AliExpress - what is worth knowing
Most of the people here will have at least heard of AliExpress, typically as a source of cheap watches of varying quality.
I bought quite a few things over there, and I wanted to list some insights useful for Ali newbies.
General Info. AliExpress sells lots of merchandise beside watches, you can think of it as a Chinese version of amazon. However, they do not sell anything directly. The actual sellers on Ali are so called "stores".
Stores. Ali's stores are often associated with brand names, e.g. BERNY official store, for the watch brand BERNY. Mind you, there's also the BERNY watch store. Possibly more. Ali indicates the general satisfaction rate by customers buying from a store, and also tells you how long the store has been in existence. Some stores are a bit sketchy. A small warning sign is when they do not bother with a store name but use the store number Ali allocates to them as their store name.
Shipping. Shipping on AliExpress is surprisingly cheap, probably subsidised in some way. [This differs from parent site AliBaba which is more of a wholesaler, and where you pay the true shipping cost.] You would not think that shipping a single $5 watch from China is economical, but from the buyer's perspective: it is. Note that buying bulkier items on Ali than watches incurs higher shipping cost. Shipping is tracked, and I found it very reliable. Update: Shipping typically takes 2-4 weeks (some even come with a 15 day promise), and usually arrive much faster than the predicted date of delivery. The one exception is when you buy something supercheap (like a $1.50 watch) because then the thing is shipped using a supercheap delivery mechanism that is totally unpredictable.
Import Duty. This can become an issue, and in the UK I found it so after Brexit (before, UK customs could not be arsed). Some stores deal with this upfront, paying the respective import duty at point of sale, others leave it to the seller and you find your product at some point being held by customs, and you are liable to pay duty. For example, when buying watches from Baltany in the UK, you are better off buying from their UK website directly.
Brands. Ali does not sell just Chinese brands. But whether the non-Chinese-branded articles are genuine is very questionable. Casio watches? Maybe, many are made in China anyway, but I would probably give those a miss. Carl F Bucherer watches - I don't think so.
Specs. All watch listings on Ali come with a quite extensive spec list, of every watch measurement you could possibly want. Sometimes the main description contains info the spec lacks, e.g. when a watch comes in a male and female size the spec usually only gives one of them. How true are those specs? It varies - apparently some manufacturers give you some porkies. Tandorio is very sketchy when it comes to water resistance, and I would not trust Carnival on sapphire-crystal-claims. Beware that the word "leather" is open to interpretation at the cheap end.
Customer reviews. Like amazon, Ali also has customer reviews. You should mostly ignore the star-rating, as this is supposed to only rate the accuracy of the listing, not the quality of the product. Instead: read the reviews, look at the customer pics! I'd say there are fewer fake reviews on Ali than amazon.
Fakes. There are fake watches on Ali. Ali clamps down on them to some extent, but half-heartedly so. [I suspect this tolerance is deliberate to stop fakers listing their wares as homages and thus spoiling the homage market.] Some listings very bluntly mention the branding that will be put on there that is not in the photos. If a listing has customer photos these show what you actually get. When those photos show replica branding then the listing (and possibly the store) tend not to survive long on Ali; I have even seen sellers asking customers not to place photos in reviews, almost certainly for that reason. Most fakes are sold by fly-by stores that have not been around for long.
Paraphernalia. Ali is a great source for watch paraphernalia of pretty much any kind. Watch winders, timegraphers, demagnifiers, diamond testers, watch repair kits, watch straps, sets of springbars, watch case pressers, etc. You name it, they have it, and even in bigger variety and quality range than amazon. A specific word of warning regarding straps: you can get really good value on Ali, but it is a minefield of hit and miss.
Chinese watches. The original/main reason many of us go there are Chinese watches. So, what about their quality? I'd put in simple terms: you cannot generalise. China is a huge country, makes a lot of stuff in a lot of different regions and factories. Some is crap and some is really really good. At the cheap end you may want to avoid Chinese watch movements, as they sometimes put unlubricated movements into their watches; but when you get a SanMartin that is not going to happen, no matter where the movement is from.
UK-based German expat. Likes cheap watches. Not bothered about brands.
I would like to add that Aliexpress is also a huge place for aftermarket parts for watch modders as well as straps.
Most western websites selling mod parts for Seiko, Orient, Casio or Vostok watches, such as Namoki or DLW, sell Chinese parts bought in bulk on Alibaba at a premium or downright dropship. With a little search on Aliexpress, you can buy the same parts directly from the Chinese manufacturer(s) for a third of the price and access a larger choice of case styles, bezels, inserts, hands, crystals, etc.
