AliExpress has been around for quite some time now, but the Chinese shopping portal is still clouded in mystery. In many ways, AliExpress is comparable to a Chinese version of Amazon, but in other ways, it is completely different. The differences come from AliExpress’s genesis as a retail version of the wholesaling website Alibaba, while the similarities come from being able to buy pretty much anything from a single site/app.
What is the difference between Alibaba and AliExpress?
With China famous for its immense manufacturing sector that can build almost anything, it makes sense that a wholesaling platform established itself so that the millions of Chinese factories would have somewhere to sell their wares. Alibaba is China’s leading wholesale platform and you can find everything on it, from DIY basics like nuts and bolts to the latest consumer tech via fashion and accessories. It is all built for business, however, with minimum orders often starting in the thousands. For personal users, this is no good. Who wants to buy 5,000 phone cases when you only have one phone?
How does AliExpress compare to Amazon?
This is where AliExpress comes in. While it is possible to find factories on AliBaba that will sell you a single unit, it is rare. AliExpress, on the other hand, is designed for vendors or retailers to sell single units. AliExpress is where you go to buy one phone case while AliBaba is where you go for 1,000 phone cases.
This means that AliExpress ends up as a mix between eBay and the Amazon marketplace. When you buy things off AliExpress, you’re buying them from individual stores and vendors rather than off a centralized store. You can search for items or you can search for stores.
Since AliExpress was founded, it has grown to become the world’s largest online store. Its proximity to factory supply lines allows it to offer extremely competitive prices compared to local retailers and online retailers like Amazon. If we look at phone cases again, just as an example, it is easy to find them on sale for as little as 30 cents, which is a lot cheaper than you’ll find them at Best Buy.
Things to consider when buying off AliExpress
If you’re thinking of buying something from AliExpress, it is likely the low prices are what caught your attention. When buying from AliExpress, however, you need to consider more than just the retail price of whatever you’re looking to buy. The main things you need to be aware of when shopping on AliExpress are the trustworthiness of the seller, shipping times and costs, and potential import fees. Another thing you might want to look at, if buying a branded item, is whether or not you can guarantee its authenticity. Fortunately, AliExpress has created a guide on how to check for all of these, which you can read here.
How to use the AliExpress app for Android and iPhone
Now let’s have a look at how to use the AliExpress app. AliExpress has an app available for both the iPhone and Android smartphones and you can download them both here:
Navigating the AliExpress app homepage
When you first open the app, you’ll find something that looks rather similar to the homepage you’ll find on the AliExpress website. In the middle of the screen, the app shows scrolling special offers and various buttons including coupon codes, flash deals, freebies, and searchable categories. You’ll also be able to scroll up and down the page to see different shopping sections filled with many different types of items like USB cables, sports footwear, makeup, and toys.
At the top and bottom of the homepage, you’ll find the function keys that will help you navigate the app, your account, and the shopping process. You’ll see a search bar at the top of the screen and a toolbar at the bottom. The toolbar includes a home button, a feed button that gives you a personalized feed based on your shopping history, a shopping cart button, and an account button. Whenever you click on an item or a store, the toolbar will disappear, but you’ll be able to find all the toolbar buttons by clicking on the three dot icon that appears in the top-right of the screen.
Next to the search bar across the top of the app, you’ll find a camera button, which activates some very interesting features.
The AliExpress camera app
Clicking the camera icon in top-right of the AliExpress app homepage gives you three options. AR scan and QR code scan use your smartphone’s camera to scan for links to AliExpress items and pages. The really cool feature, however, is the image search feature, which can detect what you’ve taken a picture of and search for similar products or accessories. In all our tests this feature worked really well and was able to determine things like the brand of the item we’d snapped and, in some cases, even the model.
How to buy things using the AliExpress app
Step 1 Sign up
The first thing you need to do when buying something on the AliExpress app is to create an account. This process is simple, and similar to how you’ve signed up to a million other online accounts. You can even use your social media account details to create your account for you. You can do this using your Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts.
Step 2 Add items to your cart
You can find what you’re looking for using all of the homepage tools we highlighted earlier. Once you have an item you want you can either add it to your cart or hit the buy now button.
Depending on what you’re buying, you might have to select a few extra options at this point. This could include where your item will be shipped from. Here, it may be more expensive to have the item shipped from the U.S., but then you won’t have to worry about long shipping times, import duties, and taxes. This decision is up to you. You can find information on importing goods into the U.S. from abroad here.
Step 3 Select the items you want to buy
The AliExpress cart works a little differently to other online shopping carts. Rather than automatically selecting all the goods in your cart for purchase, you’ll have to select the items you want to buy by selecting the box next to each item.
Step 4 Add shipping address and place order
Once you’ve confirmed the items you want to buy, you’ll be taken to an order confirmation screen where you need to input your shipping details and check all of the information relating to your purchase. This will include any potential discount coupons and will also inform you of whether there are any shipping-related issues attached to your item. Sometimes you’ll see the seller offering a full refund if it hasn’t arrived by a certain date.
Step 5 Payment details
After you’ve input your shipping details, you’ll need to enter your payment details. AliExpress accepts a number of payment methods including its own version of PayPal called AliPay, card payments, and bank transfers as well as a host of other payment methods including WebMoney, Western Union, Yandex.Money, QIWI, DOKU, MercadoPago, Ticket, and American Express. For full information on all the different payment methods available on AliExpress and the risks attached to them click here.
Conclusion
As you can see, using the AliExpress app itself is very simple. It is intuitive, easy to use, and also offers some cool and innovative features. This is reflected in the high ratings the app has on both the Apple app store and the Google Play Store. The app has an impressive 4.6 rating on the Play Store even after more than 7.5 million downloads.
The tricky business relating to shopping with AliExpress, however, is the mystery of it all. This is why we’ve gone through a bit of context for you to show you how the company operates and where it came from.
There are things you need to consider when you’re buying from AliExpress, and first and foremost you need to ensure that the vendor you’re dealing with can be trusted. Secondly, you need to consider shipping times, costs, and any import duties and taxes you may be liable for; we’ve also pointed out, however, that this might not always be necessary as the vendor may also ship items from your region. If you’re confident in the seller and understand all the shipping details, however then you should think of AliExpress as another viable option when you’re looking to buy something online.
