Have any of you ever bought anything through alibaba for your personal use here? I found some things I want that are a fraction of what they cost here. I wonder if the sellers sell in small quantities, how it is shipped, how it is paid for, how customs is charged, and how it arrives.

I've use them - it's like ebay or Amazon marketplace, so it depends on who the actual seller is.

I ordered some very cheap components and they came through customs, declared value on the padded envelope, untouched.

How long did it take? The things I want to buy would probably take up a quarter of a container. I saw some building material I like.

And I believe you speak Chinese. For a non-Chinese speaker, is it recommendable?

I boughts stuff from alibaba and aliexpress. aliex is more set up for small sales to consumers.

my stuff has been small enough to fit in parcels/envelopes and takes about a month to arrive. i only order stuff i don't need urgently. actually, usually don't need them at all!

I do speak the lingo, but I didn't use anything apart from English.

Delivery time will depend on the supplier. Mine was a small item weighing about 50g and fitting in a tiny padded envelope, so not relevant to your order.

Have you tried contacting the seller? It is possible that the seller has a retail partner or branch that can sell you the product in smaller quantities.

I've ordered things from aliexpress and my impression is that only English or Russian is used.

I've bought several times (100+) from AliExpress, and it was (almost) always ok. The main idea is that you get what you pay for.. if you order the cheapest stuff available, you might end up getting crap - but sometimes you can also hit the jackpot and get really good brands which due to copyright weren't mentioned in the description.

If you don't receive the package (happened a couple times that it got lost in the mail, because the cheaper stuff gets sometimes sent without a tracking number if you choose free shipping), you can demand the money back, and it has always been paid back onto the credit card used for payment or to paypal till now (once I even got back more than what I paid ).

Never had to pay any import taxes (mostly ordering stuff < 10-20 CHF, but also ordered electronics for 100s of CHF, which were 'declared' by the seller to be much much cheaper so they slipped through customs).

Customer support? Well.. they speak google-english; you can understand what they say, but dont expect perfect english, and most of the times they did reply to my messages; a few even replied in advance, when I had some technical questions, before I even bought the product.

I would look for sellers who have been around using the platform for at least 3 years, have their onsite locations checked & use Paypal as one of the payment modes. Western Union & T/T is a no for me.

I get it. Alibaba is for wholesalers, and Aliexpress is for small quantities. Duh.

Isn't Alibaba comparable to ebay? Ebay rents the electronic space to the actual seller, from what little I know Alibaba uses the same setup (though the seller on Alibaba probably is a professional).

If so, won't the seller probably be a different one with each transaction, meaning experiences mean rather little?

Correct. Alibaba appears to be a B2B platform for wholesalers. I wanted to buy lighting fixtures, and there was a 5,000 minimum order. AliExpress is the B2C side of Alibaba. There, I can buy some of the same items individually.

I am about to place some orders, yet I don't know if I will ever seen them or my money again. At least they are not very expensive items.

Plus there's always the company that (kind of) spammed on here, which I've successfully used for individual orders/items.

www.buyincoins.com

When you place an order and the item is shipped, you will get a tracking number. Items can take up to 7 days or more before they are shipped.

Once you get the tracking number, you can even see when the item has arrived in Switzerland. It usually takes up to 3 or 4 weeks before it arrives here.

If you do not receive your item within 5 to 6 weeks, you can notify the seller of the missing item. This has happened to me and the seller offered a refund or a re-send. This was for an item that cost about Chf 3.-.

So far, all the items I have ordered have arrived.

Hope this helps.

it's such a stupid name that i also remember them and have bought from them over ebay and aliexpress.

Thanks you lot

I've now purchased a load of crap I didn't need!

tell me about it! the other night i was browsing aliexpress and got to the industrial parts section. i now have a selection of items winging their way over with names like "12v linear actuator 800N" that i have no idea what they are for, but i wanted them anyway!

Oh no, now I'm hooked too.

Good thing Switzerland uses incinerators, and not landfills.

AliExpress did not allow me to enter a German mailing address. And my shipping prices were based on delivery to Germany. Now I'm afraid I am about to get Switzerlanded.

What is the maximum value of goods before customs apply import tax? Isn't there like a 60CHF threshold, or something like that?

I'd expect that to mostly be determined by the country of origin, as well as type of goods. Different customs rules appliy to different countries (import/contract areas).