Understanding how Ali Exp. works

[watchmaker]

For the heck of it, I bought the blue tooth speaker kit below from AE for $6 delivered to the USA.

Two 1/2 way decent speakers, a bluetooth module with a micro processor and stereo amp, plexi case, and a led light show board.

My EE/IP attorney son-in-law and I spent some time trying to figure out how they could do that.

The bluetooth module is preassembled.  The plexi case was made for something else; on the back panel there was a power switch cutout (included) (where I put the USB C connector) and a hole drilled for a power connector (where I put the USB A which was supplied).  Although the front plexi panel has holes that align with the gratuitous light show board.

Still, a bluetooth module with IR, microprocessor and stereo amp, faceplate,remote and battery??  Fascinating and scary.

Who is organizing the component sources and production?  Govt??  Kevin figures the production cost at $2 USD max.  Then the shipping.  Reminds me of the chiclet watches in the 1980s.  I went to Canal St. to find the best prices for bulk.  Case, module, battery, strap delivered to US $1 USD @ per 100 units.

The reason I added the extra power sources is that I could not understand why the microprocessor defaulted to a voice prompt and MP3 mode when the A port on the front panel was used but not when I provided 5v to pins 1 and 4.

Down the USB rabbit hole where I learned that pins 2 and 3 provide a 3 v data plus and data minus trigger. These signals are used differently by different devices which explained why some devices are not interchangeable.

This then led me to USB C (which I am trying to standardize on).  Holy crap, what a nightmare; explains many cable mysteries to me.  Not that I understand anything more than to forgo any but USB C 4.0/Thunderbolt 4 cables.

[SteveThackery]

Some of the prices do seem extraordinary. I must say, though, the quality of the products varies enormously.  I've had two electronic purchases that failed within about ten seconds of powering up, and another which lasted around 18 hours.  I've also bought a superbly designed, made and boxed pseudo-Nixie six digit clock for around £60, which I'm delighted with.

AliExpress feels like the nearest thing to the wild west out of all the online retailers, but because the prices are so low I've decided to soak up the bad quality items myself as I cannot be bothered with repackaging and the returns process. Overall their range of products and competitive pricing still make it worthwhile using them. Delivery times are typically around a couple of weeks.

[themadhippy]

how they could do that.

surplus /end of line modules bought  in bulk  from multiple manufacturers and 2 or 3 diffrent modules cobbled together by the final seller? 

[ataradov]

Yes, this is just assembling random surplus stuff and the magic of extremely cheap labor.

You can see what surplus is out there because occasionally a lot of vendors will do a variation of some gadget and then it will disappear forever.

And shipping became much worse in recent years with all countries clamping down on their abuse of postal systems. It is either reasonably priced or delivered by random dudes in personal cars.

[watchmaker]

Yes, I agree cobbled together surplus production.  But is this entrepreneurial or govt central control?

The only things I buy on AE are toys, wire, connectors, heat shrink, finger cots and my Tiny SA Ultra and VNA (both from the Z??? store).  I would never use them for components or even capacitors.  Resistors, fine.  No solder or flux even. 

[ataradov]

Entrepreneurial. Government does not directly care if this cheap junk is produced or not.

But creating the environment in which this is viable is still up to the government. They can increase the standard of living and make cheap labor unavailable or start respecting the postal norms. This will remove incentives for people to create those products and they will naturally go away.

[brucehoult]

The only things I buy on AE are toys, wire, connectors, heat shrink, finger cots and my Tiny SA Ultra and VNA (both from the Z??? store).  I would never use them for components or even capacitors.  Resistors, fine.  No solder or flux even.

I think what you're missing here is that AE is, just like Amazon, just a store front and payments processing and sometimes fulfilment operation for thousands of independent vendors, of varying quality and reliability.

There are a number of very good quality and reputable companies that have official stores on AE because of the convenience.

Some that I use, with absolute confidence:

- WCH official store https://wchofficialstore.aliexpress.com

- Sipeed official store https://sipeed.aliexpress.com/

- Banana Pi official store https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1101951077

- Radxa official store https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1103615006

The first one makes RISC-V microcontrollers, the others make excellent  RISC-V and/or Arm SBCs and in some cases FPGA boards.

Those products are probably all available from many other stores on AE, with varying level of authorisation and support and authenticity. The best way to find the official store is from a "Buy Now" link on the relevant brand's own web site.


Most of these products are also available on other sites, but one advantage of AE is cheaper shipping than the smaller places that get terrible rates from DHL/FedEx.

Another advantage is that AE is set up to collect VAT etc on behalf of many countries, which means their shipments fly through customs without any delay or extra expense.

Well, that can be a disadvantage too, if your shipment's value is under your country's threshold for bothering to collect VAT.

[wilfred]

I just got some offer on AliX where you buy 3 things to get free shipping. But you are limited to 10 things. I'm not entirely sure if 3x of one thing is equivalent to  1x of three different things.

I doom scrolled the endless list of offers not so subtly tweaked by what it learns from things you clicked on. I don't know how it knew I was interested in replacing an O2 (Lambda) sensor of the car. But I got one type of tool and clicked on it and then I was shown a socket which I preferred.

