6 Tips: How to find quality products on AliExpress (or any other Chinese website)
You probably know it by now, AliExpress and any other sites that ship directly from China are pretty cheap. But that has in some cases also a down side. Yep, you guessed it right, it’s the quality of the product. When we talk about the quality we are mainly referring to the way the product was produced, assembled and /or the material that was used.
Let’s be realistic for a second, you can not expect high quality Bose-like headphones for $5.99, even with the economics of scale and the cheap labor cost in China, that would be still not possible. That said there are still some ways to find the best quality product on AliExpress (or any other site) for a very reasonable price. Here is how:
1. Check out the actual product photos
In some cases, you can find actual images of the product in the description. When I say “actual images” I’m referring to images that are not photoshopped or typical advertising images, but actual images that someone would take with their phone or camera.
2. View users submitted photos
For popular products you will find user submitted images aka “Photo Reviews”. These are images that were submitted by users after they purchased and received the product. These are perhaps, the best indicator of how the product quality might be. Most users take photo review images from various angles, reveling the nice and the not so nice aspects of the product.
3. User reviews
In most cases you will find user reviews. This is where it can get a bit tricky since everyone has a different understanding and standard of “quality”. In most cases users talk about the shipping time on those reviews but you can also find hints about the quality of the product.
4. Number of orders
Perhaps not the best indicator, but in some cases users do not leave any reviews or photo reviews. The last chance to somewhat gage the quality of a product, would be by looking at the number of orders. Users that are happy with one product tend to repurchase it again without leaving any feedback, by looking at the number of orders you might get an idea of the overall quality.
5. Search for similar products
If none of the above tips helps you can always search for the product that you are looking for and find more images or reviews from other sellers that also sell the same product. In most cases, you will find 2-10 sellers for the identical item on AliExpress and most ecommerce websites (including Amazon and eBay).
6. If nothing helps, do a google image search
This is most likely the last chance for you to identify the quality of a product. Visit the Google Image Search section (here). Just drag the product image into the upload field and hope that Google will return images of the identical product that also includes reviews or user product photos to give you an idea of the quality.
