I've spent probably $10k the past two years on Alibaba. I find their credit card processing is all over the place with declines or Alibaba themselves blocking

I've spent probably $10k the past two years on Alibaba. I find their credit card processing is all over the place with declines or Alibaba themselves blocking the cards (which have been used before). Their solution is always asking you to send in validation paperwork (photo id, passport, picture of the card, etc.), which of course is sketchy. All in, the products have always arrived close to as described. That said, I've only dealt with high reputation sellers and I've seen others locally burned pretty badly. If I were selling anything consumable such as soap, i'd really want a good test on the composition to make sure I wasn't importing something that would cause serious harm down the road.