eBay

4shades · ‎15-10-2015

Thinking of buying through Ali Baba or Ali express (China)

Ali Baba is a platform & you get millions of suppliers..

has any one had any good or bad experience from members of ali baba?

has done a lot of research but still very confused (you read so many horor stories)

would appreciate some answers.

thanking you in advance 🙂

saarzi · ‎19-10-2015

It depends how serious you are about your business.

Ive imported by myself previously from India and China for a business outside of Ebay - I would never use Alibaba or aliexpress to buy anything - they are simply too expensive compared to what is available in these countries. I found most of the products I got direct from wholesalers in China and India were 3 to 5 times more expensive on Alibaba. It might seem cheap to us, and our economy, but they do not work on our economy, and most of it is inflated "tourist" prices.

In saying that, if youre not looking for a full time business, buying from Alibaba can still make you a quick profit, just not as big as if you do a little more research.

If you do buy from Alibaba, only ever buy from GOLD members who have been on the site 2 years or more. They have a little gold coin with the amount of years they have been on the site. Gold members are verified - they have identity AND business licenses checked. Its not fool proof obviously, but it should make your dealings easier than had you used non verified members. I also found they generally have better English skills and have more experience with dealing with Western customers (not always, but in general).

Also, be really careful what you buy. If youre buying a large quantity, get a sample or two first to check for quality (and the chemicals used on things like clothing etc because they honestly STINK and youll get complaints, and some are actually illegal in Australia). Also, check your competitors on Ebay - items from Alibaba have mostly saturated the market - no point in trying to sell something that 100 other sellers are selling.

Also, if you only ever import under $1000 worth of stock, you wont have to pay GST / duties on it.... its much safer (thats going to change un Jul 2017)..... but be careful with customs - its easy to do, but it can be very expensive and you need to add this onto item cost, and if you try to go under the radar and get caught you can be in big trouble (more so if you dont have an ABN and do your taxes properly).

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harley_babes_hoard · ‎15-10-2015

my advice is.......leave it alone. Not only are most of the sellers slack you will get hammered with unwanted emails from AliBaba

allsafetysolutions1 · ‎15-10-2015

I have purchased from Alibaba approx 3 months ago. Extremely hard to communicate with the language barrier. Just make sure you ask thousands of questions and be sure of everything prior to buying. Keep all records communication aswell.

padi*0409 · ‎15-10-2015

I've used Ali Express about half a dozen times with no problems at all, but I haven't used Ali Baba. Yes, you get emails from them as well but they give you similar/same items that are on special, so no real problems there.

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springyzone · ‎15-10-2015

I had an excellent experience dealing with a smaller company on aliexpress (buying wedding bombonnierres). They were a third of the cost for identical items here on ebay. Items arrived well boxed & arrived in about 3 weeks.

There is not too much of a language barrier if you persist (although their English can be a bit quaint) & if you ask for advice, I found some of the people in companies there were very helpful.

My advice though would be this: Investigate what it is you want to buy and if you are buying in order to resell here on ebay, make sure ebay isn't already flooded with the stuff. A lot of other small aussie sellers are already on this bandwagon.

phorum_junkie* · ‎16-10-2015

I buy individual items from aliexpress, not stuff to resell. Had a couple of items not arrive and had to wait a long time for a refund but other than that I was buying cheapos and received at least what I expected, sometimes much better but never worse.

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clarry100 · ‎16-10-2015

We use aliexpress and the English and Chinese alibaba very regularly. My wife is Chinese so finds it easier to shop on Chinese alibaba for her stock. Much cheaper there. But you have to be able to read & write Chinese in order to use the site. We rarely have a problem. The downside to Chinese alibaba is that they don't usually ship overseas so we have had to setup s shipping account in Shanghai with a freight forwarder so they send our stuff their. Once we build up to about s 20kg box we have them ship. In order to pay for these services we have to send money to China as they only accept payment in CNY. Her sister to the rescue here.
Complicated but works well for us. We can get our stock at far more competitive prices to help offset the bad exchange rate. So that's our story.

4shades · ‎16-10-2015

So where do you get affortable suppliers??

4shades · ‎16-10-2015

Thank you

locall1961 · ‎18-10-2015

You might have to drop ship

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