Aliexpress.com and Alibaba.com
Some people I talk to are kind of dubious when ordering items from China. I was too when I first started ordering items and worrying about such things as:
Will they ever come?
Am I going to get charged a fortune by Customs and Excise for importing them?
Will customs think they are illegal, even if they are not, and destroy or sieze them?
Will the supplier send the right quantity of goods or try and rip me off?
All of these are good questions, however not everyone on the Internet is a crook and neither is everyone in China. Sure there are crooks in China who will try and exploit people buying items online, but doesn't that happen in every country? Why single China out to be the baddest place on earth for purchasing goods online and sending them to other countries?
The safest way I have found to buy online from China is by using Alibaba and Aliexpress. Alibaba is mainly for larger orders or container loads etc which offer very good discounts the more you buy. Aliexpress offers smaller quantities as well as buying single items that you can evaluate first before ordering in larger quantities.
Aliexpress also has the added benefit of escrow which comes included for free in every transaction. On Alibaba you can also do escrow which is arranged and handled by one of the Alibaba staff, whereas the Aliexpress is included automatically as part of the transaction.
On Aliexpress, you place your order with the supplier, the payment is processed, however Aliexpress hold onto the payment in escrow, until you have recieved the items. There is a time slot which you have to confirm that you have recieved the items, this can be extended by the supplier if unforeseen problems occur, however if you don't notify the supplier that you haven't recieved the goods within the alotted time or raised a query, the payment will automatically be released to the supplier.
If you ordered for instance a quantity of 20 items and the supplier only provides 18 in the delivery, you can also query this in the order by raising a dispute. You can select the reason for the dispute and if it is to do with missing items, it will ask how many are missing. A refund request for these 2 items will be sent to the supplier to be approved.
Once you have recieved an item and are happy with the purchase, you click in "My orders" the "Confirm Order Recieved" button beside the order. This will then give you the opportunity to leave feedback in various areas about the supplier and give them a rating out of 5.
On my Aliexpress profile, I have ordered over 36 different orders from different suppliers (Some re-rders) and have not had a single problem to date. I have been ordering from their suppliers since 2008 and have not looked anywhere else since. I hear about DHGate.com etc but with a lot more complaints about people not recieving the right items and sometimes not recieving any at all. Then of course the suppliers do not reply back to any customer complaints, and you have lost your money.
Aliexpress allows you to see, just like Ebay, the suppliers feedback along with an overall rating as a percentage. Some suppliers have an A+ assurance rating which means if they have had any problems or disputes, they have dealt with them or responded to them and do have customer service in place to deal with problems.
Other suppliers with lower percentages etc, just like you would do on Ebay, simply avoid as these can cause some nightmares and headaches. Also each product a person sells has its own rating and feedback from customers at the bottom fo each product page. Be sure to check these out as well as it will let you know the quality of the goods and if they are "fit for purpose" as well.
There are a variety of postage options as well for the suppliers. Lots of popular couriers such as DHL, UPS, FEDEX etc but a lot offer FREE shipping with China Mail Service of the Hong Kong Postal Service. These can take form 15-30 days to be delivered and as long as the value is under about $50-70 you usually won't be charged a customs charge. Using a courier, you are more likely to get charged a customs charge if it is over around £50 in the UK, as items slightly over this I have ordered and under, and once it goes over £50 I get charged.
You may recieve the item all good and well from the courier but a week or two later you will recieve sometimes a letter or invoice stating you need to pay the customs charge. Some like DHL won't release the goods until the bill is paid over the phone or on their website.
Any queries about ordering from China please let me know.
Henry
