5 ms·

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what'

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

nothercastle 1y ago
I prefer eBay at least it’s cheaper and the sellers care about reputation
- consp 1y ago
  With ebay the delivery time for small items is measured in months or >= 200% of the product cost, and you either have to deal with gsp and the shit delivery they use or with DHL's insanely costly customs clearance. Probably only worth it if you live in the US.
  - Piosky 1y ago
    [dead]
  - varjag 1y ago
    Ebay is not the best for dropshipped Chinese crap. It's markedly better for about anything else.
  - alexandre_m 1y ago
    If you buy from china, it’s going to take weeks. If you buy from US and live in Canada, you’re going to pay a lot of customs. In 2007, I bought a used MacBook on Ebay for $870, with shipping it was about $900. That was back when the currency was on parity. It arrived with $300 custom fees. I could have bought a new one at that price.
  - nothercastle 1y ago
    If you pay about 5-10% more you can get it from a us based drop shipper. Obviously if you buy it from china you might as well get it from aliexpress
Scoundreller 1y ago
At least for what I buy from aliexpress, it hasn’t been infiltrated by fake reviews. Lots of incomprehensible or useless human ones though. (And bad machine translations by aliexpress…)
- jorvi 1y ago
  The problem with AliExpress is that you'll get a tip about time X, you click the link and the link is dead. You then search for thing X. You get about 1000 results of X from different sellers, most of them crap imitations and some of them even from stores that copy the name of former store of product X. All of the product pages look identical. One of these Results of X is still selling the actual quality product, but there is no way for you to ascertain it because you can't trust the reviews, nor the sold amount because they might as well just be good at tricking people.
  - carterschonwald 1y ago
    Amusingly: when it comes to clones of very fancy western knives, all these problems go away because those duplicates are largely all from the same factory, and there’s even premium cloning brands which have duplicate store fronts
    - mh- 1y ago
      This is true of a lot of product types, but there is often a QC process that happens for the "premier" name brand that they were manufactured for. And these "duplicates" are frequently the irregulars that didn't make the cut. In the case of knives, they may be perfectly fine. Or QC's spot testing of that batch may have revealed defects in the metal, and a small number of them may shatter unexpectedly. This is why I'm fine buying some categories of items from AliExpress et al., and not others.
    - jorvi 1y ago
      What kind of knives are we talking about? I have a Leatherman Skeletool and a Buck 110 knife, and both are such high quality for what feels like a reasonable price (especially considering the warranty), I just can't imagine chinesium beating it. Yes, I know Nextool exists, but I would just be too wary that there's gonna be a batch where the factory or QC skimped on quality. Snapping a multi-tool or even worse a knife can have serious consequences.
mrweasel 1y ago
I kinda dropped using Amazon, both on principle, but also because they can't compete anymore. Amazon isn't exactly cheaper anymore, certainly not when you factor in shipping, their shipping times are awful, typically a week or more and you can't trust the reviews. They do have the larger selection of stuff, so if you can bundle a whole bunch of things it might still make sense. The problem is that you can't really find anything anymore and a large percentage of the stuff that you can only get on Amazon does not ship to your country.
- Piosky 1y ago
  >typically a week or more I don't think there's a typical delivery speed at all as it depends massively on how close you live to one of their distribution centres. I can get most shit from Amazon next day where I live, some times same day if I pay extra (I don't) as I live only a few miles from one.
- throwaway173738 1y ago
  Yeah my partner and I quit using them because we’d buy like 5-10 things and return them all because of issues like not matching the product listing or being garbage quality. The last straw was when they clawed back a return refund 4 times on the same return. Each time she would have to call them to get it reinstated.
varispeed 1y ago
If something is not remotely up to standard, do a return. I know it's bad for the planet, but it is rather painful for them and probably only stick there is.
- throwaway_20357 1y ago
  It is even worse for the planet when scammers keep flooding the market with low-quality products, a majority of people become accustomed to low quality and short replacement cycles, and the minority who cares about quality and product safety has to go through the returns process today but has no high quality options left anymore tomorrow as there is no longer a market for them.
  - pkolaczk 1y ago
    The stuff on aliexpress is not low quality. I mean, some for sure is if you look for the cheapest items, but there is plenty of solid quality stuff there as well.
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
Amazon is great for returns. Buy $50 something from aliexpress, doesn't work, you can't do anything. Seller wont refund directly, you need to send the item back... to china... and fill out export forms and pay more than $50 for registered mail. Amazon? Doesn't work? Doesn't matter why, here's the return label, we'll refund you the moment we get the return.
- Washuu 1y ago
  I just returned something on AliExpress last week.(Wrong items sent.) Sagawa showed up at my door to collect the package, I paid nothing, and AliExpress refunded me before it even left the country once Sagawa notified them that the package was collected. So it really depends where you live.
- ljf 1y ago
  I've never had to return to AliExpress - if I've had an issue they (AliExpress) have just instantly refunded me without having to go through the seller(admittedly this is maybe 2 items in nearly 10 years). Similar with Temu - my wife ordered some homeware that was awful and looked nothing like the pictures - Temu provided a pre-paid returns label for some of it, and the rest just refunded and said 'please donate locally'. I forget the clothing company (wasn't Shein but similar) again same - she kept some, but most of it needed retuning - within minutes she had a refund and 'please keep or donate the unwanted clothing' - simpler than many UK companies returns policies.
- pkolaczk 1y ago
  The thing is, you paid for that in the price which is often 3x more for the same thing you could get on Aliexpress. I bought plenty of stuff on Aliexpress and I had issue only once when I got something different than I ordered. Overall even if I lost on that one purchase a bit, I saved plenty of money on other purchases. And they have a lot of stuff that's simply unavailable elsewhere. Even if they sold me some counterfeit transistors, those must be really good counterfeits, because they measure fine.
driverdan 1y ago
Most of the Chinese crap sold on Amazon is identical to what you find on AliExpress and Temu marked up 50-200%.
- OJFord 1y ago
  Yeah but honestly unless it's a repeat purchase, I'll pay it for the customer service (and ordering experience frankly) being similarly up 5,000-20,000%.

