Aliexpress – the dos and don’ts – experiences with sellers

I wrote this little report, because most of the usable boards are sold on aliexpress for the cheapest price.
I’ve done about several hundred orders from this plattform and I wanna give you some my experiences:
At first:
There are aversions and uncertainties for people to use this platform. I can say, if you follow some rules you are on the safer side than with Ebay.
As I wrote, I’ve done for more than several hundred orders and I wasn’t in any trouble. Yes, there were about 2 or 3 parcels lost on delivery (is that about 0.01%?), and I had to deal with a dodgy dealer. (original: one person).

Rule #1
Never, ever click on “confirm goods received” until
a) you got the parcel really in your hands
b) the parts are ok and working!
Give time to yourself to check them out. You don’t have a chance to get back your money if you hit the “confirm” button!

Rule #2
There is no customer support on ali. Save your time finding how you can contact them. There is no sense to report them a scammer.

Rule #3
Forget all about tracking numbers, they are useless, even if they are “real”

Rule #4
Talk to the seller, send him mails in trouble situations.
In my experience, they are real friendly persons and wish to help! If you get, as example, one part less, or a part is broken don’t “open dispute”, just send a mail, wait till 3 days and mostly you’ll get a friendly response, the seller send the damaged/missing goods again and prolong the “purchase protection time”

Rule #5
Read the feedbacks of the seller in the last 2-3 months! A feedback score under 97-98 percent: Don’t buy anything from him!

Rule #6
Avoid sellers like this:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1355196
He sends every 10th parcel empty and doesn’t reply to mails. He accepted my “open dispute” within hours without answer (I read many feedbacks). I reported him to ali’s “trade police” without consequences for him. (obey Rule#2)

Rule #7
If you have a suspect that the package is damaged, make a photo before and after opening.

That percentage of lost parcels from China is pretty typical for any good sellers. I agree AliExpress is a bit scary so I tend to pay a few more $$s on eBay. If Banggood.com or Gearbest.com ever get some better STM32 boards, I will buy there as well.

Perhaps we can post a couple sellers people have had a good experience with on AliExpress for new folks wanting to shop there?

mrbwa1 wrote:
Perhaps we can post a couple sellers people have had a good experience with on AliExpress for new folks wanting to shop there?

Guys,

I’m happy for people to post good or bad experiences, but can we avoid swearing and anything slanderous etc

@matthias. I removed the expletive in the other posting, even though I’m sure you are right about their anatomy

I get similar issues with eBay.

About 5% of stuff seems to get lost in the post, or turns up months later, by which time I’ve already ordered a replacement etc.

I ended up with two Due’s because of this, and because I’m honest I repaid the refund I got after the first one didn’t arrive after 6 weeks.

I’m currently at the point of opening a dispute with an eBay vendor (http://www.ebay.com.au/usr/robotstorecn?rt=nc) because they sent me a “programmer” without any firmware in it. ( http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/251742174330 ) which they no longer sell.

So basically the device is useless.

They sent me a doc telling me I needed to flash the firmware myself, using another programmer (of the same type, that had firmware in it !!!)
aarrggghhh

It would have been easier if I just said it hadnt arrived, in which case I’m guarantteed a refund, but I was hoping in this case I’d made a mistake and that there was a boot sequence I wasn’t aware of

Anyway, just goes to show, vendors on eBay with 100% rating doesnt guarantee satisfaction.

I’m pretty sure in this case I’m going to just end up giving them terrible feedback and live with the $20 loss

Roger, I edit the expletive into a common sentence, I’ve recognized that such treads can become *very* emotionally, so such words should be avoided. Maybe we should settle down a bit bit before posting and perhaps everything should bring at least one positive example for each negative one (I tried to write review in a more positive relationship) so we can avoid hatred threads – they won’t help anyone.

Matthias

No worries.

You are right, keep things positive.

Better to say which are good sellers

Thanks

Roger

i have ordered 10 hc sr-04 sensors from ali and got all but the packaging was the worst and 2 sensors got damaged in-transist
contacted seller regarding this he told he will send another 2 sensors in my next order..
but i don’t know when will i place my next order with him.
so what should i ask him to do..?

thanks

so what should i ask him to do..?

