I’m curious what sorta finds you guys have had
Temu is just driving the social media impulse “buy buy buy you need it buy it now!!” Culture when in reality their stuff is crap, and even for the cheap prices… You probably weren’t going to buy it anyway. They are really striving in being a shitty company that’s bad for us and the planet.
Good video here that explains more of how they’re just manipulating us to buy more: https://youtu.be/7hGD5Cz_now
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TikTok and them just fuel each other to create fake fomo and it’s so crappy. They target kids so hard and take advantage of them wanting to fit in, and get them to just spend money on crap they didn’t need to buy anyway. Not to mention they’ve pushed fashion cycles to be faster to make people think that top they bought 2 months ago is useless and should be thrown out.
The top from 2 months ago frequently does need to be thrown out, because it’s so poorly made it lasts only a couple of washes. Even the waste-pickers in the Ghana landfills don’t want it.
ClimateTown really drove home how hilariously bad fashion is for basically everyone
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Some things on Temu are complete trash but some are really good for the cash. They have a HUGE range of pin badges for less than a dollar, I’ve seen some of the more expensive ones ($2) sold for $10+ on other marketplaces like Amazon.
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Capitalism in a nutshell. “Yeah it kills the planet and harms others and there may be forced labor involved, but idc, that’s other people’s problems”.
Not guilt tripping btw, just stating facts. I don’t and won’t buy for them.
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I feel like AliExpress and temu aren’t really equivalent. Temu makes it seem like you’re, well I guess the tagline is shop like a billionaire. Aliexpress doesn’t exactly hide the fact it’s a cheap Chinese market.
Temu is very obviously a bunch of low-grade tat though. Who feels like a billionaire buying such crap?
Aren’t they the same sweatshop slave-labor factory goods though?
Not that it’s possible to completely avoid goods which are made via exploitation, but I assumed they’re just an alternate outlet / search page for the same distributors and factories.
Probably. I’ve never used temu tbh but my understanding is it tries to present itself as not.
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Skeletons in their closet and actively using slave labor are very different things, not that I blame you entirely, it’s not your fault companies like nestle own so fucking much it’s impossible to keep track of.
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Nestle actually have done a lot. Amnesty report shows they are one of the most ethical companies now.
How much did they pay you to say that?
The latest thing I saw from Amnesty International about Nestle was praise for Nestle for publicly announcing unprompted that they had found slavery in their supply chain . Is that how low the bar is to be “the most ethical”, or is there an actual report making this claim?
If you don’t find slavery in your supply chain once in a while you are probably not even looking. Finding it is the first step to elimination.
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So do I, do yourself a favor and find a local candy or chocolate shop. They’ll probably have something that is basically the same thing but vastly superior and not nestle. I know you’re just being a troll at this point but seriously do.
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Wasn’t trying to, have a good night man.
It’s a bit different to grab a snack at the counter (that’s likely partly produced in your country) than wait 1-2 months for a product to even arrive. Call it a convenience factor or whatever.
That said, I don’t know what kind of labor AliExpress goods use. Haven’t used them for a couple years but if I knew for sure (maybe someone here knows?) they used slave labor for example I probably would just choose to use some other company (which probably is just as likely to have unethical practices in some point of their supply chain tbf).
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Sure I agree to a degree but choosing a product which you know uses 100% slave labor to save a penny is downright evil. (And this is exaggeration obviously before anyone butts in.)
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They’re useless trash that are polluting the planet
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yeah you’re right, we should just throw in the towel? tf? im gonna guess you couldnt give af about slave labor either?
No, we shouldn’t throw in the towel. That’s just giving up! We should actively pour fuel on our neighbour’s house fire and admire the pretty extra destruction it creates while we can. Immediate gratification is worth burning everyone’s house to the ground, including my own. /s
Sadly apathy is a common reaction to huge overwhelming problems. And it makes sense, emotionally distancing yourself from the suffering of others can be necessary to still function in horrible emergency situations like natural disasters. Unfortunately it also makes this problem, like many others, worse.
But we all do it, to different degrees. And it’s human. We can’t fix everything simultaneously. Those of us who are still able to empathise with strangers to some extent will have to do more work, or we become the problem too.
Sorry. This post isn’t targetted at you personally, I just am sad about the destruction of civilisations and the suffering people can inflict and this post came tumbling out. My coping mechanism is loud spontaneous complaining.