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

nothercastle 1y ago

I prefer eBay at least it’s cheaper and the sellers care about reputation

consp 1y ago
With ebay the delivery time for small items is measured in months or >= 200% of the product cost, and you either have to deal with gsp and the shit delivery they use or with DHL's insanely costly customs clearance. Probably only worth it if you live in the US.
- Piosky 1y ago
  [dead]
- varjag 1y ago
  Ebay is not the best for dropshipped Chinese crap. It's markedly better for about anything else.
- alexandre_m 1y ago
  If you buy from china, it’s going to take weeks. If you buy from US and live in Canada, you’re going to pay a lot of customs. In 2007, I bought a used MacBook on Ebay for $870, with shipping it was about $900. That was back when the currency was on parity. It arrived with $300 custom fees. I could have bought a new one at that price.
- nothercastle 1y ago
  If you pay about 5-10% more you can get it from a us based drop shipper. Obviously if you buy it from china you might as well get it from aliexpress

Scoundreller 1y ago

At least for what I buy from aliexpress, it hasn’t been infiltrated by fake reviews. Lots of incomprehensible or useless human ones though. (And bad machine translations by aliexpress…)

jorvi 1y ago
The problem with AliExpress is that you'll get a tip about time X, you click the link and the link is dead. You then search for thing X. You get about 1000 results of X from different sellers, most of them crap imitations and some of them even from stores that copy the name of former store of product X. All of the product pages look identical. One of these Results of X is still selling the actual quality product, but there is no way for you to ascertain it because you can't trust the reviews, nor the sold amount because they might as well just be good at tricking people.
- carterschonwald 1y ago
  Amusingly: when it comes to clones of very fancy western knives, all these problems go away because those duplicates are largely all from the same factory, and there’s even premium cloning brands which have duplicate store fronts
  - mh- 1y ago
    This is true of a lot of product types, but there is often a QC process that happens for the "premier" name brand that they were manufactured for. And these "duplicates" are frequently the irregulars that didn't make the cut. In the case of knives, they may be perfectly fine. Or QC's spot testing of that batch may have revealed defects in the metal, and a small number of them may shatter unexpectedly. This is why I'm fine buying some categories of items from AliExpress et al., and not others.
  - jorvi 1y ago
    What kind of knives are we talking about? I have a Leatherman Skeletool and a Buck 110 knife, and both are such high quality for what feels like a reasonable price (especially considering the warranty), I just can't imagine chinesium beating it. Yes, I know Nextool exists, but I would just be too wary that there's gonna be a batch where the factory or QC skimped on quality. Snapping a multi-tool or even worse a knife can have serious consequences.