Ask for a refund of the missing items.

Do you have photos of the package? (I have edited this as rule #7)
If yes, don’t accept it and tell him
a) he should resend the damaged parcels
b) otherwise you will open a dispute.

thanks for replying..
i have the package with me.. yet to take photographs… but opened it already..will be cautious next time.
will ask for refund.

he packed all the 10 sensors (with header pins already soldered) in a bubble wrap and kept it in a pack. and the header pins of one board scratched other board cutting the circuits on board and the other one damaged the ultrasonic speaker.

To reiterate, rule #1 is absolutely the most important. Chinese vendors will tell you anything that you want to hear in order to make you click that magic button that gives all your recourse away.

The biggest problem I have is dealers who mark an item shipped and don’t get around to actually sending it until a week or more later. Sometimes the tracking number they give you is the right one, sometimes they update it to the real one when they finally get around to sending the package. Always send them a message if the item isn’t trackable after 10 days, usually that triggers the actual shipment if they haven’t already (along with a plethora of lies and excuses).

Haven’t had a single lost parcel in the last year. A few years back had one vendor that never responded after the order, and a second order where one item (a case for a tablet that was the main part of the order) was missing, but both of them were taken care of in the dispute system.

When you get a good dealer, treasure him and reorder whatever you can from him. I have 4 dealers that I use exclusively unless I absolutely can’t find a product from them. One specialized in semiconductors, one makes their own pro mini (with ams1117 regulators) and maple mini designs, and the remaining two are for the general range of electronic items. Never get excuses or actual shipment days later than claimed out of them and usually have the orders in 10-14 days.

thakshak wrote:thanks for replying..
i have the package with me.. yet to take photographs… but opened it already..will be cautious next time.
will ask for refund.

He packed all the 10 sensors (with header pins already soldered) in a bubble wrap and kept it in a pack. and the header pins of one board scratched other board cutting the circuits on board and the other one damaged the ultrasonic speaker.

evildave_666 wrote:To reiterate, rule #1 is absolutely the most important. Chinese vendors will tell you anything that you want to hear in order to make you click that magic button that gives all your recourse away.

The biggest problem I have is dealers who mark an item shipped and don’t get around to actually sending it until a week or more later. Sometimes the tracking number they give you is the right one, sometimes they update it to the real one when they finally get around to sending the package. Always send them a message if the item isn’t trackable after 10 days, usually that triggers the actual shipment if they haven’t already (along with a plethora of lies and excuses).

Haven’t had a single lost parcel in the last year. A few years back had one vendor that never responded after the order, and a second order where one item (a case for a tablet that was the main part of the order) was missing, but both of them were taken care of in the dispute system.

When you get a good dealer, treasure him and reorder whatever you can from him. I have 4 dealers that I use exclusively unless I absolutely can’t find a product from them. One specialized in semiconductors, one makes their own pro mini (with ams1117 regulators) and maple mini designs, and the remaining two are for the general range of electronic items. Never get excuses or actual shipment days later than claimed out of them and usually have the orders in 10-14 days.

mrburnette wrote:thakshak wrote:thanks for replying..
i have the package with me.. yet to take photographs… but opened it already..will be cautious next time.
will ask for refund.

evildave_666 wrote:To reiterate, rule #1 is absolutely the most important. Chinese vendors will tell you anything that you want to hear in order to make you click that magic button that gives all your recourse away.

The biggest problem I have is dealers who mark an item shipped and don’t get around to actually sending it until a week or more later. Sometimes the tracking number they give you is the right one, sometimes they update it to the real one when they finally get around to sending the package. Always send them a message if the item isn’t trackable after 10 days, usually that triggers the actual shipment if they haven’t already (along with a plethora of lies and excuses).

Haven’t had a single lost parcel in the last year. A few years back had one vendor that never responded after the order, and a second order where one item (a case for a tablet that was the main part of the order) was missing, but both of them were taken care of in the dispute system.

