Glad to hear it finally resolved in your favor.
While Ali has some great deals, they are sometimes at great risk.
It's not precisely about "great risk". In a sense, yes, but it's really more about understanding the pecularities of how it operates and what to do when things go wrong. It needs attention to a lot of details, including the seller's reputation, reviews, how credible the product description and price are (do other sellers sell the same thing? check them too) and much more. It requires experience.
It's somewhat similar to buying on the black market. You can't just assume that everything will automatically be fine.
Once that's in place, shopping on Ali becomes, generally, a good experience. Disputes are usually solved correctly and, often, quickly (again, once you grasp how they work, how to properly specify the reason etc. etc.)
That still leaves room for bad experience, of course. In my personal case, however, and I make dozens of orders per year, I'd say that success rate was probably on the order of 98% in the last few years.