Advantages and disadvantages of paid delivery on Aliexpress. Why are there no brands on Aliexpress?

But can't find free shipping? Why is free shipping no longer available?

As of February 7, 2017, free shipping will no longer be available. The trading platform has developed a new logistics policy for countries such as:

• Russia;
• Ukraine;
• Belarus.

Under the terms of the introduced changes:

1. For Ukraine– all purchases on the trading platform will be sent for money.
2. For Belarus, as for Ukraine, economic class logistics for the provision of services is not used.
3. For Russia the rules are a little different. So for orders whose value is equal to or more than two dollars, there is no free shipping. For smaller amounts, economic logistics is used.

Why is free delivery on Aliexpress not available - who is to blame?

Delivery fees have been introduced today. Thanks to it, the product (parcel) is assigned a tracking number, which makes it easy to track the movement of the parcel. The fact is that when free shipping existed, it was impossible to track the parcels, and our dishonest “actors” took advantage of this. They bought the product with free shipping. We received it by mail, and then opened a dispute, saying that the goods were not received and the money needs to be returned. The site, without arguments or proof of receipt of the parcel, returned the money to the buyer who had already collected his purchase.

Why is free delivery on Aliexpress not available - what will we pay for?

As already written, we will now pay for a track number, which can be used to track the parcel and prove that it was sent or received. It should be noted that from the practice of the site’s new policy, it is clear that parcels with a tracking number arrive much faster than before with free delivery.

Why is free shipping on Aliexpress not available? After all, she exists!

Indeed, having opened some products, you can see free delivery to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Why is that? Everything is quite simple. To confirm the transaction, sellers must send the buyer a tracking number, which means that the delivery of the parcel has been paid for. Of course, the store will not operate at a loss. Therefore, many sellers do the following:

• increase the price of a product, while leaving “free delivery” as an option;
• larger sellers with thousands of products, distribute delivery on all products, leaving the “free shipping” option. At the same time, the price per item does not increase much.

Now the choice is up to the buyer - to buy a more expensive product, but with “free shipping”, or to buy it much cheaper, but pay for delivery.

Those who like to buy goods in China with delivery to Russia have probably already noticed that it has now become terribly unprofitable to buy goods on AliExpress. The fault lies with the trading platform, which includes Russians and residents of the CIS countries. Now all sellers are required to send only parcels with track numbers, and, as you know, you need to pay for them.

The national postal service "Russian Post" appears to have acted as a partner of the Chinese trading platform, since all purchases on AliExpress are made in Russian mail a few minutes after confirmation of payment, and this occurs before the order is sent by the seller. It is possible that the unfavorable terms of cooperation offered by Russian Post were to blame.

As a rule, most people buy only inexpensive goods on AliExpress, which are sold in Russia at record high prices. For example, this could be an adapter for a SIM card, an inexpensive case, a protective glass for a smartphone, or something similar. As an example, we will take the first and last options to show how unprofitable it has become to buy goods on this site due to the new rules for sending goods.

A set of adapters for a SIM card, including a paper clip, costs only 30 rubles on AliExpress. At the same time, its delivery to a buyer from Russia will cost 42 rubles. Let’s assume that, in order to save money, we want to buy ten such sets at once from this seller in order to save money, because there will be only one package. As a result, we find that each additional product increases the cost of delivery. In this case, not so much, but still the price increases, although all ten adapters will be packed in one package and sent in one shipment.

A similar situation is observed with almost all inexpensive goods. So, for example, the seller is ready to send a protective glass for iPhone 7 Plus worth 75 rubles to Russia for 39 rubles, but if you choose three such glasses, the delivery cost immediately jumps to 95 rubles. The only good news is that the terribly unfavorable conditions for purchasing goods apply only to various “small things” worth up to 200 rubles, which sellers used to send in parcels without identification numbers for tracking.

There can be two solutions to the current situation. The first option implies that AliExpress will again allow sellers to send inexpensive goods to Russia without track numbers, but this is extremely unlikely. The administration of the trading platform can take such measures only if Russians begin to make purchases much less frequently.

