Goods from China: is it worth the risk

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The phrase "Chinese goods" scares our compatriots. And if it comes wrong? And if a fake comes? What about the guarantee? Doubts, doubts … I also had doubts. And now - I decided. I share my experience in this article.

My Chinese Experiment

Check so check! In a few days, I ordered a whole bunch of junk of the necessary things from China:

• smartphone,
• case for an old smartphone,
• sleep masks (2 pieces),
• glasses,
• clicker (what it is - below).

Free shipping

When people find out about free shipping, they don't believe. Why "maza" deliver a smartphone case worth 50 rubles for free? Isn't it unprofitable?

Unprofitable. But the fact is that the Chinese government subsidizes its manufacturers and takes on the shipping costs.

Shipping was free for all of my items. There are exceptions, though. Study the product carefully:

Delivery speed

Let's start with the fact that everything came. And judge the speed yourself:

• smartphone - 13 days,
• clicker - 19 days,
• other goods - 23–28 days.

The speed with which the smartphone arrived was simply amazed. Knowledgeable people said, however, that we were a little lucky. You usually have to wait longer. Well, let it be.

In general, all goods, without exception, met the deadlines specified by the seller. I must say that there is a forecast for the delivery time, as well as the period after which, if the parcel has not arrived, you can demand compensation.

By the way, all these terms …

… Can be tracked online

For more or less large purchases, you will receive a special tracking code.

Using it, you can watch your package travel. Don't laugh, but the most convenient application for tracking parcels is the Russian Post application. Here I even reviewed it.

The tracking code must be requested from the seller in personal correspondence.

What I ordered and what came

The most important item - the smartphone - arrived in good condition. The wife has been using it for a month now and is happy as an elephant. Here is the smartphone itself:

I ordered a couple of cheap sleep masks. I want to try. Kind of like anatomical:

The silicone case for my LG G2 sat like a native. Great shopping for 80 cents.

A cool clicker came to my friend Dima:

About what it is - even lower.

And finally, the problematic product is glasses. This purchase has its own story. A year and a half ago, I spent the winter in Thailand and bought such glasses there for 280 rubles.

I really liked them and still serve. You cannot find glasses cheaper than a couple of thousand in our optics. Besides, everything is so dull and boring.

I thought, “Where do the glasses come from in Thailand? Probably from China! After some searching, I came across a product like this:

Stylish. Fashionable. Youth. And only $ 1.21. Wrap up!

It came, however, not quite what I expected:

First, the glasses are black, not black and blue, as in the picture. Secondly, the quality of the dyeing is poor: somewhere it is uneven, somewhere the hair has got. To be honest, I don't pay that much attention.

But the third point is the distortion of the picture. Especially in the corners. You can not wear it in principle.

In short, I asked for a refund.

Refund of money or goods

When it comes to cheap goods, Chinese sellers easily return money or send new goods. You just need to attach a photo and explain the reason. Previously, of course, you must click on "Open dispute".

The money on the card was returned to me in a couple of days. By the way, the moderator of the dispute is AliExpress itself. After payment, your money is kept by him and will go to the seller only when you click the "Confirm receipt of goods" button.

What to do with expensive goods?

As my more experienced friends suggested to me, I will have to send the goods back at my own expense. And only after familiarizing yourself with the breakdown, they will either send you a new smartphone, for example, or get your money back.

However, a refund is an extreme case. You may never run into him if you choose a good seller …

How to choose a reliable seller

Find out his rating and read reviews, especially negative ones.

There is one more sign: the greater the sales volume of the seller, the faster he will send your order. Therefore, look also at the volumes.

If you buy electronics, then keep a life hack: buy it through joint shopping sites.

How co-op sites work

A large group of people gathers and jointly submits applications for the purchase of any device. A large group gives us a discount. For example, when I bought a smartphone, I saved $ 26, or 14%.

The main plus is that only verified goods are included in the purchase list. For example, smartphones that operate on our frequencies and connect to our 4G internet. That is, the risk of running into "wrong" is several times less!

In case of a problem, you can always contact the group moderator, who is already resolving the issue with the seller. In addition, in the topic of each purchase, you can ask other buyers about prices, get advice if there is a problem, and get a fairly quick response.

Here is a list of co-purchasing sites I was able to find:

• uberdeal.ru,
• togetho.ru,
• groupb.ru,
• enjoint.ru,
• mychinabuy.ru,
• unite4buy.ru,
• imhotech.ru.

You register on such a site, choose a product and receive a special code, which you will already indicate on the AliExpress website. That is, you have no money to do with the procurement site.

For me, these sites are a guarantee that I will not buy some garbage without understanding it. Because at the same time with me, hundreds of geeks and resellers buy goods, past which the mouse will not slip.:)

How else to save

Here are quotes from two of my acquaintances, experienced buyers.

1. Pay attention to third-tier manufacturers like Elephone and so on. Only there you can still grasp really great benefits. There is no promotion for the brand, the hardware, in general, is the same, but the quality has already been improved.

2. Follow the promotions on the home page.

So how much did I save?

If we talk about cheap goods, then, probably, hundreds of percent. But, to be honest, I don't even want to count.

Let's calculate the real savings when buying a smartphone. Our smartphone cost 8,200 rubles.

The model that we have chosen - Xiaomi Red Rice - differs from the standard one in the presence of 2 GB of memory. I was looking for a similar device in Russian online stores and found only one offer - 9,486 rubles for a smartphone and 590 rubles for delivery. Total: 10 076 rubles.

The savings at this stage are 1,876 rubles, or 19%.

Now let's compare with the offerings at local computer stores. I took a screenshot of the site of the Ufa store on the day the package arrived. I set the characteristics that interested me: 4G, RAM, camera and others. And this is what the search engine suggested to me:

As you can see, there are many options. Prices are toothy. Compared with the cheapest "Chinese" (12,990 rubles), the savings are already 4,790 rubles, or 37%.

Although, of course, in this case the comparison is not entirely correct.

How to register on AliExpress

I will not write about it. It's so simple: register, add a credit card, address, select a product and click "Buy". Nothing complicated and no different from registering in any other online store.

Heshelme beshelme, nasyalnika

Many are afraid not so much of Chinese goods as of hieroglyphs. And this has a foundation.

For example, our smartphone came entirely in Chinese. However, it was easy to translate into Russian. In literally three minutes. Plus, it took another 20 minutes to adjust the letter spacing. I found the solution on one of the thematic forums dedicated to the device.

And another problem is the correspondence with the support. For example, here's a fascinating dialogue about refunds for points.

The third problem is the description of the goods in Russian. But all this can be solved by clicking on "View title in English".

In English, the description is no longer so funny.

Save time

Chinese goods - all the "maza" in the money? No, saving time is often more important.

I'll tell you a little story. My friend Dima received an assignment from the management: in connection with the opening of a new cafe, it is necessary to measure the traffic (how many people pass by this or that place).

To cope with this task, Dima needed a special device - a clicker. Its essence is simple: a person passes by, Dima presses the clicker button, and the number on the counter increases by one. This is all well and good in theory, but in practice the clicker has proven to be very difficult to get hold of. Dima unsuccessfully traveled half of Ufa.

As you might guess, the clicker was easily found in China. Attendance was measured.

How much time could Dima save if he immediately made an order in China? A lot!

Total

I have always believed that shopping in China is the lot of geeks. Only they, it seemed to me, were able to separate the grains from the chaff and find good things among the heap of garbage.

But to my surprise, this turned out not to be the case. China is simple, fast and … cheap, of course. You just need to figure it out a little.

Have you had a "Chinese" experience? Are you satisfied?