I’m curious what sorta finds you guys have had
Temu is just driving the social media impulse “buy buy buy you need it buy it now!!” Culture when in reality their stuff is crap, and even for the cheap prices… You probably weren’t going to buy it anyway. They are really striving in being a shitty company that’s bad for us and the planet.
Good video here that explains more of how they’re just manipulating us to buy more: https://youtu.be/7hGD5Cz_now
Their tagline “Shop like a billionaire” makes me sick. Fast fashion and stuff like Temu have become so predatory lately. Fuck FOMO tactics.
TikTok and them just fuel each other to create fake fomo and it’s so crappy. They target kids so hard and take advantage of them wanting to fit in, and get them to just spend money on crap they didn’t need to buy anyway. Not to mention they’ve pushed fashion cycles to be faster to make people think that top they bought 2 months ago is useless and should be thrown out.
Some things on Temu are complete trash but some are really good for the cash. They have a HUGE range of pin badges for less than a dollar, I’ve seen some of the more expensive ones ($2) sold for $10+ on other marketplaces like Amazon.
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Capitalism in a nutshell. “Yeah it kills the planet and harms others and there may be forced labor involved, but idc, that’s other people’s problems”.
Not guilt tripping btw, just stating facts. I don’t and won’t buy for them.
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Keep in mind that a lot of your local marketplace sellers just order rebadged stuff from alibaba. I’ve found literally the same electronics i’ve bought locally on aliexpress for like half the price.
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Alibaba is basically just wholesale aliexpress, most sellers have a minimum order quantity and have clear pricing scale depending on your order.
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I buy my body jewelry, earrings etc on AliExpress. Also buying Zirconia jewelry and gold plated works very well since there are hardly any premium charges. it’s also pretty much the only area of goods I’ve found where in 98,9% of the cases the product and materials used is exactly as advertised, meaning no oxidizing, radiation and magnet friendly, etc.
Be aware chinese jewelry might contain metals or alloys that differ from the description and which are bad for your skin/health. And a lot of jewelry sold in the West is from China.
I got a camping tent from aliexpress and it was pretty good. I have used it a couple times a year for about 4 years now. I think it’s called the lanshan or something like that.
I bought an Anbernic RG351P from Aliexpress as well. I have used it for countless hours playing retro games on it. Not quite nintendo quality, but definitely a lot better than other emulator consoles I’ve used.
I’ve also bought some great quality clothes from taobao. No reps only stuff like raw denim, hoodies, and styles that aren’t too popular in the US like high waisted pleated pants or heavy tees that are 11oz
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This is a little outdated, but this spreadsheet has a lot of good stores. I would also check out /r/fashionreps and search for unbranded. Might find some cool stores.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x52JOdBOynFZIdXYb47ZG6UBz-x1y9xYeDAksFhQN_I/edit?usp=sharing
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I was looking for some eletrical component for my arduino and the only place that had it was aliexpress. That was a pleasant surprise. Three months later I still got almost daily spam mail from them. I block the mail address, but they just generate a new address to spam me with. Lukily it has stopped now. I’m never buying there again if I can help it.
There are some nice stuff of Ali that was original intended for the Chinese market. But you have to know you get what you pay for in China. If it’s too cheap, it’s going to be crap.
I’ve used aliexpress for bootleg lego and have had mixed results. Some sets were perfect copies with all pieces, and others were missing some. I was also able to get some discontinued sets which was nice. The quality of the pieces themselves were pretty good. It is a bit of a risk but hard to beat the price as its wayyyy cheaper.
I bought an electric field heater for my dynavap, so that’s good.
AliExpress is great if you have a 3D printer and you can’t stop messing with it.
I been getting things for my work from temu. Drill bits, router bits, sandpaper, etc and compared to what I get at lowes it’s a great deal.
I buy Lego from Ali. It’s so much cheaper and the quality is same.
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I bought an intel i7-5775c for like £70 about 2 and a half years ago from Aliexpress. Really strong cpu for the price, overclocks well and has meant that I haven’t had to upgrade my motherboard and ram to ddr4 yet.
No. I happen to live in China and not even here people want that crap. They are making fun of foreigners buying cheap shit for a premium.
I sometimes use AliExpress for DIY electronics like microcontrollers and other components. An Esp32 usually costs around 8-12 euros in Europe. On AliExpress I buy them for 3 (plus shipping). Its worth it if you are buying more than just a few. Shipping is usually slow but if its not urgent its cheap and so far of good/ decent quality.
I did also buy a small industrial camera on there which did not work. I contacted the seller and after some troubleshooting they agreed to ship a new camera to me (still waiting on that one) but in principle I am satisfied with the service for the price I payed.
I got a decent little fanless i5-based computer with 6 ethernet ports to use as a router, and it was cheap and works well running OPNsense. That’s about the only thing I’ve bought on AliExpress.