The second option implies that special warehouses with cells will be created in China, to which all parcels purchased by the buyer from AliExpress will be sent at once, after which each of them will be packaged in one postal item and sent to the buyer from Russia, but there are many different nuances here, such as defective goods or damage during transportation. In any case, until something changes, you will have to buy inexpensive goods in other online stores, fortunately, there are many different ones and most of them have free shipping.

Until March 10 inclusive, everyone has a unique opportunity to use Xiaomi Mi Band 3, spending only 2 minutes of their personal time on it.

Join us on

Many online buyers are wondering: why are prices on Aliexpress so low, and is there a catch in this - will they be sold low-quality goods at a low price? After all, we sometimes feel sorry for even two or three dollars spent on outright rubbish.

What is the reason for low prices?

Why is everything so cheap on a Chinese site? Obviously, for such a phenomenon as the low cost of goods there must be several reasons, let’s name the main ones.

Everyone knows that China has been the world's first economy with the highest GDP since 2014. There are many free economic zones in the country where there are no taxes, enterprise workers have low wages - all this affects the reduction in the cost of goods. That's why they are really cheap.

And almost everything that the global consumer needs is produced in China - from baby rattles to complex electronic devices and spacecraft.

China's population is 1.35 billion people, but they are not able to buy everything that is produced in their country continuously. Therefore, the Celestial Empire is the largest exporter of a great variety of types of goods and products, and the Aliexpress website is a trading platform for manufacturers, not resellers. Here, manufacturers directly sell their goods to customers without markups, although there are also resellers.

Aliexpress is not an ordinary online store, but an online market, an online hypermarket, in which each manufacturer has its own small store. And every seller, wanting to sell as much goods as possible, attracts buyers in all possible ways, and the most proven way is to reduce prices. Buyers are also attracted by constant sales, all kinds of promotions, discounts, coupons, and bonuses.

Start-up manufacturers and sellers dump especially heavily - they reduce prices on goods to attract buyers, get good reviews on Aliexpress, and increase their customer base. And there are a lot of them on the site, this is another answer to the question: why is everything cheaper on the Chinese trading platform than in other online stores.

Retailers who receive and import goods from China are forced to sell them at a large trade markup, for obvious reasons - they need to maintain stores, pay taxes, wages, rent and utility bills. Aliexpress sellers do not have such a need.

Despite the fact that online shopping has become a global trend, there are no fewer buyers in real stores. Why? Yes, because in a real store you have the opportunity to look at the product with your own eyes, touch it, and make sure of its quality. If these are complex devices, the buyer can check how they function, whether their quality corresponds to the price, if we are talking about clothes and shoes - in a real store you can always try them on, see what materials they are made of.

It is hardly advisable to buy 1-2 dresses on Aliexpress - you may not be able to guess the size, it can be difficult to predict how it will fit on your figure. But buying clothes and shoes of all sizes and colors is beneficial for wholesale buyers and owners of real trading platforms. By purchasing these items cheaply on Aliexpress, they can sell them at a good markup without the fear of getting the wrong size.

How to avoid getting into trouble?

And in conclusion - when choosing the cheapest product on Aliexpress, remember that there are also unscrupulous sellers who allegedly sell popular goods at low prices. “Having been exposed,” the scammers curtail their trade, and after a while they emerge under a different sign and get back to their business.

You can identify such sellers by a small number of reviews. If you do not want to be deceived, contact sellers with high ratings and good reviews.

For example. Sellers offer popular goods on Aliexpress, most often electronic equipment, with a 25-30% discount, which is sure to attract a gullible buyer. The buyer transfers money for the goods to the Aliexpress system, where they are stored until the parcel is received.

The buyer is sent a fake tracking number with an extra number, but no one pays attention to this little detail - it happens! After some time, the buyer receives a message:

“Hi, electronics cannot be shipped (problems at customs)! A temporary replacement international parcel has been sent. Please do not worry! The parcel will arrive safely! We will make a detailed explanation in a few days. We look forward to the completion of the transaction! Thank you".

And after some time, the buyer receives another message: “Hello friend, we were unable to follow the agreement when sending you the goods, we decided to return you $15 as compensation. Please confirm the temporary refund agreement and we will refund your $15. Thank you".

