things like bottled water (well, we don’t need to!) or other groceries/soft goods online like we did in BJ, but we have semi daily packages of everything else. China has great same day logistics using poorly paid guys on electric bikes (so food and soft goo…
A friend of mine from China was showing me an article in Chinese about the Huawei website (huge site like Amazon + Apple + FedEx) . They have 300 sub stores/warehouses just in his city they are for stock piling popular items. A man ordered something from the Huawei website at midnight and he received the package 12 minutes later.
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…
Which doesn't mean much ("China quality" that is) since iPhones are also made in China -- as are expensive clothes for the likes of Armani and co and tons of other high-end stuff. And of course lots of Chinese designed and made products that are of high quality.
Of course tons of cheap stuff is made there too -- almost all the world's manufacturing of cheapo stuff. Heck, almost anything you can get on a place like Walmart is probably made in China too, but sold for 2-5 times as much as in Chinese sites.
If someone buys some $80 "laptop" off of Alibaba, or some "leather jacket" for $30, or some no-brand el-cheapo "camera drone", of course they're gonna get subpar quality. If an offer looks too good to be true, it probably ain't, and if there are no reviews (on third party sites) or nobody knows the brand name, well, those things don't point to getting a good buying experience.
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China quality is fairly meaningless considering iphones etc are also manufactured in China. Overall I've never been disappointed with what I have purchased from China. Always does what it says on the tin.
The stuff you order from sites like aliexpress has no quality control.
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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.
that not true, i ordered a tv box that is clearly not as described ( i provided a prof ) , the only thing that is saving me is paypal from geekbuying. they are offering only part of the refund and shipping it back is to expensive for them. on amazon if something is not described ( i ordered anker dongle for my macbook that did not work on the 2016 model) i get a refund right away and the shipping covered.
Err, that proves the parent's point -- if Amazon did some quality control they wouldn't sell it.
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You need to realize that pretty much all electronics is manufactured in China / Hong Kong these days. You can get quality things, you can get cheap crap.
But how do you discern ahead of time which is quality and which is crap?