this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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My advice is to buy nothing from AliExpress or Temu.
Disagree, if you need a custom big machine made, there are some really good people on AliExpress.
I have had a couple of customized CNC machines custom built for a fraction of the price it would have cost to have it done over here. Even with the shipping costs it came out cheaper. And the people were really helpful, they use machines like mine all the time so they know their stuff. They offered really good advice and were excited to work with me. It's a bit butt clenching to fork over a lot of cash and hope a big ass pallet shows up 4 months later, but they've come through for me every time. YMMV.
Temu on the other hand can fuck off. It's just a scam site like Wish.
I'd argue there's a huge difference from chintzy household tech and industrial machinery on AliExpress.
I mean yeah thats how it works if you outsource your work to low wage, low work safety countries. And the result is that the machine shop near you goes bankrupt and you are now dependent on large corporations that can wipe out whole business segments on a whim. Sometimes you just dont have a choice, but if you do, dont buy cheap stuff from far away or big corpos.
The issue here though is that these were being sold by AliExpress through Amazon. Amazon has much more public trust than companies like AliExpress or Temu, so people aren't going to be immediately suspicious of everything for sale on there.
Even Amazon has gotten super sketch as of late. It’s hard to determine which products are good or not when the site is flooded with 500 duplicates from 500 clearly fake companies.
As of late? It's been shit for years.
Sometimes that can be convenient if I’m knowingly looking for a cheap Chinese knockoff to serve some non-critical purpose. Once it’s clear there’s a single mass produced model being rebranded by everybody, you can shop based on shipping time or price or seller feedback or whatever. Or if there’s no hurry, you can go find the product elsewhere at the “slow boat from China” price.
Unless I know the manufacturer, I don't buy from Amazon either.
It's 95% junk. Need to start holding corporations responsible and not just going "oh, it's a third party seller! It's not our fault."
They're taking fuck knows how much in fees, and worth trillions of dollars. Fine them. Massively.
At this point Amazon is just a local warehouse selling the same products as AliExpress, but with faster shipping and more markup.
What happened that amazon suddenly became the "good guy" don't order from there either.
Yeah, nah, I'm not gonna pay 10x the price for a knockoff arduino from a local seller that just buys it from AliExpress anyway. There's no better place to get electronic components and modules without bankrupting yourself
I can give Ali a pass for niche things, but Temu is straight up junk. The problem is when these cheaper products permeate everything while being pushed as high end. Etsy is basically useless now because of this. Almost everything on there is an overpriced knockoff.
None of this is necessarily AliExpress’ or Temu’s fault though. It’s just what happens in a capitalist system.
Yeah, AliExpress is the baby version of the wholesale platform Alibaba, and they're now a big enough company to also have their own cloud provider. Temu, Wish and Shein are all trash.
I'd rather pay 80% for things that have a 50% chance of turning out shit anyway. What makes you think Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart are any better?
Nobody should be buying an automatic litter box from any of these sites. They're all coming from China with the same build-quality regardless of whom you're buying it from. I do not get the hate against Chinese shops but loving American brands who do the exact same thing but can somehow get away with empathy from people
Products as a whole are going to shit in terms of quality. It’s part of the enshittification that late capitalism drives.
And automatic litter boxes have always been trash. I’ve had 2 in my lifetime and they were both bad. Just scoop that thing and call it a day!
Yeah I wouldn't really depend on such flimsy electronics for something so dear as a pet
And try to avoid Chinese products whenever possible.
So just stop using literally any and everything, got it.
There's still non Chinese companies...
That's not really helpful when the vast majority still manufacture in China, and at best 'assemble' somewhere else.
It's an outdated argument.
There's both quality and crappy stuff coming from China.
I made no comment about the quality of Chinese goods, just their ubiquity.
You still directly support the Chinese regime though.
A Western company still has a different level of oversight & quality assurance than a Chinese company.
So no mobile phones or anything that has led's in it or computer chips of any kind?
I think your reading comprehension is broken.
Yeah the difference between “try to avoid” and “never buy from” should be pretty obvious…
I also specifically talked about Chinese products, as in Chinese brands. A Chinese company is going to have a different set of quality assurance & oversight than a western company that buys in Chinese components or does their manufacturing there. It also makes a difference in how much monetarily you are supporting the Chinese regime directly.
Like, I understand the markets are fucked beyond belief at the moment, to the point where there are niches without any or just bad alternatives (especially if money is an issue), but our consumer mentality still is partially responsible for how those markets shape and evolve.
So, no digital electronics at all. That's a great life
And another person with a broken reading comprehension...
OK, give me an American retailer who can give me the micro-controllers and sensors I need, preferably at a reasonable price. For example: a $40 ARM board with dual ethernet and WiFi card slot.
You'll quickly realise that there's a lot of things missing when you completely discount China.
I'm talking products and you come with components. Thanks for proving my point though.
Components? What exactly would be a "product" for you then? For all intents and purposes, I get the exact same quality from AliExpress and Banggood that I get from Amazon, just the latter charges me twice/thrice. Even my experience with refunds has been better with the Chinese than Amazon who absolutely doesn't want to part with the money they wrongly took from me.
I wouldn't buy expensive electronics like Mobile phones and TVs from Chinese shops. Cups, a torch, key fob, package opener, tape etc are all "products" I bought from AliExpress which would have cost me at least twice as much from Amazon/Walmart. Why on earth should I shop at American companies again when they resell the same stuff to make extra profits off of my back??
i used to buy plenty from aliexpress. its generally pretty damn good.