Is AliExpress Safe to Buy From?

Do legit vendors sell the original products on AliExpress or is it still a source for fakes and counterfeit?

AliExpress recently made significant news moves to try and increase their market in Europe. They have gained notoriety for selling cheap products that come from China. Their platform’s reputation is one of offering a large number of counterfeits of renowned brands across all categories. 

AliExpress is one of the marketplaces we noticed that an ever-increasing number of potentially European sellers are offering their goods. Many of these started appearing in the last quarter of 2019 but are these sellers trustworthy? Or do they function as a disguise for the large number of Chinese sellers? Is this strategy going to crack Europe and take on market-leading Amazon? Are they really putting strategies like undercutting Amazon on seller’s fees in place to attract legit sellers to the platform? Let’s investigate!

We ordered a popular pair of Adidas trainers to see if what we received would be, in fact, an authentic product for a low price. Many shoppers are lured into a false sense of trust when the seller has a high review score, the product looks to be of sound quality, and the “official” logo is used. But does this mean that one would receive an authentic product?  Also - how far does AliExpress take its registration process for sellers? Will we receive an item from the country the seller is supposed to be located in? eBay has recently looked at how vendors manipulate the item location in their listing to appear more legitimate, but it does not look like AliExpress has anything in place to discourage this.

How does AliExpress work?

When searching on AliExpress, you are given many different results. You are able to toggle and change which country you want the product to come from and be delivered to. There are several sellers from Europe, and the number is growing every day, but they are still behind Chinese vendors when it comes to the sheer amount of online stores.

Just like on Amazon, you are given results from different sellers. But what tools are available to help you identify legitimate sellers?

When you click on a product, you can see the store’s rating at the top of the page. This is based on user feedback and is given as a percentage, similar to how Amazon rate their third-party sellers. 

If you are looking around for a seller, you can choose the country you want the item to be shipped from, and then choose your seller from the list. There seem to be many sellers from Spain and Italy already, but hardly any in Germany or the UK, and certainly not anyone selling clothing and shoes.

In the image above you see this store in Italy has 50% positive feedback (source: AliExpress).

If a customer wants to learn more about the store, they can visit its page to find more in-depth information. This page provides information on feedback, buyer protection and the refund availability. You can also click on “business information” to get the address of the seller. This is important if you run into problems with your order later.

In the image above you can see the store page gives a quick overview (source: AliExpress).

Anyone who is about to spend money will more than likely be very keen to find out what the experience has been for anyone else buying the product. The process works very much like any other online marketplace: Once someone has been through the buying process, they are invited to give a star rating and leave a comment as part of their review.

In the image above you can see this store has a very ambiguous overall rating.

It is important to note that it can be quite easy for online stores like this to get fake reviews, for example by offering a free product to some users.

Putting AliExpress to the test

We wanted to get a full picture of the end-to-end process. The online store we picked is quite typical - there are many others from Italy and other European countries that have a very similar rating. Can shops on AliExpress claiming to be situated in Europe be trusted to deliver an authentic product in the advertised condition?

We’ve put this to the test by ordering a popular Adidas shoe. There are a number of questions we want to answer upon receiving the product such as:

• Is the product genuine?
• Is the product in a good condition?
• Can we return the product easily? 

But what did we actually get? Did the product arrive within the specified timeframe? 

We received the Adidas trainers and they looked quite authentic (Source globaleyez).

The bottom of the shoe also looked real (source globaleyez).

The inside of the shoes seemed to carry the authentic label (source globaleyez).

How long did it take for the product to arrive?

It took the product 3 days to arrive, just as specified by the seller. Although this would suggest that it did not travel far, there are easy ways to manipulate an item’s location - so much so that eBay has recently made a point of putting in measures to stop this from happening on their platform. We wanted to investigate the origin of the product, because if the product had been disguised as an Italian product, but in reality, had been shipped from China, it would have been subject to customs tax. The delivery process is part of what we track because a seller could potentially deliver from another address.

Did we receive a legitimate product?

The product appears legitimate on the surface. Selling counterfeits in the country of purchase, Italy, is harder than in China. Knowing a product’s origin is an important clue when determining whether a product is authentic or not. 

The packaging looked real (source globaleyez).

Did we get any information on the product’s origins?

We didn’t receive any information on where the product was shipped from, it is alarming that there was no return address included in the parcel, and we struggled to find information about the seller. We will be asking for a refund.

Did we receive any further information from the seller?

No - we received nothing further from the seller. Ideally, we would have been given at least basic information.

With our test purchase, we could prove that sellers from the EU, who are meanwhile entering the AliExpress marketplace, appear trustworthy and seem to sell authentic products. Although, of course, one purchase can not be representative for all sellers. 

To obtain further proof, we requested a return and a refund through the AliExpress marketplace system, which went fine.

However, it took the seller quite some time - 3 days in total - to settle the agreement for this and even longer to provide us with the return address. It worked, but evidently, there is still a big gap that AliExpress and its sellers will have to bridge in order to meet standards that were set by customer-centric marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay.

Here's hoping that the refund won’t take much longer :)

We will follow the rising volume of European sellers offering their products on AliExpress closely. 

If you fear that your brand’s products might be sold on AliExpress fraudulently, do not hesitate to contact globaleyez to talk about your digital brand protection. We are here to safeguard your brand and take measures to protect your assets, your revenues, and your customers. 

Via globaleyez