this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Not OP, but
Basically anything you'd buy off say Amazon from a 5 letter company.
Why it's liked? It's essentially the same stuff as 5 letter Amazon companies/some Etsy stuff/imported eBay stuff without the middleman, so I don't pay drop shipper or Amazon taxes.
Ali Vs Temu:
I've not used Temu but from what I've read previously better selection on Ali, Choice items have better customer service.
Another big thing you might be missing: Amazon doesn’t exist in most places on earth. AliExpress does. And it has damn near everything when it comes to some categories. A lot of companies also sell directly on there, depending on your niche (coffee grinders, keyboard parts, 3D printing stuff, repair parts for whatever) straight from the source. For me a big one was metal models, the kind popularized by Metal Earth/Piececool.
The first time I received foreign packages of locally unavailable stuff from an online order in rural Lebanon was an almost magical experience. Even if it did spend two months rotting in customs.
Suddenly I went from having very few options for specific niche things, especially electronic parts, to being on the same playing field as everyone else on earth. I paid like 10 USD for an ATTINY85 from the local extortion shop, compared to like 20 USD for a pack of 10 from AliExpress. Quality? Please, the shop is buying them from there too. The ICs are fine.
I think AliExpress sells itself short, if you open the app it looks like they’re doing some sort of overwhelming and insufferable TEMU-style gamified slop-shopping “experience” on the front page. And sometimes you search for something and the one you want won’t show up, but will be in the sidebar of the page of one of the things you don’t want from that list. But it’s been a life changer for me after getting used to how it handles, I hear Amazon is much easier to use. Although you probably can’t ask the seller “hey can you paint this part differently” or “can you skip this accessory, I don’t need it” on Amazon.
so nothing
It's the general you, but you're free to do you.
Temu is predatory, offers fake discounts and only has poor-to-mediocre selection of goods and they arrive only a month after you ordered them (which I attribute to them getting the order, making it from scratch in a factory rather than storing anything, and directly sending it)