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As a gag gift, I've bought a phone case from Aliexpress for a friend. The total, including shipping, was $0.46. The case itself did fit the phone and was techni

As a gag gift, I've bought a phone case from Aliexpress for a friend. The total, including shipping, was $0.46. The case itself did fit the phone and was technically usable. I've bought a bunch of small trinkets from Aliexpress. For the most part, they're the same exact things you can buy off of Amazon for ~$5-15, except they take 2ish months to be delivered. For some things, it actually does make sense to just wait that long (e.g. a Google Home Mini wall mount) in exchange for the savings (>= 50% is normal).

dis-sys 6y ago
just checked taobao.com, the cheapest phone case was 5 RMB or $0.7 USD including shipping. so it is actually cheaper to buy the same stuff from the US and get it shipped half of the world.
- kevindong 6y ago
  If you want it, you can buy a $0.50 iPhone 5 case with free shipping from Aliexpress right now: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001089727974.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001089727974.html Alternatively, you could buy a $0.06 phone stand with free shipping: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001172525823.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001172525823.html
- rahimnathwani 6y ago
  Cheapest I saw on taobao just now was 3 RMB including shipping: https://m.tb.cn/h.VpeyELi?sm=ddc20e https://m.tb.cn/h.VpeyELi?sm=ddc20e Opened the taobao android app, searched for 手机套, filtered by 包邮 (shipping included) and sorted by price.
- balola 6y ago
  In the case of phone cases, you can get Chinese domestic shipping costs as low as $0.2 if your daily volume is high enough. It's a special offer tho, since it's light weight and compact. And yes, shipping companies can still make normal profit on these. From this standpoint, your example isn't nearly the cheapest it can get. Sellers regularly offer entirely free ones in exchange for reviews.
14 6y ago
I used to buy costume jewelry for my kid (before deciding cheap metals on my kids skin is probably a really bad idea) from eBay and would search for jewelry listings ending in an hour and search for anything under a dollar and with free shipping. I would bid on them last second and try win. I have had a 5cent phone case sent to me and thought this is insane. It was like a game just to see if I could win because I was bidding pennies and shipping always free.
- kevindong 6y ago
  Yeah personally I wouldn't buy anything that'd be in constant contact with my body or would have non-battery-powered electricity flowing through it.
NicoJuicy 6y ago
It actually is not. If you consider taxes pay for the shipping ( and not subsidies from China). It's ridiculous
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  The fractional cost of a single phone cover on a container ship crossing the pacific is... extremely low. Large container ships hold 14,000 TEU (twenty-foot-equiv) containers, each of which has a volume of 33m^3. Let's use an iPhone's size as a stand-in for the phone cover: it's 173 x 70 x 8mm. Divide the first by the latter: (14000 * 33m^3) / (143mm * 71mm 8mm), and, as google will helpfully tell us (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk019-22DbqgT-dvyea4z64BPRXGL6w%3A1593416523827&ei=S5v5XrOLMs3UsAeFrIX4DA&q=%2814000+*+33m%5E3%29+%2F+%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29&oq=%2814000+*+33m%5E3%29+%2F+%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQRzoICCEQFhAdEB5QwC5Y_8gBYPXdAWgAcAF4AIABbogB9w-SAQQyMy4ymAEAoAECoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjz3IaPw6bqAhVNKuwKHQVWAc8Q4dUDCAs&uact=5 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALe...) you can ship 5.6x10^9, or 5.6 billion of these on a single ship. From some related information it seems shipping rates for a single container are around $1,000 for China->US. Plug that in and the costs are ... $0.002, or 1/5th of a cent: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk03V0mVU96WhPcko_DiohGxB13fsBg%3A1593416975265&ei=D535XsjbD8-dsAeE7qroBw&q=%28%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29+%2F+33m%5E3%29+*+%241000&oq=%28%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29+%2F+33m%5E3%29+*+%241000&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQR1DJWViYuQFg9L0BaABwAXgAgAF1iAGbBJIBAzYuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwiIn6jmxKbqAhXPDuwKHQS3Cn0Q4dUDCAs&uact=5 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALe... I may be off by an order of magnitude somewhere. But it just feels intuitively obvious that most of the costs of any delivery are incurred during the 15 seconds or so the mailman spends in your driveway or trying to find the mailbox with your name.
  - madaxe_again 6y ago
    No, that's about right - containerised freight is extremely cheap. I just shipped an ATV, about 1.5m3, 250kg, from China to Europe for about $180 - and $150 of that is port handling and freight forwarding fees, the actual shipping part was $32.
walkingolof 6y ago
The hidden cost is the enormous strain it puts on the environment...
- thih9 6y ago
