Ali Express reviews

[small]

Hey anyone on here have any experience buying off Ali Express. I was searching gearmotors and somehow my algorithm put a DOXA homage in the side bar. I decided to search NH35 and see what popped up. Click and I had tins of things. One that caught my eye was a 2 pack of movements, for $42.19. That's about $21.10 each (I did well in math). Genuine Seiko's off eBay are twice that usually? These are the movements they are using in the Homage watches I imagine? Not necessarily "Genuine" Seiko? 


Any member have a tale to tell about their shopping experience off the site? Any experience with those movements? At $2 it's almost worth the gamble...


Thanks in advance,   

[pip]

I’ve bought lots of stuff off AE. Mainly Chinese knock off tools, whose quality is much better these days although you can still be disappointed now and again.

I bought two cheap watches from AE. Both absolutely shit and waste of money, albeit they were about £15 each. More bought out if curiosity than with any expectation.

I know people that but seagull movements from there without incident. No experience if NH style movements though.

But if you do go ahead let us know?

[inboost]

...and if they don't work out, secretly slip them over to @cd_god to give out as booby prizes for the contest this month 

[HiBeat]

The prices on mod parts and such are amazingly low, but I have yet to do it.

Call me nuts or maybe Josh is finally making some progress with me but I won't be putting any of my credit cards into their system, maybe get a pre-paid mastercard or such to enter into the computer.   

[victor]

Can't speak to watches and watch parts, but my colleague in Finland frequently buys consumer electronics through that bazaar as an easy way to get Chinese tat to test.  He seems happy with the experience.

[victor]

Um.  Looks like I had the wrong end of the stick.  Just chatted w/ my colleague in Finland.  He told me that he actually hated his experiences with Ali and no longer uses them.  Said the products usually arrived much later than promised and were often sub-par ("shit" was his exact word).

He did add that it is possible to find good sellers there with reliable products.  But it's challenging to find them, certainly not by reviews (star ratings), as most of the reviews are paid for and are not authentic.

Anyway, mea culpa for my prior comments that it was a good buying experience.  Not sure how I got it so wrong.

[saldog]

Maybe it’s because I live in CA but I’ve never had an issue with shipping. Most things arrive in two weeks or less.

As for product quality, it is hit and miss. But I usually set my expectations extremely low anyway when buying direct from China.

Many of these items are also on Amazon, presumably because sellers buy them from China and resell them at twice the price. I look for the item there for the reviews. Amazon’s reviews can be bullshit too, but you can glean much from them.

But I’d have to say my experience has been positive, just because I don’t expect much to begin with and it is usually a little better than that. Just know you are taking the risk to save a few bucks.