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>Who's to say 3rd party merchants aren't reselling the fake Alibaba ones on Amazon for tidy profits? Hmmm. Have you looked at Amazon? A lot - or most IMHO - of

>Who's to say 3rd party merchants aren't reselling the fake Alibaba ones on Amazon for tidy profits? Hmmm. Have you looked at Amazon? A lot - or most IMHO - of the products ARE Chinese (So you get the famous "Made in China Quality Control"). Sellers usually add $10-$20 markup over Alibaba/Aliexpress. (Don't know how Aliexpress is so profitable since their website is worse than Amazon (yes, that is possible); they couldn't even hire a native English speaker to copyedit it.) Depending on the product $10 markup is probably a good deal, since you get Amazon-quality shipping as opposed to the Chinese sellers stuffing your purchase into a trashbag with zero padding.

chrischen 9y ago
They run taobao, whoch operates primarily in China.
Sevii 9y ago
Dropshippers front for aliexpress so their website doesn’t matter.
bigbugbag 9y ago
> Don't know how Aliexpress is so profitable since their website is worse than Amazon (yes, that is possible); they couldn't even hire a native English speaker to copyedit it. Aliexpress sells to Chinese people which makes it profitable, but also to drophippers and reseller which makes it even more profitable but also to international buyers across the world and (with alibaba) sells bulk. All at affordable prices and with a glitch in the matrix in shipping fees. They also charge you in your local currency to avoid additional currency exchange fees. This beats amazon.com not selling their products outside the US and having to contract a US reshipper and adding customs fees and international shipping on top of it. I'm not sure why the bad mouthing of aliexpress and Chinese sellers, I've been doing business on aliexpress for several years and I'd say 95% of my orders went flawlessly and maybe 2-3% were not up to par in term of shipping. I got 99% refund for those. Also yes amazons and ebays have a lot of Chinese sellers and resellers of Chinese stuff, most of the time with a hefty markup but sometimes cheaper than aliexpress, go figure.
novaleaf 9y ago
anecdote: I just gave up trying to find 2 items on Amazon: Waterproof LED Lanterns that take AA batteries, and Teeth-grinding night guards. Re Lanterns, everything sold on there is basically the same chinese design with variations on features. They are all collapsable and all feature a battery compartment that gets flooded. Hard to call a product waterproof if your batteries are literally submerged. I decided to buy Ozark lanterns from Walmart instead. Re night guards: All the "two size" products are literally the same product that's been white-labeled. At least 10 different brandings. Not good because the product pictures are extremely misleading. Unfortunately since amazon doesn't allow returning oral products I'm stuck with 2 of these.
Feniks 9y ago
Cutting out the middle man. Lots of people in my country are bypassing Amazon and other Western web retailers now. I know Americans think Amazon is god but they're not the cheapest or even the fastest. Certainly not were I live. There are caveats: customer service can be... lacking. And the tax man doesn't like undeclared imports.

chrischen 9y ago

They run taobao, whoch operates primarily in China.

Sevii 9y ago

Dropshippers front for aliexpress so their website doesn’t matter.

bigbugbag 9y ago

> Don't know how Aliexpress is so profitable since their website is worse than Amazon (yes, that is possible); they couldn't even hire a native English speaker to copyedit it. Aliexpress sells to Chinese people which makes it profitable, but also to drophippers and reseller which makes it even more profitable but also to international buyers across the world and (with alibaba) sells bulk. All at affordable prices and with a glitch in the matrix in shipping fees. They also charge you in your local currency to avoid additional currency exchange fees. This beats amazon.com not selling their products outside the US and having to contract a US reshipper and adding customs fees and international shipping on top of it. I'm not sure why the bad mouthing of aliexpress and Chinese sellers, I've been doing business on aliexpress for several years and I'd say 95% of my orders went flawlessly and maybe 2-3% were not up to par in term of shipping. I got 99% refund for those. Also yes amazons and ebays have a lot of Chinese sellers and resellers of Chinese stuff, most of the time with a hefty markup but sometimes cheaper than aliexpress, go figure.

novaleaf 9y ago

anecdote: I just gave up trying to find 2 items on Amazon: Waterproof LED Lanterns that take AA batteries, and Teeth-grinding night guards. Re Lanterns, everything sold on there is basically the same chinese design with variations on features. They are all collapsable and all feature a battery compartment that gets flooded. Hard to call a product waterproof if your batteries are literally submerged. I decided to buy Ozark lanterns from Walmart instead. Re night guards: All the "two size" products are literally the same product that's been white-labeled. At least 10 different brandings. Not good because the product pictures are extremely misleading. Unfortunately since amazon doesn't allow returning oral products I'm stuck with 2 of these.

Feniks 9y ago

Cutting out the middle man. Lots of people in my country are bypassing Amazon and other Western web retailers now. I know Americans think Amazon is god but they're not the cheapest or even the fastest. Certainly not were I live. There are caveats: customer service can be... lacking. And the tax man doesn't like undeclared imports.