Alibaba.com - How trustworthy is it?

POWER2

My name is Power²
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Speaking specifically to people who do not live in Asia.

Alibaba-Flat-imac.png


OVERALL EXPERIENCE
What are you experiences placing orders on Alibaba, shipping costs, shipping speed, customs issues, extra taxes?

SCAMMERS
Also, site seems littered with bullshitters, who are selling crap from their house. Hard to tell what's legit and not.

TRUSTED SELLERS
Are there a list of trusted Alibaba vendors that westerners should use for certain products?

CELLPHONES
Also, anyone tried any Asian cellphones designed to compete with Apple and Samsung? I hear some are really good, but most are crap. Do they come unlocked? Can you use them with Verizon? T-Mobile? Sprint?

CLOTHES
What about clothes? How bad is sizing discrepancy?

Alibaba seems like a low-rent eBay. True?
 
Its a crap shoot I'm sure. I used to buy psychedelic drugs and cathinones off there like 10 years ago till I found more reliable sources
 
My good friend is a reseller. Him and his wife do it fulltime and order some stuff from Alibaba. They rebrand many items. Sell most on ebay/amazon. Like anything else I'm guessing it will depend on the seller. They prefer to get things straight from Shenzhen, but can be difficult since their operation is simply not big enough.
 
I've only heard of this from drop-shipping, didn't look at other things they sell. Now I'm curious
 
Isn't alibaba the website where you need to buy like 100 of an item? It's for resellers, not particulars.

I've used aliexpress a bunch of times, that's where they sell stuff individually. I bought like 10 different things, everything arrived. Got a new leather strap for my watch, great quality and like 30$ less than what I would have paid at a jeweler's. Got a copy of a designer backpack, it's a really good copy, you can't tell unless you touched it. You gotta check out the seller's feedback and the item feedback. Also I wouldn't spend big money on anything there, I had 10/10 good experiences but you still don't really know what you're getting. It's great for smaller stuff that's cheaper / you don't care that much about.
 
Isn't alibaba the website where you need to buy like 100 of an item? It's for resellers, not particulars.

I've used aliexpress a bunch of times, that's where they sell stuff individually. I bought like 10 different things, everything arrived. Got a new leather strap for my watch, great quality and like 30$ less than what I would have paid at a jeweler's. Got a copy of a designer backpack, it's a really good copy, you can't tell unless you touched it. You gotta check out the seller's feedback and the item feedback. Also I wouldn't spend big money on anything there, I had 10/10 good experiences but you still don't really know what you're getting. It's great for smaller stuff that's cheaper / you don't care that much about.
I've toyed with buying items for Aliexpress dozens of times. But again, the site design looks so shoddy, I can't be convinced that I won't be scammed.
 
I've toyed with buying items for Aliexpress dozens of times. But again, the site design looks so shoddy, I can't be convinced that I won't be scammed.
ooohh dubs. You did anything edgy today?
SharpHarmfulIrrawaddydolphin-size_restricted.gif
 
Aliexpress and Alibaba are both legit. Alibaba for bulk items.
 
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CELLPHONES
Also, anyone tried any Asian cellphones designed to compete with Apple and Samsung? I hear some are really good, but most are crap. Do they come unlocked? Can you use them with Verizon? T-Mobile? Sprint?
............
Theres a smartphone thread on Mayberry which you can look up and ask there.
It depends on where you are, if you're in America, nearly all non-contract Chinese phones don't work there. Huawei is probably the only well known brand that can stand up to high end Apple/Samsung which sells its owns officially in the US so you'll get warranty, and is compatible with the US networks. Xiaomi is the up and comer with more questions about its quality.
If you buy from online stores, it should be unlocked but you have to check the description to see if its the right version with compatible US bands or it might only work well in Asia/EU.

If you are asking about cheap phones then probably all of them only have limited compatibility with few bands so it depends on where you are using the phone. T-Mobile and AT&T are the most compatible.
 
Theres a smartphone thread on Mayberry which you can look up and ask there.
It depends on where you are, if you're in America, nearly all non-contract Chinese phones don't work there. Huawei is probably the only well known brand that can stand up to high end Apple/Samsung which sells its owns officially in the US so you'll get warranty, and is compatible with the US networks. Xiaomi is the up and comer with more questions about its quality.
If you buy from online stores, it should be unlocked but you have to check the description to see if its the right version with compatible US bands or it might only work well in Asia/EU.

If you are asking about cheap phones then probably all of them only have limited compatibility with few bands so it depends on where you are using the phone. T-Mobile and AT&T are the most compatible.
Xiaomi was well established first before Huawei. It's just recently that Huawei is respected. Xiaomi is the Chinese brand that people could rely on.
 
Xiaomi was well established first before Huawei. It's just recently that Huawei is respected. Xiaomi is the Chinese brand that people could rely on.
Huawei was in business since the 80s and started their phone business earlier than Xiaomi. Maybe Xiaomi is more well known in some regions but it was always the upstart company relying on word of mouth marketing and online sales rather than brick and mortar shops.
Xiaomi seems to have more complaints about quality and the same phone model can have camera modules and lcd from different manufacturers giving different results eg. colder/warmer display colors.
 
Huawei was in business since the 80s and started their phone business earlier than Xiaomi. Maybe Xiaomi is more well known in some regions but it was always the upstart company relying on word of mouth marketing and online sales rather than brick and mortar shops.
Xiaomi seems to have more complaints about quality and the same phone model can have camera modules and lcd from different manufacturers giving different results eg. colder/warmer display colors.
I never looked into Huawei's background but Xiami was the one (for me) that changed the Chinese smartphone landscape. That's why I bought Meizu. Lol!
 
I never looked into Huawei's background but Xiami was the one (for me) that changed the Chinese smartphone landscape. That's why I bought Meizu. Lol!
I think the older Meizu phones could not have playstore preinstalled because of legal issues with google. So they could only install a hacked Chinese google playstore app, but things changed last year.
 
As others have mentioned Alibaba is a bulk sales portal. I have sourced bulk items from manufacturers via Alibaba and the process works fairly well.

If you mean Aliexpress because you want to buy individual items then its too hard to say without specifics. I wouldn't call it a low-rent ebay though, given many of the sellers there will also be selling on Ebay.

Chinese phones like Huawei and Xiaomi (the one I use) are perfectly fine, but you'll need to check the radio band to ensure you can use 4G within the US on your network. The aptly named

https://willmyphonework.net/

will tell you will your phone work on your network. Chinese sets will not ship with Google Play however it is easily installed. You phone will most likely not have a warranty though.
 
I think the older Meizu phones could not have playstore preinstalled because of legal issues with google. So they could only install a hacked Chinese google playstore app, but things changed last year.
My 2015 meizu comes preinstalled with google playstore. My daughter still uses it. I'm actually looking at their snapdragon models and thinking of getting one.
 
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