When you get a good dealer, treasure him and reorder whatever you can from him. I have 4 dealers that I use exclusively unless I absolutely can’t find a product from them. One specialized in semiconductors, one makes their own pro mini (with ams1117 regulators) and maple mini designs, and the remaining two are for the general range of electronic items. Never get excuses or actual shipment days later than claimed out of them and usually have the orders in 10-14 days.

thakshak wrote:

if its possible list your favorite sellers..

Let me guess.. Julian Ilett?

~Straw

thakshak wrote:mrburnette wrote:thakshak wrote:<…>

but as a seller he should take care of the packaging. not just dump in a pack and send.
whatever it may be, damage in my country or in transist or constraints on packing… if the packaging is done smartly there will be no problems..
even sent him a msg at the time of order to pack it safe, but he packed it carelessly.
<…>

mrburnette wrote:

Ray

mrburnette wrote:
Much of the ‘Happy with China sales’ involves you making informed decisions. You are working with very low margin parts and in low quantity with free shipping yet seem to believe that the dealer should select a better shipment method simply because you bought 10x. It does not work that way.
Ray

In my experience all tracked small packet travel by air. I mean packet that are managed by China Post and Poste Italiane in Italy. They arrive alwais at a Milan airport and then goes nearby for controls. Many times the late arrival is due to italian post service.

I also believe that they just collect up at a postal center until they have a shipping container stuffed full but for Italy I don’t believe that they use a boat because some of sellers says that they can’t send stuff with batteries because they can’t send them by air. But other sellers don’t care.

China sellers send batteries using swedish postal service so they go first to Sweden and then to Italy.

Edit: today i received two small packet and all of them have written “BY AIR”

Most of my small packets say “By Air” or they are Epacket Airmail. The small packet I ordered from Gearbest with free shipping is Singapore Post. Not mention on Air or Airmail (took 5 weeks to get to the U.S.).

I will always pay a little more for Epacket because it’s always been fast for me.

The delays you see in China Post is usually based on priority not surface shipment. IIRC the priority is EMS, First Class, SAL, Parcel Post. Any EMS will always get priority space on the plane over anything else, and so on down the list, so stuff towards the bottom can sit at an airport warehouse for weeks waiting for a spot on a plane.

I received my second order from AliExpress BAITE Shoppe yesterday:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/213957

The first order was around $45 U.S.D. and was issued after a few trial orders from various merchants on AliExpress. The second order was for a little more. What is nice is that Baite Electronics actually shipped in a cardboard box via Air Express free. The order took 15 days to go through all the mirad steps to arrive via registered mail at my front door delivered by USPS: if you do not subscribe to USPS text messages, consider it.

AliExpress_2_web.jpg (86.11 KiB) Viewed 693 times

An example of a really trustworthy seller:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1495967
Bought some really cheap 12864 5V Graphic LCD Display and one of them was defect (some missing lines, no visible damage). Wrote a message to the seller and without any other interventions he gave me a nice reply within hours and send me a brand new one for free.

@mrburnette: I see, that the BAITE shop has the arduino mini for 1.5 EUR meanwhile a really cheap solution for a port expander

madias wrote:@mrburnette: I see, that the BAITE shop has the arduino mini for 1.5 EUR meanwhile a really cheap solution for a port expander

mrburnette wrote:madias wrote:@mrburnette: I see, that the BAITE shop has the arduino mini for 1.5 EUR meanwhile a really cheap solution for a port expander

for I2c, USART,… level shifting I use that cheap “level converter modules” found on ebay or ali for less than half a dollar in many projects without any problems.

mrbwa1 wrote:<…>
Even just using an AVR for a sensor then moving the data via I2C should work well. Might also make integrating 5V sensors a little easier as only the I2C communication would need level shifting.

mrburnette wrote:mrbwa1 wrote:<…>
Even just using an AVR for a sensor then moving the data via I2C should work well. Might also make integrating 5V sensors a little easier as only the I2C communication would need level shifting.