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1 person not buying when 10 other people would do it anyway equals 10 sales instead of 11. It makes a difference.
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Ok.
I sometimes use AliExpress for DIY electronics like microcontrollers and other components. An Esp32 usually costs around 8-12 euros in Europe. On AliExpress I buy them for 3 (plus shipping). Its worth it if you are buying more than just a few. Shipping is usually slow but if its not urgent its cheap and so far of good/ decent quality.
I did also buy a small industrial camera on there which did not work. I contacted the seller and after some troubleshooting they agreed to ship a new camera to me (still waiting on that one) but in principle I am satisfied with the service for the price I payed.
AliExpress is the best place to buy electronics online. If you know you’ll need some stuff, just place an order for a few dollars, wait a month, and have your cheap eletronics for as long as you need.
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I use AliExpress for electrical parts (except anything with memory), 3D printer parts, and small crap I don’t mind waiting for, but never anything I would be angry about if it never arrived. Also, nothing I consume or wear or need for safety, and I’m wary of anything that’s supposed to be plugged into the wall for long periods of time unattended.
I wouldn’t say I’ve been surprised, but my expectations are low. It’s all cheap stuff, but as long as you’re not needing the stuff you buy, it’s fine. Dollar store quality with the scent of plastic and cigarettes.
That being said, beware of scams. The one that seems acceptable to them is to list one cheap part for the listing, along with variations of the full device. That way it looks like the lowest price in search results, but when you click it, the selected variation is the cheap part. Like, you’ll search for “pliers set” and see a listing for $1, compared to others around $15. When you select it, the product page will have a carrying case for $1 and the various pliers for twice as much as the competition. What’s better is that the case will be selected automatically, not the thing in the picture you clicked on or the picture you see first in the product pages’ gallery.
There are also scam stores that pop up with super low prices compared to others on the site can disappear overnight and the cancellation/refund process is a super pain. Contact customer service once and just submit a claim with your CC company. Their refund process will try to keep telling you to wait for another week, and that includes the reps you get on chat. If you’re suspicious and still order, always follow the shipping info. They will estimate a reasonable delivery date, you’ll get a shipping notification, but it will sit in limbo. The shipping folks are separate from the scammers, so if you see the package actually move towards a shipping center, you’re in the clear. If it says they received shipping information for over a week, you got screwed.
Ignore flash drives/SSDs, batteries, and assume any flashlights are 1/100th the brightness claimed (literally). Oh, and watch shipping costs. Something with free shipping can be 10x the price of the product if you add a second one to your cart.
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Actually there are some really good flashlights on AE. But you need to know which brands to look for and they’re not cheap.
True. They created their own problem by trying to up each other’s lumens claims over and over to the point where decent flashlights are claimed to have 5.6 million lumens and included 25000mAh 18650s.
Most of the $5+ flashlights are probably fine for most people’s needs. I have several and they’ve been fine for me. Different models, similar modes, similar brightness, and all fine for walking the dog or if the power goes out. Now, if I were relying on them for survival, I might think twice. All have held up fine, including the 12 year old one from dealextreme (pre-alibaba). But, since I don’t know if people are asking for recommendations where spec accuracy matters, I’m hesitant to recommend them to random people on the internet.
(I had to check, just for fun, and there are 18650 batteries listed as 19900mAh. Pretty impressive, since Panasonic is capped out at 3500-3600.)
The one that seems acceptable to them is to list one cheap part for the listing, along with variations of the full device. That way it looks like the lowest price in search results, but when you click it, the selected variation is the cheap part.
This practice is so widespread on Ali that finding the best price/seller that is likely to get the item to you balance is ridiculously time consuming, a lot of the time the cheap item is something barely related to the item you’re searching for. It also seems to be creeping into Amazon at the moment!
Yeah, it really caught me off guard the first time I used the site. It was during one of those special celebration discount days where they had the audacity to mark items as literally $0.01 when basically nothing was that price.
For 3D printer filament, which is usually bought in 1kg/2.2lb spools, most places list a 2m sample or a 250g spool to game the search. And my other favorite is the whack-a-mole shipping setup where on variation might be free shipping, but choose a different color and the shipping jumps to $300+.
