Casual Conversation

It's not their fault per se but more in the way their delivery system is setup. I live in a building with over 300 apartments. A place where ordering anything that will be left on the floor of the lobby for more than a few hours is going to be stolen.

If I order from eBay, they use the local post and my stuff is either left in my mailbox, or I have to go get it at the post office. It's never left on the floor.

If I order from Amazon, they will usually (not always) put my packages in the secure lockers. And if I'm waiting for something rather pricey, their estimate is good enough that I can stay home that day.

But ordering from AliExpress is a huge gamble for me. I don't live in a house, don't have a door giving on the outside, and their courriers are not consistent. Sometimes they call me on my phone and they (apparently) want me to open the downstairs door, but I can't do it this way because they have to ring my apt # on the doorbell. So they lose patience, hang up and I can't find where the package was left. I have never had a delivery that went smoothly with them. I tried with cheap items first and delivery was always spotty. That's why I should have known better. Ordering from them and have packages delivered where I live is a taking a risk. Their delivery estimates is also all over the place. The package was supposed to arrive yesterday but it arrived on a Friday evening while I was out of town for three days. I just can't stay home for two to three weeks waiting for the AliExpress courrier to leave my package on the floor of my apartment's lobby.

It would probably be much better if I lived in a house and they simply left the package in front of it. Like, if I ever order from them again, it will be at my parents' house. But because I live in a tower with a lobby, they just dump the packages on the floor of the entrance, mark it as "delivered", and I usually never find them. I would really really prefer if they used the local post instead of weird random inconsistent courrier companies.