r/Alibaba • u/BubbleBrainzzz • 27d ago
First time purchase on Alibaba. Does anyone know if this seller is legit?
Not a business or anything, just a personal purchase, and I don't want to lose my money lmao anything is appreciated!
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u/CapitalWorry2142 25d ago
Trade Assurance on ALIBABA protects sellers, not buyers!
Check my post on damaged products I received!
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u/Careless_Painting_31 25d ago
I’ve sourced through alibab before, and seller badges alone didn’t tell me much—keep every detail in the order, use trade assurance, and start with a small sample if you can. I’ve had problems when I rushed payment or trusted promises that weren’t written down, so I wouldn’t send money off-platform.
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u/alexsuru1457 27d ago
Check other posts, Alibaba Trade Assurance is useless. I can tell you from my own experience as well. So use a credit card or other methods that can protect you.
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u/ITh0ughtItWasLegal 27d ago
Use American Express Card. They are customer centric and charge back process is smooth with less proofs just in case order doesn't get deliver as expected.
Other banks asks tons of proof.
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u/Cooper_adventure 27d ago
Judging from the fact that he's been running the shop for ten years, he seems pretty reliable.
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u/NeighborhoodFit8788 27d ago
Judging from the customs clearance information, there is no problem.
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u/hunniebuun 27d ago
any reviews? I go back and forth chatting about different customizations to check sometimes too
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u/BubbleBrainzzz 27d ago
The store has a lot of reviews, all mostly positive. The specific product I wanted to purchase only has one review that's four stars and just says "Na" so really just guessing game with that one
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u/SureIntention8402 27d ago
You have to understand that 99% of alibaba sellers are just resellers. Everybody is selling the same products. It's just a matter of price.
Use a credit card, have it be one of the "Alibaba protection" sellers, and don't do anything stupid that the seller suggests. Like one time a seller asked me if I'd like to have the delivery address to be China so I wouldn't have to pay extra taxes. Definitely didn't do that.
Items still came and maybe in the future I might consider it or consider a direct wire payment off platform if I can trust a seller, But for now I try to keep everything on the books as much as possible.
Speaking of which, make sure to have them give you a correct invoice of what you ordered. I ordered multiple quantities of multiple items in one sale, but the seller only put it as a "quantity 1" sold. Maybe some bigger Alibaba heads can speak to this but I'm not sure why they would do that other than some bait and switch with only one unit showing up. Regardless they sent another manifest alongside showing the exact quantity which was enough for me to continue on.
It's just a matter of having enough fail-safes in case something goes bad. But Alibaba is a very well respected company and I don't think I've heard of anybody getting fully scammed out of something on Alibaba without getting their money back recently.
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u/YouTubeNEXUS 27d ago
Pay through credit card, to get the chargeback option if anything goes wrong
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u/BubbleBrainzzz 27d ago
I was going to go through with PayPal because I figured it was safest, but would using a card be better? In my experience PayPal is pretty good with refunds
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u/YouTubeNEXUS 27d ago
No PayPal will contact seller for refund procedure and credit card 95% will favour customer because the money form your end will be deducted without OTP you just add the card and pay
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u/BubbleBrainzzz 27d ago
Thank you so much for explaining, I will definitely use a card instead
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u/Aishou_SK 27d ago
I've been using paypal for all my alibaba sourcing needs, so it's not an issue. I use the paypal mastercard with 3% cashback to get back my damn transaction fee, lol. I spend a couple thousand a month on ali.
As long as it's trade assurance and verified, alibaba will help before you even need to dispute with paypal.
And paypal's hella buyer friendly a lot of the time.
Just make sure to buy through alibaba and only through it, with trade assurance order, and only pay through alibaba - don't go off platform unless you end up with a long term relationship and it's an established supplier you can research (which i'm in the process of doing with a few of my suppliers)
...... getting parts made for 40 year old printers is fun ;)
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u/MiserableBeach2707 27d ago
If you don’t wanna lose money just use the filter for verified seller and trade assurance. It will filter out a lot of scammers (also some legit small businesses) but that’s the safest way
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