  Do you have a source for that or can you elaborate? Since the delivery time is so long, I’d expect the parcel gets shipped with multiple others. The only items that get shipped are the ones that have been actually bought, which sounds efficient. Of course there are negative aspects too and I wouldn’t know if the overall outcome is positive or negative, when compared to buying a product from Amazon. Again, a link or more details would be very helpful.
  - mcv 6y ago
    Of course it gets shipped with others, and if delivery takes weeks or months, it probably gets shipped fairly efficiently by sea. But it still gets shipped over a long distance. I'd rather see more local products and less intercontinental shipment except in cases where it's unavoidable. Besides, a lot of products on AliExpress don't actually meet western safety standards. They're not allowed to be imported and sold here, but you can buy them abroad and ship them to a private customer. But they still won't meet our standards.
    - zuppy 6y ago
      I don't really see a difference, as most of the consummer products are built in China and get shipped anyway... I'm not denying the environmetal impact, but that's not from Ali Express, it's from us building everything there because it's cheaper.
      - mcv 6y ago
        There is an important difference between products built there and sold there, and products built there and sold here. The product have to obey safety and other standards of the country where they're sold. And those standards differ quite a lot between the EU and China. They can use banned chemicals, and fail many other requirements. In the EU, products that conform to EU standards can be identified with a 'CE' logo[0], which means "Conformité Européenne". "Chinese Export" can have a deceptively similar logo[1] that does not guarantee such adherence at all, but still looks comforting to European customers of Chinese web shops. It's a blatant violation, but hard to stop, because it's a foreign sale shipped to private customers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking [1] https://siloscordoba.com/blog/corporate/china-export-is-not-ce-a-symbol-to-cause-confusion/ https://siloscordoba.com/blog/corporate/china-export-is-not-...
gadders 6y ago
I think the other thing you get when buying from Amazon is an easier a return process and hopefully some level of QA.
- SkyMarshal 6y ago
  Given Amazon’s flood of ALL-CAPS trash brands from rando dropshippers in recent years, plus fake reviews, is it realistic to expect QA from Amazon?
  - maccard 6y ago
    No, but the customer service is still unparalleled. I ordered a cable, and the one I got wasn't the one I ordered. I clicked three buttons, (link from the email to my order, return product, and chose "product not what was descrived" as the reason) and I had a refund as Amazon credit, without having to return the item instantly. If you're talking about the $/£5-10 phone case/misc cable market, ordering off amazon is significantly less hassle then the alternatives (going to a random "phone shop" on the high street, ordering from eBay, or ordering from AliExpress), and likely as error prone.
    - megous 6y ago
      If only removing your account from Amazon was as hassle free.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      That's not good customer service. Good customer service is not wasting my time with any of that bullshit in the first place.
    - bootlooped 6y ago
      I have never had a problem getting partial to full refunds on Ali Express. Even if I never got a refund though, I think I would still come out ahead due to how much lower the prices are. Break even, assuming you could never get a refund, would be if the failure rate and average discount were the same. My experience is that the discount is >60% and failure rate is <15%.
giarc 6y ago
There was a popular blog post awhile ago where a guy wrote a script to buy a random item for $0.99 everyday. It would automatically get sent to his house and so he was always getting surprise deliveries since the script would decide what to buy.
- sly010 6y ago
  You might be remembering this: https://xkcd.com/576/ https://xkcd.com/576/
- tobylane 6y ago
  It was xkcd inspired, and now only the twitter feed lives on. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/576:_Packages https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/576:_Packages https://web.archive.org/web/20150116084115/http://www.urlesque.com/2010/11/09/xkcd-comic-script-to-buy-ebay/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150116084115/http://www.urlesq... https://mobile.twitter.com/trademe_xkcd576 https://mobile.twitter.com/trademe_xkcd576
tru3_power 6y ago
You should look into getting a 3D printer. I’ve found that most of the time I can just easily print the random things I would normally buy on amazon (cases, organizers, etc). And if I can’t find a good design already online, I’ll try to make it myself. Really fun hobby.
ryandrake 6y ago
After RadioShack collapsed and Fry's turned into a Cellphone store (note: RadioShack also pivoted towards Cellphones before it died), the only place I could buy a 2 pack of capacitors for a few cents + free shipping was on eBay or Aliexpress. If this "hole" is closed it makes me a little sad.