The buyer decides they are getting a $15 discount for the delay and gives access to a partial refund. And the seller informs the system about returning the money and closing the dispute. At the same time, money from the Aliexpress system is transferred to the seller’s account; the system does not accept any claims from the buyer - after all, the money has been returned.

Having ordered a product on Aliexpress and tired of waiting for it, the buyer begins to panic and wonders why parcels from Aliexpress take so long. You should not worry too much about this, since there are certain periods during which the goods reach the customer safely, but sometimes you need to wait longer than a month.

It is important to control the process, because otherwise you can miss the deadline for protecting the transaction, when the customer has the right to open a dispute and return the money in case of non-receipt of the goods.

If you are very interested in why an order from Aliexpress takes so long, it is important to understand the delivery times. The standard time for delivering a parcel to the buyer is from 20 to 45 days.

This period increases when it comes to the delivery of goods in the period January-February, since this is associated with the celebration of the New Year (first Russian, then Chinese).

The delivery time of the parcel depends on the delivery services used by stores on the Chinese online platform. For example, if a merchant sent a parcel by Chinese state mail, the customer will receive the goods after 30-45 days. When using the services of Singapore or Hong Kong post, you can receive the ordered goods much faster - in 20-30 days.

We wrote about the approximate delivery times for each Aliexpress postal service in the article -.

If the customer does not want to wait the standard number of days during which the goods usually reach the recipient, then when placing an order it is better to choose delivery by a large logistics company, pay from $25 and not wonder why the package from Aliexpress takes so long. In this case, the buyer will be able to receive his goods in 7-20 days.

Sometimes goods from Aliexpress take a really long time – over 2 months. This happens for various reasons, which you should know in order to, if necessary, open a dispute on the site and return the money paid for the product.

When a parcel from Aliexpress takes a long time, this is due to:

1. problems encountered at customs;
2. workload of postal services;
3. inattention of employees of these services;
4. incorrectly specified recipient's address when the customer made a mistake in his address;
5. an incorrectly specified address upon dispatch, that is, the seller made a mistake when specifying the customer’s address.

The delivery time also depends on the type of transport by which the parcel was sent - by sea, rail, airmail. There is also express courier delivery, thanks to which the customer can receive their goods much faster than if it were sent by high-speed airmail.

A parcel from China takes approximately 2-3 weeks to reach our country if delivery is carried out by China Post international mail, which services 90% of parcels from the Chinese Internet site.

How is goods delivered from Aliexpress?

To understand why a package from China takes a long time, you need to know all the stages - from sending the goods to passing through various services:

As a result, it turns out that goods from a Chinese online platform reach the final buyer in our country in an average of 30-45 days. But sometimes you still have to wait much longer.

What to do if the deadline for confirmation of receipt of goods is coming to an end

When an order is taking too long and it seems like it will never arrive, it is important to take the right actions. Be sure to keep an eye on the counter showing how much is left until the buyer protection period expires. As a rule, the period during which the buyer will receive his goods is indicated on the order page.

If there are 2 weeks left before the end of this period, it is better to write to the supplier and ask to extend this period. For this purpose, the site provides a special button, by clicking on which the customer will be able to extend the protection period for some time, but with the approval of the merchant.

Typically suppliers respond to such requests within 3 days. If the seller conducts honest transactions on a Chinese online platform, he will confirm the extension of the protection period and ask the buyer to be patient.

Sometimes the merchant does not respond to the buyer's requests or does not want to extend the time to protect the transaction. But at the same time he assures that the order has already been sent and is on its way to the addressee. You can't take the seller's word for it.

If the seller does this or does not respond at all, then 5-7 days before the end of the protection period if the parcel is not received, it is better to open a dispute and demand a refund of the paid funds.

In the event that the customer did not receive his goods and opened a dispute on time, the money will be returned to him 100%. After all, the seller receives money only after the customer has confirmed receipt of the parcel, or when the protection period has expired. You should also open a dispute when the tracking number sent by the supplier is not readable, or this number is deliberately false.

Now you know how long a parcel from Aliexpress can take and why it is sometimes delayed. The main thing is to monitor her movements on her personal page and, if necessary, open a dispute.

When is the best time to open a dispute if the package is still on the way? and the time on the counter is running out