I know you’ve all seen the ads for Rose-gal, Wish, BlueCrate, ROX Jewelery and the sweet deals of Amazon Prime, and I hate to be the one to break it to you – but – all these sites ship you goods straight from the manufacturer from Ali-express. Then they charge you extra funds and more shipping to do it, even when most of Ali-express’s suppliers offer FREE SHIPPING. That’s right, FREE SHIPPING! That’s why it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to arrive.
How do you know this Sarah? What is the base for these accusations?? First off, I used to run a clothing business back in 2013-2015 called Trendy-Holm – Freyja’s Fashion. I wouldn’t jack up the prices by 60-120% like clothing stores in town, I’d mark up things with a finders fee was super upfront about everything I sold – Probably not good for building a massive business, but I won’t swindle people. I’d not only sell my goods online, but took them to several fairs here in town. I loved having the social interaction, and to watch the glee on people’s faces when they were able to buy a wardrobe for under 100 bucks!
Then these sites started cropping up, and I’d see pictures from Ali-express cropped to chop out the logos etc. I started warning people, but the gravity of the situation doesn’t hit home until I show them the prices on Ali-express. Just yesterday I had a friend looking for hair pieces, and they were selling them on amazon in 3 packs for $23.78 plus shipping as even with prime it’s only free after $25. So, after checking Ali-express, she bought 6 pieces last night for $22.67 US – $30.64 Canadian. A quick search on Wish revealed more expensive pieces.
Amazon Prime
Ali-Express
Wish
Here’s more examples:
https://bluecrate.com/products/kebabzi?aff=45 – $27.99
Aliexpress – $11.42!
My favorite coat is supposedly ORIGINALLY 258 bucks according to WISH, but I have an ENTIRE page of search results on Ali-express all under 30 dollars.
Don’t just take my word for it, copy paste part of the description from any of those other sites into Ali-express. Some items on Amazon are legit and come from known suppliers such as Sony etc, but let’s see who you’re actually buying them from 🙂
PS: I know this site can be a bit daunting, but once you know how to use it, you can find even better deals then your first search. For tips and tricks on using Ali-express to get the best deals, check my article Searching with Aliexpress.
P.P.S www.medouce.com is another site I’ve run across that is mimicking the same poor practice.
