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Comment by doesnotexist | Hacker News Reader

So these are for sale on AliExpress which I've found to be higher friction than other open marketplaces (ebay/amazon/etc). The last time I tried to buy something there, my checkout was interrupted by a notification asking that I submit ID and other info for screening to proceed, which I found surprising since I was buyer not a seller and was purchasing some rather mundane item, cables or jumpers, I can't remember. In the end, the result was I didn't complete the order because it didn't seem worth the trouble. Additionally, I'm a little hesitant to buy some items on AliExpress because I worry they suffer from the same counterfeit issues as other open marketplaces due to poor oversight over sellers. Except for on AliExpress I have even less of a sense of how to distinguish between sellers with established reputations or otherwise. Does anyone have any tips for how to best use AliExpress?

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Your mileage may vary. My experience so far has been mostly low quality stuff from aliexpress with very long shipping periods.

I found the ratings on aliexpress to be completely useless. as compared to aliexpress, even amazon ratings feel legit (which has probably the lowest reputation from my experience).

I had way better experience with local vendors here in Switzerland or even shipped from Germany for all kinds of qualities.

The local vendors here also have way better support and very quick shipping times.

It's on par with local options when it comes to ease of use.

As for the sellers, I either know them due to their other online presence, or I select them based on how good the descriptions are on the items they sell from a technical perspective. Reviews are also useful, especially those with more text, photos, and some technical comments.

I don't really have any tips, it is more painful/friction-full than Amazon (which is in other ways deteriorating into it!) I agree. I've only used for things where I've suspected they're commodity dozen-'brand' 'drop shipped' items, and the AliExpress price has been enough cheaper for me to bother with it, and risk worse/non-existent return/refund experience (worst case could always charge back I suppose if bothered enough).

A lot of the time though, Amazon is O(tens of pence) more expensive, and I just view it as a cheap insurance. (Amazon's returns/replacements is great IME; AliExpress's is unknown to me and frankly I assume it's bad, and for the sake of tens of pence don't want to find out.)

I've bought a couple items on AliExpress. For me, I had to call my card issuer and have them pause the anti-fraud systems for my card, so they would allow the charges; and then when I bought some more stuff a couple weeks later, I had to do it again. Some people on reddit report success or failure with different card issuers.

I would only use AliExpress to buy things you can't find anywhere else, which should help with counterfeit issues, AliExpress has seller ratings and what not, too. I've had some luck with BangGood.com for randomly produced NodeMCU style boards, and they have a US warehouse which helps with shipping speed (at additional cost).

Are you sure this information isn't required because of your government? That's the case at least in the EU, and the EU gets angry if they miss people. Aliexpress tries to do what the regulators want, sadly they don't have user experience in mind.

I didn't deal with that from the UK (which was at the time of my AliExpress orders in the EU).

That's a long time ago. Aliexpress started asking me for this stuff only few months ago, which I believe is when EU made getting the info mandatory - that was definitely post-brexit.

Well.. I suppose that's a matter of perspective, but if that's such a recent change then fair enough!

What's the purpose of it? Does it have to be recorded & kept (in case police want to ask 'who bought x' or 'what did y buy' or something?) or is it just to check that the purchaser matches the billing details (fraud prevention?)?

It's because of collecting VAT and import taxes and then redistributing the money to the relevant countries, I believe. Companies used to pay customs and import taxes in the port where a shipment arrived, often under favored terms, which the other countries didn't like.

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