New Buying From China (incl AliExpress) guide discussion

CumbrianWolf

Sorry if this isn’t the right section


I am looking to by chandelier light and wall lights from Ali-express.

The lights which we have fallen in love with are only available on amazon/eBay/ Ali-express via china. (im aware they wont come with british standard gurantees etc)

I have never purchased from Ali-express before and I am conscious I may be hit by customs charges

I am looking to purchase three lights approximately £30-40 in value each.

Am I definitely going to get hit with a customs change? With delivery being free, am I best to split the order and order each separately rather than as one big order to try to avoid any customs changes.

Thanks for any advice. This is a new marketplace for me.

System

Found this hope it helps



If you buy goods online from outside the EU for delivery to the UK, you'll have to pay Customs Duty (if over £120 value) and Import VAT (if over £18) on top of the purchase price (including duties), though Customs Duty is waived if the amount of the calculated duty payable is £7 or less.

MysteryMe

I'd be wary of fitting such items unless they are safety tested.

georgeone

Stompa wrote: »

I do find it rather bizarre that the form for entering a UK address at AliExpress is flawed. You get an entry labelled 'City', which contains a drop-down list of counties.

OK - so how does ANYONE successfully get a shipping address entered into Aliexpress? I gave up. Forced to select England (in case they sent it to one of those other well-known parts of the UK, like South Georgia) and remaining fields (State/region, City) contain mixtures of counties and cities, but only a handful of cities, and when I enter 'other' for city, no option to enter manually.

So my address is probably
- street name
- county
- England
- postcode
- UK
and there may or may not be an 'other' in there somewhere?

I did eventually force it to take my city in my profile address, but when buying it will make me enter a shipping address, no option to use profile address.

How does anyone ever get anything delivered?

justaquestion

Hi folks,

I joined aliexpress aobut a month ago with the promise of a $3 joining coupon and so far no coupon has arrived.

I know its only $3 but its the principle of the thing that counts, I have had three online chats with their customer services and can only conclude that there is not a hope in hell's chance of them honouring that coupon.

They seem to try to put obstacles in my way, and ask for any alternative email addresses etc.

Maybe its just my bad luck and others have got this coupon but I would be very surprised if that is so.

Overall has given me a very unfavourable impression of their business model.

LeeRits

Not a scam. I got my joining coupon and used it straight away. Been using them for about 6 months, one order didn't turn up, seller instantly sent another one out.

The coupon didn't get sent seperately, it was just on my account once I registered, I just added stuff to my basket and it discounted $3 from it. I really wouldn't be bothered about $3. If you are then it's probably best if you don't use the site as orders can go missing, take ages to turn up or not turn up at all... and while I personally haven't had an issue that didn't get sorted, it's likely to bother you if you're already a little worked up over it and have an 'unfavourable impression' of their business model over a $3 coupon.

Technical mistakes happen, the system may have bugged out and not applied it to the account. The $3 coupon may have been in your account (or basket) straight away and needed to be used within a certain time frame that you missed. Did you read the terms and conditions?

justaquestion

Thanks for reply.

Yes I did go through all the loops and really checked if it was there but nothing.

As regards the customer service when you do manage to get past the bot, I did find them very unhelpful and felt that they were simply putting more obstacles in my way to get the coupon.

Not to worry, I just deactivated my account, due to this experience I wouldn't want to deal with their customer service again, or even for them to have my personal payment details.

But do understand that others such as yourself may have had a more positive experience with them.

LeeRits

justaquestion wrote: »

As regards the customer service when you do manage to get past the bot, I did find them very unhelpful and felt that they were simply putting more obstacles in my way to get the coupon.

You also should note that they are primarily a Chinese based retailer so English will most likely not be their first language. Something you may consider unhelpful or possibly rude may just be getting lost in translation.

zaax

If a company is outside of Europe you have no chance of getting your money back, unless you paid by credit card

tryin

I got the $3 voucher immediately. You need to go to the new users area and request it.

AliExpress also offer $5 voucher for joining, but its only valid for orders of $50 or more.

http://www.aliexpress.com/activities/aliexpress-promotion/coupon0913/index.html