What are your experiences with Alibaba, Alixpress, Banggood, Made-in-China/India, etc?

Back in 2000, made-in-china was my go to site to find stuff that was "questionable" in the US. You could order anything you wanted from hard drugs to the newest computer hardware (which is why I found it, the drugs part was just plastered all over the site to get people to buy it). When I mean hard drugs, I mean ecstacy, heroin (using scientific name), xanax, steroids (TONS of that, that is why HS, college and pro sports had such a problem, they were 2-3% the price as in the states - so a $100 bottle in the US was like $2-3 in China!) There were banned weight loss drugs (phen-phen), ADD meds, you name it. But it has cleaned upit's act since about 2008-2012 or so. All that is stil there, especially if yo have old suppliers names/addy's, but you have to look for the "code words" to find that stuff. No need for "darkweb" when it's being sold on the largest online marketplace with guaranteed shipment and price protection!

I'm now into electronics now, stuff that is hard to find or expensive in the states, or custom stuff, or ingredients for stuff I make where the price is about 5-10% of what it is in the US sellers (and shipping is often free! or like $1 or 2-3% of total). I had 5, 5gallon buckets shipped of heavy stuff for just under $20 (for shipping) from China to Philly in 23 days. Had I shipped it 65miles to my house (us shipper) it would have been over $300, more than the entire purchase price! I had the option of $35-50 for an "uber like delivery" service or free to pick up in port. You can't beat those prices!

SO I'm wondering if anyone has used any of those Asian market sites and what are your experiences with them?

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Alibaba is for major bulk like ordering entire shipping containers worth of each thing.

Aliexpress is Alibaba's little sisters lemonaide stand, and its amazing place to discover for an inventor that came up just before AOL invented the Internet. The little individual component parts (the parts that "products" are made of. In the US for like 100 years it was all setup that customers couldnt buy direct from factories. In fact it still is. This bizarre "authorized distributor model" thing. Of course there's every kind of end user product too. Someone into selling at like flea markets that place is the cutting edge of novelty items.

Totally legit in terms of legal stuff, aside from bootleg gaming type stuff.

Except for the seeds. Only the seed packs that come in you can see the photo of the mfg printed and sealed 'proper seed packs' are to be triffled with. The rest are ALL fake. Dont even try it. The baggies that come are deliberately not marked for the type in them, and when you pull up seed photos of the species you ordered they wont match ANY of the baggies. NONE of them will.

Those same scam sellers also play in ebay and amazon, although their products wouldnt arrive by amazon FBA I dont think. So watch the chinese seed sellers on those sites too.

And note every day more and more of all the same stuff in aliexpress can arrive by amazon fba because of course anybody can order the stuff from over there and list it in amazon and send it in to them.

I try to avoid anything Made in China due to the Chinese disgraceful human rights record. I put my money where my mouth is where I can.

I made my first Alibaba purchases just recently. I am getting back in to eCommerce and am looking to have a handful of items I can turn quick and ship with a stamp.

I’m just getting started back up selling but I love picking old goodies and turning a profit. So I was specifically looking for certain items to add to my shop that I could turn and burn.

There are so many different sellers on Alibaba and I’m sure many of them are not good. But they have a verification system and you get to work directly with them. You can even get items custom made, so when I get in to branding later on, I already stumbled on a company that designs metal coins.

My first purchase the deal was sealed and I paid, the next day they told me the manufacturer was out. I thought they were manufacturers but that’s not always the case. Regardless they were professional and quick and I received my refund right away.

My next order was a success and the shipping was super quick!

I haven’t found a source in the US that enables this sort of transaction, but a few years back I joined Worldwide Brands and plan to sift through that again.

I also want to find a few local artisans and buy some of their product to sale in my eShop.

I think the key is to research the company and diversify your sources.

I love to sell!

originally posted by: paraphi
I try to avoid anything Made in China due to the Chinese disgraceful human rights record. I put my money where my mouth is where I can.

Good luck with that!