What just arrived from Aliexpress?

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#2956718 19-Aug-2022 18:49

neb:
pih: Just on the consolidated shipping thing, have any of you tried looking at non-consolidated shipping options? I haven't had much time to have a good look around, but in every case that I looked at the other night, the (default) consolidated shipping option was *not* the cheapest option. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else had noticed the same thing.
You generally don't get a choice. I ordered a tiny item from China and it ended up shipped from the Netherlands. Or at least it will eventually be shipped, it's been consolidating for over a month now. Luckily it was cheap enough that I ordered a second one from a confirmed Cainiao shipper that got here in just over a week.

Yep, you pretty much always have a choice, click "More options" next to the shipping details, very rarely is there only one option. I've finally had more of a look around and it seems to me we're getting ripped off by default in a lot of cases. Here are a selection of links from this thread to products eligible for combined shipping:

Example 1: Combined shipping (default) = $7.05 vs. China Post option = FREE

Example 2: Combined shipping (default) = $7.41 vs. Cainiao Standard = $3.88

Example 3: Combined shipping (default) = $8.74 vs. ePacket = $5.48

Not all products are eligible for combined shipping, but out of a few dozen I've looked at just now I found only one item where combined shipping was cheaper than a non-combined option (and the other option was EMS at nearly $50), I found a few where combined and non-combined were both free, but in the large majority of cases it seems that if there's both Combined Shipping and a China Post / Cainiao / ePacket option, the Combined option is both the default and the more expensive option.

Beware.

richms

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#2956719 19-Aug-2022 18:59

I was expecting the combined ones to go on to give me a discount in the cart, like you get when buying several things from one seller but it appears not. I must have spent $40 or so inadvertently with this defaulting to combined before I realized I could change it.

Richard rich.ms

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2956721 19-Aug-2022 19:11

pih:

Yep, you pretty much always have a choice, click "More options" next to the shipping details, very rarely is there only one option. I've finally had more of a look around and it seems to me we're getting ripped off by default in a lot of cases.

I don't think ripped off is fair. AliExpress Shipping provides a good service for the price.

I'm happy to pay a few dollars more for most things if I can use AliExpress shipping. The cheaper methods you refer to are often much slower.

neb

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#2956722 19-Aug-2022 19:15

pih:
Yep, you pretty much always have a choice, click "More options" next to the shipping details, very rarely is there only one option. I've finally had more of a look around and it seems to me we're getting ripped off by default in a lot of cases.

Oh, sure, you have a sort-of choice, and I always use that because you can get faster shipping and possibly avoid the dreadful Yanwen at the cost of an extra 20c of postage, but the choice seems to be mostly for which shipper you use, not whether it's combined shipping or not. I've had stuff combined when none of the options available mentioned combined shipping. For example the NL shipment was specified as Aliexpress shipping (Cainiao) when it was actually (not-yet-)shipped NL post combined.

neb

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#2956724 19-Aug-2022 19:18

SirHumphreyAppleby:
I'm happy to pay a few dollars more for most things if I can use AliExpress shipping. The cheaper methods you refer to are often much slower.

Yup, as @richms points out it's essential to explicitly choose your shipping method rather than going with whatever they select for you. Sometimes for more expensive items or ones I don't want to wait months for I'll go to several sellers at once and choose the one whose shipping method is (a) not Yanwen and (b) has an estimated delivery date of two weeks rather than November.

pih

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#2956725 19-Aug-2022 19:19

SirHumphreyAppleby:

pih:

Yep, you pretty much always have a choice, click "More options" next to the shipping details, very rarely is there only one option. I've finally had more of a look around and it seems to me we're getting ripped off by default in a lot of cases.

I don't think ripped off is fair. AliExpress Shipping provides a good service for the price.

I'm happy to pay a few dollars more for most things if I can use AliExpress shipping. The cheaper methods you refer to are often much slower.

I think the expectation from most buyers -- all buyers? after all, this is AliExpress not Harrod's we're talking about -- is that the default option will be the cheapest option. Until Combined Delivery was launched that was certainly the case. If you wanted a faster option, you chose it and paid a premium.

Maybe "ripped off" was a bit sensationalist, but I think "Beware" is very appropriate.

richms

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#2956727 19-Aug-2022 19:37

pih:

I think the expectation from most buyers -- all buyers? after all, this is AliExpress not Harrod's we're talking about -- is that the default option will be the cheapest option. Until Combined Delivery was launched that was certainly the case. If you wanted a faster option, you chose it and paid a premium.

Maybe "ripped off" was a bit sensationalist, but I think "Beware" is very appropriate.

The shipping would often change based on the quantity. I would often find it better to put several orders for 1 or 2 of something in rather than a larger number. Also if they had the product with several listings, putting one from each in rather than a larger number on the cheapest one would result in cheaper shipping, as not all sellers would do the thing where they would discount if you had many items this sometimes would result in it being more expensive. Used to take ages on there trying to get the best price for a list of things for a project and then because it was several sellers things would get held up because one critical one came from someone who ended up sending it from some weird consolidated shipping place that takes forever.

