I also have had good luck working with Alibaba sellers. As John notes, they game the system by listing various options on the product page where 1 is much cheaper, so keep an eye out for that. At least for Alibaba, contact with seller was minimal. They agreed to th quote and I paid through the system.
-- RETRO Innovations, Contemporary Gear for Classic Systems www.go4retro.com store.go4retro.com On Feb 17, 2025 at 3:34 PM -0600, John R. Hogerhuis <[email protected]>, wrote: > I've had excellent experiences with Aliexpress, Banggood, Temu. Temu stuff > can be a little too cheap. > Most of the stuff I've bought has been 3d printer stuff and woodworking tools. > > Most of the stuff I've bought I didn't have to work out any deal. I guess it > depends on what you're > getting and if you can buy in quantity. I'm only buying one of things. > Sometimes they have stuff not > on the site and talking to them helps me find it. Like I wanted a license > plate fender mount for my > motorcycle and the seller had it but wasn't advertising it. It can take some > back and forth > to figure out due to language barrier. > > You have to be careful about the "colors" / SKU. When you click on an ad the > price can look > low versus the picture. But the ads seem to mix a picture of a higher SKU > with price for the lowest > SKU. It's deceptive but once you're aware of it it's not a big deal. > > I don't know about shipping to Canada. It's been fabulous to USA/California > as these > low dollar items through USPS avoid tariff, but it looks like that's about to > change completely, and > that's all I think we should say here about that. > > I've never sent anything back and it's probably a hassle. Most of the stuff > is cheap enough that if I don't like > it I would probably just throw it in the trash. > > -- John.
