Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Alibaba.com is geared towards wholesale, aliexpress.com is geared more for single item(s) purchases. I've been buying stuff from Aliexpress for years.

Both Aliexpress.com and Alibaba.com belong to the same company; i.e. my login works on both websites.

Kinda like Myhabit.com's login is the same as your Amazon.com's login.




I'm curious, what payment method do you use? I was looking at buying something on Aliexpress but the lack of Paypal or Google Payments turned me off.


I use my debitcard. I trust them. Based on their wiki[1], they look like a huge company(e.g. Amazon) that doesn't necessarily have incentive to be randomly ripping people off via CC fraud.

That said, word of caution though

- Unless you want to pay insane shipping, your order won't arrive in the USA for like 4 to 6 weeks.

- Clothing sizes are tricky. I usually go one size bigger than my US/UK size. For my wife who wears S or XS, I have to get her medium - sometimes even that's too small.

- Clothing quality varies especially for lady's clothing. Nearly always it looks fantastic, but if you dare put it in the washing machine it will disintegrate. Wash by hand or dryclean.

- Order electronics at your own peril. That's just rolling dice. I've seen Android phones & tablets from them. When I have a few extra hundred lying around, I'm gonna try getting a laptop - and I fully expect to get junk. But I've also seen orders fulfilled surprisingly well.

- Customer Support doesn't usually have english as first language.

- So far, out of like 20+ orders. They've gotten maybe 2 completely wrong... or I misread the product-details(some of those pages can be tricky)

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group


Alibaba owns their own PayPal competitor (Alipay). I don't think you need to worry.


Debit cards work just fine.




Consider applying for YC's W25 batch! Applications are open till Nov 12.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: