I always use the default free shipping option when buying Chinese goods. This is for a few reasons:

- It's free! The compellingly cheap (and really quite disruptive) price of directly-sourced Chinese goods becomes less so if you're giving 20 or 30 bucks to a courier. The long lead times can be ameliorated by getting a pipeline of orders going.

- The couriers are a pain. You never know when they'll arrive during the day and then have to make special arrangements if you weren't there. The Post is far more predictable and a missed delivery just means popping down to the road to the Post Office (if it's tracked - that's not even needed for cheaper stuff). And let's not go into the endless added costs the couriers love to layer on.

- No extra delivery security or insurance is needed for Chinese orders. If a package fails to arrive, the vendor will almost always just shrug and send you another one.

BTW, there are plenty more Chinese options than AliExpress. Adrian mentioned BuyinCoins and my current favourite of the exotically-named Chinese vendors is BangGood. (They're particularly good for RC stuff and have very attentive support).