The upshot is the floodgates opened on a backlog of cheap items I had been wanting and quite a few I didn't know I wanted. I am now deluged by the emails for each of the 18 items in two orders I made.

Order confirmed
Ready to ship
Order shipped
Package in transit
Delivery update

It has only been two days, and I'm sure there is more to come for each item. 51 emails already. And as far as I recall from my previous order the tracking does not work until the item is picked up in Australia by the local courier.

I inwardly hoped I could avoid the flood of emails and separately delivered little packages. I'm not optimistic at this point.

Another thing I found is that a wheel bearing removal tool kit which I can buy on Ebay is similarly priced to ones on Alix but on Ebay postage is free locally for a sub $100 kit. AliX costs near $250 to ship to Australia. So it is vital to not buy heavy items from China.

[ataradov]

I have not received a single email from aliexpress. I'm sure you can unsubscribe from that stuff.

[amyk]

I'm 99% sure that's a JieLi SoC for the Bluetooth. They're <$1 each new, and mounted on a PCB with its few supporting components for not much more. They're made by the millions and all the NRE has long been paid for so you're only paying the raw materials cost with a tiny margin on top.

[SteveThackery]

The upshot is the floodgates opened on a backlog of cheap items I had been wanting and quite a few I didn't know I wanted. I am now deluged by the emails for each of the 18 items in two orders I made.

Order confirmed
Ready to ship
Order shipped
Package in transit
Delivery update

It has only been two days, and I'm sure there is more to come for each item. 51 emails already. And as far as I recall from my previous order the tracking does not work until the item is picked up in Australia by the local courier.

I inwardly hoped I could avoid the flood of emails and separately delivered little packages. I'm not optimistic at this point.

Same here. It doesn't put me off, though:

1/ Sort by sender
2/ Click
3/ Scroll
4/ Shift-click
5/ Delete key

The work of moments.

[Njk]

Like in every public place, your experience may widely vary. There are many offerings of a pre-fabricated goods at Aliexpress. But also there are a custom manufacturing services. Recently, I'd contacted one CNC shop there and placed the order to manufacture two different parts from brass. All went well, the order costed me about $40 with shipping. Seems quite reasonable, taking into account where they are and that it was not a wholesale order.

In comparison, some years ago (before the covid craze) I'd noticed the advertisement from the similar machining shop in Imatra, Finland. The location seemed very convenient as the shop is at a bicycle distance from the border crossing, no need to use shipping. The only problem was that they'd silently ignored my order.

Edit: Just checked my records and actually the quotation was $35(milling)+$23(shipping)=$58, to be precise.

[thm_w]

The upshot is the floodgates opened on a backlog of cheap items I had been wanting and quite a few I didn't know I wanted. I am now deluged by the emails for each of the 18 items in two orders I made.

Under Account -> Settings disable Email Notifications
You can always check on the site or app if you want to view the status.

Another thing I found is that a wheel bearing removal tool kit which I can buy on Ebay is similarly priced to ones on Alix but on Ebay postage is free locally for a sub $100 kit. AliX costs near $250 to ship to Australia. So it is vital to not buy heavy items from China.

Yeah, air vs boat shipping. Amazon they'll bulk ship in 100 heavy items and resell, so the average shipping cost is often lower.

[wilfred]

The upshot is the floodgates opened on a backlog of cheap items I had been wanting and quite a few I didn't know I wanted. I am now deluged by the emails for each of the 18 items in two orders I made.

Under Account -> Settings disable Email Notifications
You can always check on the site or app if you want to view the status.

Thanks for that. I went and checked out email notifications and all I was seeing was "email notifications" and under that the word "activate" which made me think it was not turned on already. But when I clicked it, it opened up about 6 options to decline marketing notifications and product recommendations. All of which I turned off. But the last option was to do what you said and turn off tracking notification emails.

Which I didn't do. Yet. It is unusual for me to have even one let alone two AliX purchases in transit. But it may well come to it at some point. I'm up to 72 now.

The latest status updates are

In your country/region
Cleared customs
At delivery center

[Simmed]

and dont forget postal union special rates for certain countries

[wilfred]

It has only been two days, and I'm sure there is more to come for each item. 51 emails already. And as far as I recall from my previous order the tracking does not work until the item is picked up in Australia by the local courier.

I inwardly hoped I could avoid the flood of emails and separately delivered little packages. I'm not optimistic at this point.

The items arrived this evening about 9PM which was later than I would have expected. No wonder the courier rang the bell and ran away, they were evidently in a hurry.

I didn't avoid the flood of emails but I did avoid separately delivered little soft packages. That's something I suppose. And I only had to make one single payment. So I'm still not sure of ordering multiple items outside of a special AliX offer that pops up. But this experience wasn't bad. I'll reserve judgment until I have tested everything actually works.

And I ordered 2 days after my ARROW order and they beat it. I'm told one of my ARROW packages arrives today but I'm doubtful. It's been 11 days. Ordering from China is a lot faster than it was years ago. Considering how far it has to go and through customs to boot, it's pretty fast.