Richard rich.ms

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neb

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#2968337 14-Sep-2022 23:56

Not Aliexpress but Amazon:

It's sold as a Ten Million Dollar Stick, I got it because at lot of the time when I'm cutting smaller items in the middle of other stuff I don't bother bolting on the zero-clearance fence and relying on whatever bits of timber are nearby to hold the item in place. While the problem with the standard wide throat is usually described as bits being pulled through and becoming flying projectiles, a much more dangerous issue is the saw catching on whatever you're cutting and pulling it through the gap, which pulls your fingers into the saw blade if you're holding it directly. With the Stick, you're not risking your fingers cutting small items.

neb

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#2977830 5-Oct-2022 17:33

neb: Yup, as @richms points out it's essential to explicitly choose your shipping method rather than going with whatever they select for you. Sometimes for more expensive items or ones I don't want to wait months for I'll go to several sellers at once and choose the one whose shipping method is (a) not Yanwen and (b) has an estimated delivery date of two weeks rather than November.

Another thing that I found out with a recent order of multiple items, in the final screen before paying you need to select each item in the order and make sure they haven't reset it to Yanwen even if you selected non-Yanwen initially. I was ordering some USB-socket solder pads and saw that they'd used my selected non-Yanwen carrier for the first item I added but set every subsequent one back to Yanwen until I manually moved them all back to the other carrier.

neb

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#2977831 5-Oct-2022 17:42

Again, not Ali but this time a Seiko kurokku from Rakuten:

Totally silent movement and GPS-locked so never needs resetting. As a friend of mine likes to say, "I love living in the future".

Edited to add: This was the item I mentioned in the courier thread as having got here from Japan in two days. Two days.

empacher48

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#2977841 5-Oct-2022 18:46

Ordered a reconditioned display unit for the radio in my car. Only option was aliexpress standard shipping. Ordered on the 28th September and delivered today.

Was $80 including shipping, same part from a local wrecker $200 and no guarantee it would not have the same problem as the current one fitted to my car or the manufacturer was $80.

pih

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#2977941 5-Oct-2022 19:28

Ruida laser cutter controller to replace the *horrible* Leetro that I had. It's a bit oversized, but I'm so excited to use it: https://imgur.com/a/CVBdDVD

24V LED strip to help light the laser cutter bed

A couple of LED torches. I got both the L2 and T6 versions. There's not a massive difference between them, but these are good for the price.

Bamboo toothbrushes. I swore I would never order anything from AliExpress for, shall we say "internal use", but these are individually packaged unlike some of the other sellers, so at least you know that manual handling of the important end is at a minimum. Price works out around 70c each, 1/5 comparable toothbrushes at the supermarket. Brush is a little narrow , perhaps just squashed in transit/storage. And don't be fooled by the 100% biodegradable label. Last I checked nylon wasn't considered biodegradable!

neb

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#2977966 5-Oct-2022 20:44

pih:
Ruida laser cutter controller to replace the *horrible* Leetro that I had. It's a bit oversized, but I'm so excited to use it: https://imgur.com/a/CVBdDVD

Random semi-related question: Given the near-infinite number of aftermarket replacement controllers and other parts that are sold for 3D printers, laser cutters, drones, and similar, is there any vendor of the base system that actually gets it right? Like Microsoft more or less creating the antivirus industry, it seems odd that an entire industry has sprung up in which it's cost-effective to re-engineer complex systems like this and sell them as replacements for badly-done originals.

pih

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#2977985 5-Oct-2022 21:34

neb: Random semi-related question: Given the near-infinite number of aftermarket replacement controllers and other parts that are sold for 3D printers, laser cutters, drones, and similar, is there any vendor of the base system that actually gets it right? Like Microsoft more or less creating the antivirus industry, it seems odd that an entire industry has sprung up in which it's cost-effective to re-engineer complex systems like this and sell them as replacements for badly-done originals.

Admittedly OT, but good question. I am not too familiar with other options, I just know that Leetro are bad and Ruida are less-bad. The Leetro required a hardware dongle (effectively a signed hardware key) just to operate, the software was dodgy and crashed often, the UI was translated poorly and regularly did things you weren't expecting. The controller itself is closed and my model had not yet been reverse engineered (and given its age, probably won't ever be). At least with the Ruida I can use the very nice Lightburn software, and no dongles required.

I've looked into a few open source alternatives: GRBL, Smoothieboard, etc. But they were too unpolished for my needs. I just need an appliance, I'd rather not hack around with code or configuration, and the Ruida gives me that - it more or less works out of the box. I just have some config to do for stepper config, bed size, etc.

But yeah, last time I really looked at it (2018), Smoothieboard looked like a nice up-and-coming alternative that really seemed to get a lot of things right. But it seems like the project stalled after v1: v2 is all but vapourware, and the global chip shortage has hit them hard and I doubt it will see the light of day.

neb

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#2977994 5-Oct-2022 22:30

pih:
I've looked into a few open source alternatives: GRBL, Smoothieboard, etc. But they were too unpolished for my needs. I just need an appliance, I'd rather not hack around with code or configuration, and the Ruida gives me that - it more or less works out of the box. I just have some config to do for stepper config, bed size, etc.

Ah, this is the universal maker's lament, you want to do a thing so you get a tool to do the thing, and then it's kinda crappy so you get another tool to fix the tool to do the thing, and then you need another tool to tune up the tool you need to fix the tool to do the thing, and... what was the thing you wanted to do again?

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