Online shopping is one of the best things technology has impacted on the lives of this modern generation. There are a lot of people who don’t understand the concept at all and there are others who prefer to shop from the local market because they don’t know the benefits of shopping online.
In this simple guide, I’m going to reveal the awesome reasons why you should shop from aliexpress and explain into details why they are awesome.
What is Aliexpress?
This is a Chinese online retail company which is a part of Alibaba. The website is made up of small businesses from across the world who want to sell on the international level. This shopping platform has been around since April 2010.
It is a retail platform but goods are sold to individual consumers unlike the mother site Alibaba where all goods are sold in bulk. Most of the items sold here are more electronics than fashion and accessories. Perishable goods are not sold on this platform.
How does Aliexpress work?
Most people do not understand the concept behind online shopping but to be frank this is a modern world and everybody needs extra time and that is where online shopping comes into play.
If you ask me how online shops like Aliexpress work, well…. I will say it works just like the supermarket except this one, you don’t have to be pushing your cart around and begging for space.
Explaining from a layman’s point of view; Aliexpress is like the middle man between retailers and consumers…. In other words, they do not own the goods that are showcased on their platform. They only show the photos and description of what the retailers have in stock and when you make a purchase, they intercept the payment and wait for you to confirm that you received the goods before they release the funds to the retailer.
With this simple explanation of mine, you will definitely be asking;
Is Aliexpress trustworthy and safe?
Answering this question is a daunting task but definitely not for a negative reason.
Trust?….. Yes, as long as majority trust Aliexpress it means they are worth it. First of all you are not giving your money to a company that is just based online without any physical address. It is a company with offices; which means if something happens, you can directly go to their office to resolve the issue or take them on so even if you find it difficult trusting them, there is nothing to worry about. I hope that is fair enough.
Safe?… I know you will agree with me that nothing can be absolutely safe on the surface of this earth. Even though the company tries to put a lot of filters on their platform for the safety of its customers, there are still little loopholes here and there that some people use as way of robbing others of their wealth.
As I said earlier, Aliexpress intercepts your payments and wait for you to confirm that you received the goods before they release the funds to the seller. Some people try to outsmart this system but most of the time, it is useless.
Why you should shop from aliexpress
There are so many awesome benefits of online shopping. I will give you some amazing benefits of shopping from Aliexpress. Just make sure you don’t open your mouth and start drooling after reading.
1. Quality goods at a retail price
This online shop is made up of a lot of retail shops so it is very likely you will get any item at a cheaper price than it will cost at your local supermarket. Majority of the sellers on this platform are retailers. Only few are drop-shippers.
You will know which is the quality good for cheaper price when you know exactly what you are buying. If you are buying small gadgets you have never used before, then you can’t say it is quality until you have received and used it for sometime.
I have bought some few gadgets from this place so I can tell that you get quality gadgets for cheap price But don’t be deceived by my words. There are few scammers over there who sell fake gadgets especially storage devices (Pendrives, memory cards, hard disk, etc). You will get a nice 64GB pendrive for cheap price and when it gets to you, you will see it show 64GB free space but you can’t fill all the space with your files. Yeah! I have been a victim of that once.
2. It is fun
Most people think walking around in the Mall, pushing your cart and begging other buyers for space or stretching yourself really tall so you can pick that gadget from the top shelf is fun. To me; “Hell no! That ain’t fun at all.”
In here, you have all the shelves, the cart and all the gadgets you want to buy just within your finger tips. For just a few taps or clicks, you can shop a whole lot of goods that you can’t carry in a single shopping cart.
The most interesting part is; when buying a product for the first time, you get to see what other buyers are saying about the seller and the product itself. This gives you more insight on whether people are complaining about the quality of the product or not.
3. Everything is organized
Everything on this platform is organized unlike the local Mall where you have to ask every time before you are shown the location of an item.
If it is consumer electronics you want, you just go straight to that category and browse through all the gadgets. If you already know the name of the item you want to buy, then you are going to find it even faster.
There is a search box that will bring out the name of your gadget as soon as you start typing it. Even if you have the gadget but don’t know the name, all you have to do is upload a photo of that gadget and it will show you all the retailers who are selling that particular gadget.
Don’t panic even if you don’t remember the gadget but you know a few descriptions or you know what the gadget is used for. Just type in anything that you think describes what you are looking for. You can just type; “Grass cutting machine” if you don’t know it is called “Lawn mower“. Trust me, you will arrive at the same destination.
4. You are in charge
You are in charge of what you shop, how you shop, what you see, where you shop or who you shop from. Being in charge means you can get into every corner all by yourself without any guidance.
There is this filter that makes you see exactly what you want to see when searching for a product from the store.
Do you want to find products only from a specific brand?
Do you want the products that match the exact name you are searching for?
Do you want the product people are buying the most?
Do you want the ones with the cheapest price first?
Do you want to buy from only sellers who ship for free?
You are in control of all these. Just use the filter and tell the site what you want to see and shop with confidence.
5. Secured payment systems and refund conditions
You have a lot of safe payment methods to choose from. Most of the payment methods depend on the country you are shopping from so you might not be seeing the payment methods in my screenshot below but trust me you will be seeing a lot of different payment methods.
Right after a purchase, your payment will be processed by Alipay within 24hours. There is also a system in place to check fraud. There is what is called; “Buyer Protection”
This system gives you a maximum of 60 Days starting from the day the seller confirms shipping the item. Within the 60 days, if you don’t receive the item you can open dispute and tell the buyer you didn’t receive the item and get a full refund. If the buyer doesn’t want to issue a refund, Aliexpress will step in and resolve the issue 
Just make sure you don’t try to outsmart them tho…
If a buyer receives the goods but opens a dispute, the dispute will be canceled after confirmation from the parcel delivery service.
If the you receive the goods but the goods were not as described, you can return the goods for a full refund or open disputes for a partial refund. You just have to prove with photos that the item is not as described by the seller and you are good to go.
6. Different Shipping methods with parcel tracking
You have different shipment methods to choose from depending on where you are located and who you are buying from.
Most sellers do not ship specific items to specific countries so before you buy an item on Aliexpress, you should check if the item can be shipped to your location or not. Even though you can’t make a purchase if the item can’t be shipped to your country, it is always good to check first so you don’t waste time looking at a product that can’t be shipped to you.
During a purchase, you are given a unique tracking code that will allow you to see where the package is. This code works on aliexpress itself or on any other external tracking website.
You can see when your item leaves the country of origin and when it has arrived at the country of destination.
Conclusion:
These are just few of the many reasons why you should purchase from Aliexpress. Shopping is supposed to be fun, secured and easy so don’t worry yourself going through all the troubles bumping into people in the Mall when you can actually bring the Mall to the comfort of your home.
Shop with ease and have fun.
Leave a comment below for suggestions or questions.