I believe the prices are the same. But the app has a number of "games" to collect tokens that get credited as discounts. Seems to be mostly stuff designed to get you to open the app daily and browse their offers. Which might be "innocent" if it's just to get you to buy more stuff, or maybe they have more reasons they want you to have the app open. Who knows

At least Aliexpress doesn't have all the fake slot machine type games that temu has that always end in variations of "get $200 of discounts for your next order if you order x items from this list"

There are few things more scammy than AliExpress “discounts”. I have yet to see a cent of the hundreds of dollars of “savings” they gave or advertised to me.

Very true, I almost never use Ali Express because I have no clue what anything is going to cost until I get to roughly the final step of checking out.

They used to give 5-10 bucks of credit to new users a few years ago. Real credits, I very carefully compared prices from different IPs.

So I would register a new account for each order -- 10 USD is quite a lot of money in my country -- and saved at least a hundred on buying dev boards and other components.

They also don't give you a proper tracking number. The only way to track your shipment is in the app.

This is not correct. I do not have the app and get tracking for my orders.

I get email updates but whenever I click the track link it tells me I need the app.

I have a package on the way with AliExpress. It is headed from somewhere in China to somewhere in the US.

Using my computer just now, I looked at one of the emails that AliExpress sent about this order. It had a clickable tracking number displayed; I clicked it.

That brought me to their website, where I landed on a page that included the last update for my order and also a link to "View Details".

That works for me. It was very easy to where along the line my stuff is (and that it is not in the US yet).

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Meanwhile: I also copied the tracking number from the email. I pasted that tracking number into the box at usps.com.

The USPS knows of my tracking number and they do not have my item yet. Fair enough.

I ticked some boxes and told them to send me updates, which I'm sure they'll do once they have updates to send -- just as they have done for ~decades now.

This also works for me.

Many sites will work fine in a desktop browser but refuse to do anything in a mobile browser, demanding you install their app or just immediately redirecting you to the iOS or Android app store.

It does show a popup to that effect, but if you dismiss it you can still see the tracking info. Definitely annoying, but not unworkable.

If on mobile, ticking "desktop mode" in your browser usually goes around that dark pattern.

Depends on the shipping company, and likely on your location. I get tracking numbers for most but not all shipments

You just have to press the right link on the site and you get the tracking page (despite saying you need the app).

Now we know why...

And someone would install random apps to save $5 on $100 purchases?

"random apps" and it's the largest eCommerce company on the planet

So what? I install 0 ecommerce mobile apps.

What, I suddenly need to buy Alibaba crap and I can't wait to get to a laptop browser?

You've moved the goal posts there.

"Why would anyone install a random app"

"Why would anyone use a phone to make a purchase"

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Globally, more than half of all eCommerce purchases are made on a phone or tablet.

>Globally, more than half of all eCommerce purchases are made on a phone or tablet.

For no good reason in places where the phone is not the exclusive access many have to the internet (like it's for many people in the poorer places in Africa for example).

(And the number likely includes things like food delivery and digital goods like game assets and apps themselves)

> Globally, more than half of all eCommerce purchases are made on a phone or tablet.

The fact that all uneducated crash test dummies are purchasing via dubious apps doesn't mean a seemingly educated population about computer hygiene as I would expect is visiting hn would do that as well.

And it is not about purchasing from mobile, but app vs web browser.

When I did customer tech support for a major retailer, we had confused customers calling all the time because they would randomly get price-match refunds they never asked for. They were installing apps that were automatically requesting the refunds by searching their emails for orders and checking the prices on the websites. These people had no idea they had even given these apps permission to read their emails.

You'd be surprised on what general public can go to save $5.

I mean, I'm haunted by the things I did for a Klondike Bar.

eBay keeps pushing their app with a $5 discount, advertised using a focus-stealing popup interrupting your attempt to give them money, so some people must be taking the bait.

Sure. I can live for a day on those five bucks. You wouldn't believe what people in low income countries go through to save a bit of money: I've seen people I know (but couldn't stop in time) send copies of their ID to some shady company to get a five percent discount on gasoline.

It's still the case that you pay less in the app. You get 'coins' for a daily check-in, which are automatically(?) applied as a discount. Most items either don't actually use them or only give you a pointless 1% off or something, but I've gotten a $12 microcontroller for $5, for example. I think some coupons are app-only, too (though most aliexpress sales are fake and are better thought of as the normal price).

>You get 'coins' for a daily check-in, which are automatically(?) applied as a discount.

This should be illegal

You pay less money in the app.

Companies are not going to hire a mobile dev team to create an app to give you a way to pay them less for a good.

They hire a mobile dev team to create an app to give you a way to hand over data that you otherwise wouldn't, is technically impossible to do through a web browser, and is worth more than the discount that they give you for using the app.

> Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.

Translation: They are able to mine your personal data more completely with an app installed vs the website which they can sell for pure profit. They promoted installing it to extract more value from you.

That's definitely a feasible explanation (and the one I would assume to be true for AliExpress).

But there is another, slightly less evil, explanation that I know at least some companies have pushed their apps because of: the thinking is that if you're on their website, there is less friction to open a new tab and search for a lower price from their competitors, than if you're in their app. Obviously it's hardly any different - opening a new app (the web browser) vs. opening a new tab in the app you're already in - but the theory is that there's a slight psychological difference.

Of course I'm not saying that trying to prevent your customers from searching for better deals is a nice thing to do. Just adding that data mining isn't the only reason for some companies to want people to use their apps.

It's quickly getting to the point for me that "find the thing I want locally and buy online if it's cheaper" is reversing. I've actually been to one of the few remaining electronics retailers to look for a PC for my kid recently, and it was nice not to be assailed by dark patterns (yes, there are dark patterns in b&m retail, but they're much more obvious).

It also all goes to the party, who are the owners of Alibaba (and every other company in China).

Should you ever need someone in a foreign country to do something for you, it's good to have as much information as possible at your disposal about them.

That's how you know you absolutely should not do that.

Like a white van with FREE CANDY written on it...

It worked for Reddit... It used to be a 100% website experience and now I'd venture the majority of their traffic is from the mobile app.

Selling your soul for a discount. I almost never download native apps. If they go to the lengths shown in this article to side-channel fingerprinting, imagine what they do when they have native privs.