With Amazon, I’m seeing a ton more overpriced items discounted to still higher priced than their competition. If you look at their deals pages, you can find things like portable monitors for $70 (down from $150), but checking that category shows the same monitor (same specs under a different name) for $60.
Here’s as close as I can find right now, since all the lightning deals are ending for the day. There’s a USB laptop docking station that’s “discounted” from $139 to $70. There isn’t an exact match (there usually is), but similar products go for ~$60-$70 (2 HDMI, 4+ USB3 ports, 100W PD, ethernet). What’s funnier is that the specific company’s Amazon site has at least 4 identical docks at slightly different prices.
My experience too, with exception that I also order stuff I can not find locally. Like HiSense phone with eInk display I am using just now.
Those platforms are notorious for selling counterfeit products. Whenever you see a deal that seems too good to be true, it more than likely is.
Quality > genuine products. Lots of knock offs are bad quality too but its not always the case
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Keep in mind that a lot of your local marketplace sellers just order rebadged stuff from alibaba. I’ve found literally the same electronics i’ve bought locally on aliexpress for like half the price.
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Alibaba is basically just wholesale aliexpress, most sellers have a minimum order quantity and have clear pricing scale depending on your order.
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I buy my body jewelry, earrings etc on AliExpress. Also buying Zirconia jewelry and gold plated works very well since there are hardly any premium charges. it’s also pretty much the only area of goods I’ve found where in 98,9% of the cases the product and materials used is exactly as advertised, meaning no oxidizing, radiation and magnet friendly, etc.
Be aware chinese jewelry might contain metals or alloys that differ from the description and which are bad for your skin/health. And a lot of jewelry sold in the West is from China.
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I got a camping tent from aliexpress and it was pretty good. I have used it a couple times a year for about 4 years now. I think it’s called the lanshan or something like that.
I bought an Anbernic RG351P from Aliexpress as well. I have used it for countless hours playing retro games on it. Not quite nintendo quality, but definitely a lot better than other emulator consoles I’ve used.
I’ve also bought some great quality clothes from taobao. No reps only stuff like raw denim, hoodies, and styles that aren’t too popular in the US like high waisted pleated pants or heavy tees that are 11oz
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This is a little outdated, but this spreadsheet has a lot of good stores. I would also check out /r/fashionreps and search for unbranded. Might find some cool stores.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x52JOdBOynFZIdXYb47ZG6UBz-x1y9xYeDAksFhQN_I/edit?usp=sharing
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I bought a big mousepad off ali, and its great. Well made, vibrant colours, stitched edges.
I limit what i buy off ali but it has some things you cant buy elsewhere.
Another one is reflective stickers for my motorbike mags. They were cheap, stuck well and looked legit.
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I mostly buy parts for my woodworking shop at home from Ali. A benchdog is a benchdog and they are absolutely the same to what you get at Amazon,etc. And they are literally 1/3 of the price here even if you add shipping and customs. So if one is truely shit I couldn’t care less.
So far I had no bad experiences really - one shipment was missing a 2 bucks piece but I can live with that. Some things actually surprised me as the quality I got was better than expected.
Electronic wise I bought a Qotom mini PC from them years ago (directly from the Qotom shop) which still works as my UTM.
So far I really can’t complain.
I’ve used aliexpress for bootleg lego and have had mixed results. Some sets were perfect copies with all pieces, and others were missing some. I was also able to get some discontinued sets which was nice. The quality of the pieces themselves were pretty good. It is a bit of a risk but hard to beat the price as its wayyyy cheaper.
As an AFOL, this comment made me shudder.
I used to buy a lot of things in AliExpress, but since they’ve changed their business it’s usually better to just order on Amazon.
The things on AliExpress used to be dirt cheap and it was a no brainer buying random electronics components in a pack of five for a price of one in the EU shop.
Or sometimes I was looking to some oddly specific item and I always found it on AliExpress. It’s no longer the case, it seems the search results are 10 products of 3 manufacturers that are essentially the same thing.
There are some nice stuff of Ali that was original intended for the Chinese market. But you have to know you get what you pay for in China. If it’s too cheap, it’s going to be crap.
AliExpress is great if you have a 3D printer and you can’t stop messing with it.
I buy items from AliExpress all the time. Mostly electronics, but occasionally things like tessa tape, vehicle covers, motorcycle parts, and other random shit. Never had an issue.
