Temu/Aliexpress/etc are for buying very cheap clothing. 2 out of 3 items fit and 1 out of 3 is decent quality. That's still cheaper, depending on what tariffs your country is charging.
I wouldn't buy something where a warranty would be useful from them.
Ok, maybe very niche hobby products, but then I wouldn't expect a warranty.
Not entirely.
For cycling there are now a group of trusted companies that many people purchase from - WinSpace, Magene, iGPSport, that stand behind their products.
I have a Magene p505 crank-based power meter - £250 delivered. It's as accurate as ones costing 4X as much, and has not shown any signs of issues in the year+ I've been using it.
The idea that AliExpress is just for cheap tat is less and less true, and products in certain sectors coming out of China are just much better value for money (and often, as good as, or better quality) than you'd find from homegrown companies. For cycling, especially Carbon Fibre parts, this isn't surprising - the sheer depth and breadth of composites knowledge from years of making bikes for western brands has paid off handsomely.
> The idea that AliExpress is just for cheap tat is less and less true, and products in certain sectors coming out of China are just much better value for money (and often, as good as, or better quality) than you'd find from homegrown companies.
Not just better value for money, I often find that AliExpress sells things I simply cannot find anywhere else.
A recent example: I was looking for something to balance the 3rd axis on my telescope, There are very few products on the market from mainstream brands and none were what I needed. On Ali I easily found several options. These are basically just machined pieces of metal so not really anything than can break.
Same goes for storage bags and cases. You can often find a bag or case specifically made for your device, while there isn’t anything for sale locally.
> I often find that AliExpress sells things I simply cannot find anywhere else.
I recently needed some bearings for a project. I wanted them quickly, so AliExpress would take too long. I visited 5 local stores and none of them sold the bearings I needed. AliExpress had 200 sellers selling them in every possible type for a decent price.
Ended up buying AliExpress quality from Amazon for a higher price because they shipped faster.
>These are basically just machined pieces of metal so not really anything than can break.
Nothing can break but the metal can be alloyed with lead to make it easier to machine or coated in something toxic.
Yeah, there are loads of cables, converters etc. that I can't get even from Amazon. Aliex has been the only place.
Obviously YMMV, but I bought some Amazon MTB pedals rated 4.7 starts @ 9k ratings. One suffered a catastrophic failure, shearing off at the crank and I was pitched over the bars.
Design and manufacturing is obviously a major part of the equation with this product sector, and no doubt the Chinese can do that as good as, or even better than domestic brands in many respects. What they don't do as well, as far as I'm aware, is any significant destructive testing.
The bonus is I can now spend even more absurd amounts of money on bike components, which is the true dream of any true cycling enthusiast.
Amazon is just not a good place to go, you're going to be buying something very low cost that someone is drop-shipping as a way to maximise their profit, not provide a good product.
You need to know the brands to buy (Trace Velo, Peak Torque and China Cycling helps here) and buy directly from their Ali Express store, or from their website.
Amazon is only if you need a cheap bike maintenance tool within a couple of days that you're happy only using a few times before you have to throw it out. Not for components.
useless to know the brand. Amazon will change the seller every time you see an item, and pretend the reviews apply. then the new seller will ship you counterfeits while selling under the good brand and reviews. after a few sales, seller bestbikesbrooklin7456, is banned and you are offered bestevercyclesocal888 and the cycle restart.
> Obviously YMMV, but I bought some Amazon MTB pedals rated 4.7 starts @ 9k ratings.
Every site is different, no? Amazon isn't AliExpress. Though lately Amazon if flooded with marked-up AliExpress stuff. I'm not fond of Amazon, their customer service is more of a hit and miss since various years.
That said, I've been watching Trace Velo. He reviews a lot of AliExpress cycling things. It's often bad after prolonged use. Meaning, yeah, their testing is lacking. But some brand do seem to be trying to become a trusted brand. E.g. Ugreen nowadays is often trusted. It used to be one of the many things listed on AliExpress.
Amazon is AliExpress with onshore warehousing.
Except the brands I'm talking about sell directly - the stuff you're buying on Amazon is the cheapest drop shipped products on Ali marked up ridiculously to extract the maximum profit.