The same goes for straps, especially NATOs. Don't go thinking that every website selling straps weaves their nylon at the back of the shop and offer unique items. Most of them don't even have a physical store. Especially not YouTubers. China is the world's factory and the large majority of NATO straps all share the same nylon weave from the same Chinese factory selling to businesses on Alibaba, just with different stamped hardware for branding.
Buy from the source, don't fill the pockets of dishonest people selling Alibaba products with a 1000% margin. These fronts don't bring any value to the economy. Or like famous philosopher Daniel Wellington said "cut the middleman". 👍
Regarding AliBaba, you can get huge discounts there if you buy in bulk, meaning in BULK. For example, one watch by Carisen I bought for around $75 last year was available for as little as $28 a watch, provided you bought 100,000 of them. You could indeed tick that box on that listing. This sort of wholesale discount gives the middlemen of this world some room to make a perfectly legitimate buck, but not a factor of 10. That's AliBaba though, not AliExpress.
AliExpress for some reason believes that I'm a black woman and tries to sell me all kinds of weird beauty products. It's either wigs or watches.
Other than that, it's great for modding parts. However, aside from standardized items, you may very well get what you pay for. Some parts I ordered were atrocious, others just wonderful.
My experiences with the actual AliExpress watch brands were largely positive.
I slightly disagree that western modding stores sell the same stuff. For some parts, especially watch hands and movements, they often do. But that is generally not the case for watch cases and dials. For dials in particular it pays to look beyond AliExpress.
AliExpress for some reason believes that I'm a black woman and tries to sell me all kinds of weird beauty products. It's either wigs or watches.
Other than that, it's great for modding parts. However, aside from standardized items, you may very well get what you pay for. Some parts I ordered were atrocious, others just wonderful.
My experiences with the actual AliExpress watch brands were largely positive.
I slightly disagree that western modding stores sell the same stuff. For some parts, especially watch hands and movements, they often do. But that is generally not the case for watch cases and dials. For dials in particular it pays to look beyond AliExpress.
You must have had some weird browser history, because I noticed that Ali is very responsive to that. One day I had been searching (via Duckduckgo) for certain Spanish magazines, and the next time I visited Ali it decided I was Spanish and gave me the Spanish language interface (I don't speak Spanish). I also had days trying to persuade Ali not to talk to me in Russian or Arabic.
It is also a bit risky searching for weird and wonderful stuff there, because once you are done with that and want to see normal things again you are still getting the full product range of Moonbiffy and friends. Perhaps use a VPN when you want to go off piste.
Oh, did you also have the strange currencies? (At let me tell you, despite of what Ali thinks, I'm not in Kasachstan!) Nobody at my IP address wants butt enlargements, either.
Yes, I also got the Russian treatment more than once, and I can assure you, it has nothing to do with my browsing history.
Jomashop on the other hand is a mind-reader in comparison.
I have looked many times, some nice stuff. For me though, as much as I can I try to buy ethically and for numerous reasons, not least human rights, I would not buy from China. I know that this is controversial, and if I looked in my house probably half the stuff I own would have a made in China stamp somewhere, but where I can, and in my small way I try to avoid buying from countries or companies who I have ethical concerns with.
hello, I bought a steeldive watch and I was very happy with the quality of this, its a Seiko Willard copy, I got the green dial, I then bought a Pagani which I wasn't as happy with, I changed the strap and I wear it occasionally, over all I am pleasantly surprised with the quality and delivery. I'd like a Baltany next and I'd definitely buy again, not sure about the clothing aspect though.
AliExpress is really like the wild west. Sometimes you can find real bargains there, and sometimes you will find scams that just take your money and either deliver something you didn't order, deliver something incredibly poorly made, or deliver nothing at all. You just have to be careful who you buy from.
As far as watches go, there are hundreds of bargains lurking there for fairly well made watches selling for almost nothing. You can find some of the exact same watches sold by Amazon selling for almost half the Amazon price. The only catch is you have to wait three weeks to get them, and the customer service is virtually non existent. They do offer a generous return policy, but the cost of shipping something back can exceed it's value. And even then, that assumes they are willing to answer your emails, because some vendors won't.
Like everything else, you get what you pay for. Do not expect a $20 watch to be as good as the $1,000 watch it homages. It will look like it, but the resemblance will end there. As you move up the scale, their $200 watches from reputable brands are actually pretty good, and are the same goods selling for twice the price at other online sellers.
My experience is that your best deals for bargain watches have quartz movements. You can find a decent quartz watch for $20, but it is impossible to find a decent quality automatic watch at that price point. They might look nice, but they need to cut corners everywhere to achieve that price. And they will not keep good time, or have zero power reserves, or have gold plating that wears off after two days. You really get what you pay for. There is no free lunch.