dis-sys 6y ago

just checked taobao.com, the cheapest phone case was 5 RMB or $0.7 USD including shipping. so it is actually cheaper to buy the same stuff from the US and get it shipped half of the world.

kevindong 6y ago
If you want it, you can buy a $0.50 iPhone 5 case with free shipping from Aliexpress right now: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001089727974.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001089727974.html Alternatively, you could buy a $0.06 phone stand with free shipping: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001172525823.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001172525823.html
rahimnathwani 6y ago
Cheapest I saw on taobao just now was 3 RMB including shipping: https://m.tb.cn/h.VpeyELi?sm=ddc20e https://m.tb.cn/h.VpeyELi?sm=ddc20e Opened the taobao android app, searched for 手机套, filtered by 包邮 (shipping included) and sorted by price.
balola 6y ago
In the case of phone cases, you can get Chinese domestic shipping costs as low as $0.2 if your daily volume is high enough. It's a special offer tho, since it's light weight and compact. And yes, shipping companies can still make normal profit on these. From this standpoint, your example isn't nearly the cheapest it can get. Sellers regularly offer entirely free ones in exchange for reviews.

14 6y ago

I used to buy costume jewelry for my kid (before deciding cheap metals on my kids skin is probably a really bad idea) from eBay and would search for jewelry listings ending in an hour and search for anything under a dollar and with free shipping. I would bid on them last second and try win. I have had a 5cent phone case sent to me and thought this is insane. It was like a game just to see if I could win because I was bidding pennies and shipping always free.

kevindong 6y ago
Yeah personally I wouldn't buy anything that'd be in constant contact with my body or would have non-battery-powered electricity flowing through it.

NicoJuicy 6y ago

It actually is not. If you consider taxes pay for the shipping ( and not subsidies from China). It's ridiculous

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
The fractional cost of a single phone cover on a container ship crossing the pacific is... extremely low. Large container ships hold 14,000 TEU (twenty-foot-equiv) containers, each of which has a volume of 33m^3. Let's use an iPhone's size as a stand-in for the phone cover: it's 173 x 70 x 8mm. Divide the first by the latter: (14000 * 33m^3) / (143mm * 71mm 8mm), and, as google will helpfully tell us (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk019-22DbqgT-dvyea4z64BPRXGL6w%3A1593416523827&ei=S5v5XrOLMs3UsAeFrIX4DA&q=%2814000+*+33m%5E3%29+%2F+%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29&oq=%2814000+*+33m%5E3%29+%2F+%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQRzoICCEQFhAdEB5QwC5Y_8gBYPXdAWgAcAF4AIABbogB9w-SAQQyMy4ymAEAoAECoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjz3IaPw6bqAhVNKuwKHQVWAc8Q4dUDCAs&uact=5 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALe...) you can ship 5.6x10^9, or 5.6 billion of these on a single ship. From some related information it seems shipping rates for a single container are around $1,000 for China->US. Plug that in and the costs are ... $0.002, or 1/5th of a cent: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk03V0mVU96WhPcko_DiohGxB13fsBg%3A1593416975265&ei=D535XsjbD8-dsAeE7qroBw&q=%28%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29+%2F+33m%5E3%29+*+%241000&oq=%28%28143mm+*+71mm+*8mm%29+%2F+33m%5E3%29+*+%241000&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQR1DJWViYuQFg9L0BaABwAXgAgAF1iAGbBJIBAzYuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwiIn6jmxKbqAhXPDuwKHQS3Cn0Q4dUDCAs&uact=5 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALe... I may be off by an order of magnitude somewhere. But it just feels intuitively obvious that most of the costs of any delivery are incurred during the 15 seconds or so the mailman spends in your driveway or trying to find the mailbox with your name.
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  No, that's about right - containerised freight is extremely cheap. I just shipped an ATV, about 1.5m3, 250kg, from China to Europe for about $180 - and $150 of that is port handling and freight forwarding fees, the actual shipping part was $32.

walkingolof 6y ago

The hidden cost is the enormous strain it puts on the environment...