mrweasel 1y ago

I kinda dropped using Amazon, both on principle, but also because they can't compete anymore. Amazon isn't exactly cheaper anymore, certainly not when you factor in shipping, their shipping times are awful, typically a week or more and you can't trust the reviews. They do have the larger selection of stuff, so if you can bundle a whole bunch of things it might still make sense. The problem is that you can't really find anything anymore and a large percentage of the stuff that you can only get on Amazon does not ship to your country.

Piosky 1y ago
>typically a week or more I don't think there's a typical delivery speed at all as it depends massively on how close you live to one of their distribution centres. I can get most shit from Amazon next day where I live, some times same day if I pay extra (I don't) as I live only a few miles from one.
throwaway173738 1y ago
Yeah my partner and I quit using them because we’d buy like 5-10 things and return them all because of issues like not matching the product listing or being garbage quality. The last straw was when they clawed back a return refund 4 times on the same return. Each time she would have to call them to get it reinstated.

varispeed 1y ago

If something is not remotely up to standard, do a return. I know it's bad for the planet, but it is rather painful for them and probably only stick there is.

throwaway_20357 1y ago
It is even worse for the planet when scammers keep flooding the market with low-quality products, a majority of people become accustomed to low quality and short replacement cycles, and the minority who cares about quality and product safety has to go through the returns process today but has no high quality options left anymore tomorrow as there is no longer a market for them.
- pkolaczk 1y ago
  The stuff on aliexpress is not low quality. I mean, some for sure is if you look for the cheapest items, but there is plenty of solid quality stuff there as well.

ajsnigrutin 1y ago

Amazon is great for returns. Buy $50 something from aliexpress, doesn't work, you can't do anything. Seller wont refund directly, you need to send the item back... to china... and fill out export forms and pay more than $50 for registered mail. Amazon? Doesn't work? Doesn't matter why, here's the return label, we'll refund you the moment we get the return.

Washuu 1y ago
I just returned something on AliExpress last week.(Wrong items sent.) Sagawa showed up at my door to collect the package, I paid nothing, and AliExpress refunded me before it even left the country once Sagawa notified them that the package was collected. So it really depends where you live.
ljf 1y ago
I've never had to return to AliExpress - if I've had an issue they (AliExpress) have just instantly refunded me without having to go through the seller(admittedly this is maybe 2 items in nearly 10 years). Similar with Temu - my wife ordered some homeware that was awful and looked nothing like the pictures - Temu provided a pre-paid returns label for some of it, and the rest just refunded and said 'please donate locally'. I forget the clothing company (wasn't Shein but similar) again same - she kept some, but most of it needed retuning - within minutes she had a refund and 'please keep or donate the unwanted clothing' - simpler than many UK companies returns policies.
pkolaczk 1y ago
The thing is, you paid for that in the price which is often 3x more for the same thing you could get on Aliexpress. I bought plenty of stuff on Aliexpress and I had issue only once when I got something different than I ordered. Overall even if I lost on that one purchase a bit, I saved plenty of money on other purchases. And they have a lot of stuff that's simply unavailable elsewhere. Even if they sold me some counterfeit transistors, those must be really good counterfeits, because they measure fine.

driverdan 1y ago

Most of the Chinese crap sold on Amazon is identical to what you find on AliExpress and Temu marked up 50-200%.

OJFord 1y ago
Yeah but honestly unless it's a repeat purchase, I'll pay it for the customer service (and ordering experience frankly) being similarly up 5,000-20,000%.