Anybody use Alibabba ?
 

Seems interesting, all sorts of stuff there ..

Have bought a few bits for my old Mazda - shift and e-brake leather boots and Mazda logo Al pedal covers. Had a fine experience - the stuff I got was clearly Chinese but was similar in quality to anything else you would buy from China via other vendors.

Everything is so cheap it makes you wonder but I didn't have any problems.

Thanks, good to hear. Looking for big truck tires, $2100 from the only guy in town who can get them. $600.00 from china. If it was only a few hundred dollars, it would be a no brainer , but that is some serious coin savings ...

I prefer to use their Aliexpress portal over the Alibaba portal. Both fall under the Alibaba banner, except I find the escrow option on Aliexpress gives me more peace of mind, and the vetting of vendors for this portal seems a bit better. This does come with a small price increment, but still worthwhile.

I have looked at it. But never used. I thought it was for large quantities? Like 1,000.00 spark plugs or 100 sets of tires for a fleet taxis. So you can buy one hood ornament if you wanted?

Not exactly the same but along those same lines. I know two guys that used to go to China every year for their consumer products show. The largest show of it's kind in the world. I forget how many millions of square feet the show is but gigantic.

The one guy owned a few dollar stores and would buy all his crap at the show. You know what the dollar stores carry so I don't need to explain. He also did a lot of odd type sales. He would commission a commemorative doll each year and sell them through a web site. He would buy them for a few dollars and sell them for $100.00 or more and it was all done on a drop ship basis. He also sold Mardi gras beads, St Patrick's day beads, hats, mugs etc.

The other guy owned a motel and a taxi business. He would go around and take orders from the motels for linens, furniture, vacuum cleaners, etc. what ever you needed to run your motel. He would also go around to various businesses that had fleets of vehicles and take tire orders. He would buy containers of sheets, pillow cases, mattresses and tires. Have them shipped over and would mark everything up a few dollars. Everything was paid for by the customers before he left the US.

The second guy sold everything moved to the Dominican republic. last I heard he wasn't doing well. apparently has a bad drug, alcohol, hooker problem.

The first guy is Brian McDowell Season 3 of the apprentice, fired in week two.

alibaba is aimed more at B2B and volume business, whereas Aliexpress is aimed at lower volumes. The standard answer to any question on Alibaba is (how many shipping containers do you want?) By contrast very few of the shops on Aliexpress will not allow single unit orders.

What I have done in the past was to do single unit orders on Aliexpress to assess reputability/quality, and then to engage with the vendor directly for follow-up business.

Redbeard has been doing very well with buying and rebranding a whole host of things too - well worth also getting his opinion!

Apparently how these shysters operate.

usadiscountwarehouse com (insert the . if ya wanna look, not giving these asshats free SEO)

They buy cheap stuff in China, relabel and resell. For example, they sell a 512 GB micro SD card for $60. That's at least a $250 card anywhere else.

When you get it you'll be lucky if it holds 5 GB.

More good info , thanks. When shopping , there were tons of vendors who had minimum orders of 100 pieces, 1000pieces , shipping containers etc. There were very few who had listed single units for purchase .
The one quote I got asked me if I would consider upping my order from 6 units to 100 ummmmm no.
I will look deeper into aliexpress, thank you !!
Seems like some business opportunity here if you are crafty

I have bought some electronic stuff (from alibaba or an equivalent like banggood). It generally seemed 'okay' when I received it. Most things failed within two years. Some of them in a dangerous smokey kind of way.

If it's not worth hassle for LED lights, I would certainly proceed with caution on tires...

I have used Alibaba a few times for stuff for work.
We have just received and commissioned a reverse osmosis water treatment plant that I sourced on Alibaba. I contacted a few manufacturers via the website and shortlisted a few before selecting one who I felt best understood our requirements. We had a few minor technical issues that were easily resolved, but unless you are in China checking what they are doing every step of the way, you can never be really sure of what you are getting.
Unfortunately for local Australian companies who also quoted on the same equipment, the Chinese product was less than half the cost of the cheapest local product including delivery.

The shop I worked at used to buy quite a few car parts from those sort of vendors and relabel them. The quality was questionable at best. We had to do a fair bit of QC once it hit the states.

No way I'd cheap out on tires.

I found a bunch of stuff on Alibaba, in China.

I ended up going direct to the manufacturer. I was lucky that I have a friend who has contacts in China, as well as a pretty good customs broker who knows people there. They key to doing business in China is to have someone there on the ground who is resourceful. After you have been a customer, usually the manufacturer will take care of you. Incredible people over there. Very dynamic for sure.

Can you guys post something interesting from that site?
I have always assumed that site is for "other people"

I use to look for LED-lamps on there.
The manufacturers for Osram, Phillips and other well known brands are selling the overproduction on Aliexpress.

Tractor tires from china have terrible tread design and made of a plastic looking stuff that you can't even call rubber.

See if there's a Petlas dealer around, they're made in Turkey and the locals have had very good luck with the ag tires around here. I have 2 year old set on my tractor and they still look brand new. Excellent tread and quality level at half the price of a Michelin.

Industrial Otr - Tires - Industrial Otr -

There's also BTK out of India, good tires but a tad thick on the sidewalls and a bear to get on the rim.