thih9 6y ago
Do you have a source for that or can you elaborate? Since the delivery time is so long, I’d expect the parcel gets shipped with multiple others. The only items that get shipped are the ones that have been actually bought, which sounds efficient. Of course there are negative aspects too and I wouldn’t know if the overall outcome is positive or negative, when compared to buying a product from Amazon. Again, a link or more details would be very helpful.
- mcv 6y ago
  Of course it gets shipped with others, and if delivery takes weeks or months, it probably gets shipped fairly efficiently by sea. But it still gets shipped over a long distance. I'd rather see more local products and less intercontinental shipment except in cases where it's unavoidable. Besides, a lot of products on AliExpress don't actually meet western safety standards. They're not allowed to be imported and sold here, but you can buy them abroad and ship them to a private customer. But they still won't meet our standards.
  - zuppy 6y ago
    I don't really see a difference, as most of the consummer products are built in China and get shipped anyway... I'm not denying the environmetal impact, but that's not from Ali Express, it's from us building everything there because it's cheaper.
    - mcv 6y ago
      There is an important difference between products built there and sold there, and products built there and sold here. The product have to obey safety and other standards of the country where they're sold. And those standards differ quite a lot between the EU and China. They can use banned chemicals, and fail many other requirements. In the EU, products that conform to EU standards can be identified with a 'CE' logo[0], which means "Conformité Européenne". "Chinese Export" can have a deceptively similar logo[1] that does not guarantee such adherence at all, but still looks comforting to European customers of Chinese web shops. It's a blatant violation, but hard to stop, because it's a foreign sale shipped to private customers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking [1] https://siloscordoba.com/blog/corporate/china-export-is-not-ce-a-symbol-to-cause-confusion/ https://siloscordoba.com/blog/corporate/china-export-is-not-...

gadders 6y ago

I think the other thing you get when buying from Amazon is an easier a return process and hopefully some level of QA.

SkyMarshal 6y ago
Given Amazon’s flood of ALL-CAPS trash brands from rando dropshippers in recent years, plus fake reviews, is it realistic to expect QA from Amazon?
- maccard 6y ago
  No, but the customer service is still unparalleled. I ordered a cable, and the one I got wasn't the one I ordered. I clicked three buttons, (link from the email to my order, return product, and chose "product not what was descrived" as the reason) and I had a refund as Amazon credit, without having to return the item instantly. If you're talking about the $/£5-10 phone case/misc cable market, ordering off amazon is significantly less hassle then the alternatives (going to a random "phone shop" on the high street, ordering from eBay, or ordering from AliExpress), and likely as error prone.
  - megous 6y ago
    If only removing your account from Amazon was as hassle free.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    That's not good customer service. Good customer service is not wasting my time with any of that bullshit in the first place.
  - bootlooped 6y ago
    I have never had a problem getting partial to full refunds on Ali Express. Even if I never got a refund though, I think I would still come out ahead due to how much lower the prices are. Break even, assuming you could never get a refund, would be if the failure rate and average discount were the same. My experience is that the discount is >60% and failure rate is <15%.

giarc 6y ago

There was a popular blog post awhile ago where a guy wrote a script to buy a random item for $0.99 everyday. It would automatically get sent to his house and so he was always getting surprise deliveries since the script would decide what to buy.

sly010 6y ago
You might be remembering this: https://xkcd.com/576/ https://xkcd.com/576/
tobylane 6y ago
It was xkcd inspired, and now only the twitter feed lives on. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/576:_Packages https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/576:_Packages https://web.archive.org/web/20150116084115/http://www.urlesque.com/2010/11/09/xkcd-comic-script-to-buy-ebay/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150116084115/http://www.urlesq... https://mobile.twitter.com/trademe_xkcd576 https://mobile.twitter.com/trademe_xkcd576

tru3_power 6y ago

You should look into getting a 3D printer. I’ve found that most of the time I can just easily print the random things I would normally buy on amazon (cases, organizers, etc). And if I can’t find a good design already online, I’ll try to make it myself. Really fun hobby.

ryandrake 6y ago

After RadioShack collapsed and Fry's turned into a Cellphone store (note: RadioShack also pivoted towards Cellphones before it died), the only place I could buy a 2 pack of capacitors for a few cents + free shipping was on eBay or Aliexpress. If this "hole" is closed it makes me a little sad.