> For cycling there are now a group of trusted companies that many people purchase from - WinSpace, Magene, iGPSport, that stand behind their products.
Their products can also be bought either directly or from other bike-specialized shops, they don't sell exclusively through Aliexpress.
Yes, that's very true - they also sell outside AliExpress D2C on their own sites.
It tends to work out cheaper with the various AliExpress deals you can stack together to buy from there though.
Likewise in trail running, Aonijie is building a decent reputation for accessories.
> For cycling there are now a group of trusted companies that many people purchase from - WinSpace, Magene, iGPSport, that stand behind their products.
Do you follow Trace Velo on YouTube? Any others you recommend (aside from China Cycling)?
I do!
I also follow Peak Torque, who is very hot on engineering. Hambini is ok, but pretty brash and abrasive.
AliExpress is great for electronics. Not the „I need a phone“ stuff (although for that it’s fine too, I think), but more the „I need an ESP-32 module“.
This. People buying a laptop there for ten bucks then receiving the photo of one have indeed all the rights to complain, but common sense should suggest them before the purchase the old saying that if something looks too good to be true... And this can happen everywhere there's no strict quality control or accountability. Aliexpress is great for small modules, SBCs, diy electronics in general, however I wouldn't ever buy semiconductors, batteries or memory modules there, as the risk of fakes or low quality clones is close to 100%.
Yeah especially as in places like London there have been many explosions and house fires originaying from cheap foreign e-bike batteries.
Some Chinese companies care about a long-term brand and place high standards on themselves but it's not true that anything online has passed safety standards. It's hard to differentiate the two due to the amount of fake reviews also.
Yes, I would never buy something grid-powered from AliExpress, and I would be very careful with larger batteries.
Yes,also beware of power strips and electrical wires in general: those coming from there are increasingly made of coated iron instead of copper or brass in contacts. The side effect is a much higher resistance that makes the wire dissipate a lot more power than it should, even to the point it can overheat and catch fire if under serious load (heaters, ovens etc.). Their exceptionally bad insulation and usually smaller size than advertised make the problem even worse. Such bad cables can be used for breadboarding where small lengths and low currents mitigate the effects, but they shouldn't be considered for anything serious. I've learned to ditch almost every bundled cable coming from there after multiple bad experiences. Surplus is a good source of top notch cables that can last decades. Crappy cables can be checked using a magnet: pure copper ones won't stick. There are also reports of junk coated aluminium cables that wouldn't stick as well to a magnet, but they're rare as aluminium, at least good quality one, is not cheap.
It's basically McMaster with slow shipping for my hobby projects. I don't need the $1000 quality and warranty of a McMaster ball screw and linear guideways, the $80 BSTMOTION brand(?) stuff has been working for me for years and is plenty accurate.
Mouser/Farnell etc don't have those? Or i guess not as many options.
I got my last esp-32 from Mouser iirc. In Europe. They finally sorted out EU fulfillment warehouses.
You can get the base ESP-32 modules for example, but not most of the Dev Boards. They have some, but much more expensive than AliExpress. And then you also have to pay shipping.
> And then you also have to pay shipping.
Spoiled americans :) I've always had to pay shipping from anywhere outside my country.
Concur. Even a planetary, cycloidal or strain wave reducers. To be honest, I don't know, where else I could find such diverse product catalog.
> Temu/Aliexpress/etc are for buying very cheap clothing.
As long as you don't value safety.[1]
[1]: https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/news/skin-melted...
If you actually read the article you see this garment lacked a "flammable" label. It's not the flammability that wouldn't happen, it's just a tiny warning.
This article is outrage bait, especially obvious given the incredibly graphic pictures and the high focus on emotional statements combined with the low amount of actually important detail (what went wrong? It's not what you or the article are implying, which is the fire risk).
> Ok, maybe very niche hobby products, but then I wouldn't expect a warranty.
I bought a bunch of parts for a racing drone from Aliexpress because I didn't expect a traditional retailer's warranty to really matter much. ("This frame has been in a crash. No warranty.") What's the point of paying extra in that scenario?