According to him, his higher ups hated the idea of Ali Express turning into "Cheap Chinese Goods Site®." Just as all Chinese "old boss" types, they had that unhealthy obsession with chasing "high profile" image in everything.
They were fuming about them not being able to enter American market, and that no proper Western brand wanted to play with them.
Few people know, but until Alibaba bought Lazada. Russian market was making Alibaba more profit than all other foreign markets combined, despite them spending zero on marketing there, while American market was eating tenths of megabucks of advertising spendings, and not making a dime.
What is the average delivery in days when shopping from Alibaba? Do you get huge delivery fees akin to Amazon and eBay?
I'm pretty unhappy with Amazon and eBay for shopping in Bulgaria and I'm considering alternatives.
It's not for the same-day delivery crowd, that's for sure, afaik it's from a few days to a week or two. But, like I said, the price is sometimes so low that for a lot of people it's worth it.
> Do you get huge delivery fees akin to Amazon and eBay?
Not as far as I know. There used to be a loophole (or maybe the customs people were too lazy to enforce the law) where you didn't pay VAT for purchases that were not that high but that has changed lately, which added approximately 20% to the costs. Even so, because the prices are comparatively speaking so low it doesn't make that much of a difference.
Of course, I wouldn't advise trying to purchase any branded things or luxury stuff from Alibaba but you can find pretty nice things in there at impossible to beat prices if you don't care that much about the label.
I wouldn't go for almost any online store if I look up luxury items anyway. ;)
But when you want to get 4 cables of this kind, 2 cables of that other kind, 3 LED arrays, and 2 books -- which total $35 -- it feels pretty awful to actually have to pay about $65 due to delivery fees and whatnot.
So I am thinking that for all those smaller purchases I'll just go for Alibaba.
(BTW I also noticed our customs caught up on lower-cost items' VAT and it's not pleasant.)
Appreciate the feedback.
Alibaba is pretty big here in Romania. One could say that that happens because Amazon isn't officially present on the market, which is true, but neither Alibaba is officially launched, people use it because the stuff on their website is really, really cheap and the cost vs what-you-get ratio is pretty reasonable. I also wonder how come Alibaba isn't bigger in some Western European markets.