Of all the sketchy eCommerse sites (Wish, Aliexpress, Temu), which is the "safest?"

AliExpress is completely fine, nothing sketchy about it in principle. You can find trash on it since it's a very open marketplace, making it the same as Amazon or eBay.

Except that unlike Amazon, AX doesn't copy their sellers' products just to sell them under their own brand and kick the sellers out, nor does it sign monopolistic pacts with Apple. Workers treatment is about the same I guess... So correction, less sketchy than Amazon or eBay.

Wish specialises in dogshit and review manipulation though. Not good for anything more than a phone case, and I'd rather buy those on AX anyway.

Aliexpress has been reliable in my experience.

Around 2020, after having ordered a few thousand dollars total from AliEx across hundreds of orders, my address suddenly got changed to a non existent random address hundreds of miles away, and around a half dozen orders sent to it. I tried live support three times, and they acted helpful each time but disconnected the support after asking me to wait every single time. I have never ordered from them since and will never order from them again. It isn't about the money. Anyone can steal from me like this once; that is on them. I will never be stupid enough to let them do it twice; that would be entirely my fault. As far as I am concerned, they have no customer support in practice and they do not rectify their errors.

They settled plenty of issues when it came to sellers making mistakes, but when their system made the mistake, they did nothing. I would not give any vulnerable credentials to such a company. If they can't manage their infrastructure and back up their mistakes, the mistakes and incompetence will only become bigger with time. It shows the management culture is incompetent.

I've recieved everything I've ever ordered in Ali Express. One item was broken, but it was like $4 so who cares?

Aliexpress. I make sure to order stuff tgat was sold 100, 1000, 10000 times and has a good rating and some pictures in reviews. This is just to make sure I won't order at some place that will cancel my order after 2 weeks. But I never had any serious problems. And a couple of times when I received broken stuff, I received partial or full refunds. I ordered several thousand items from Ali over the years.

Temu is worse than TikTok when it comes to exfiltration of your personal data.

https://grizzlyreports.com/we-believe-pdd-is-a-dying-fraudulent-company-and-its-shopping-app-temu-is-cleverly-hidden-spyware-that-poses-an-urgent-security-threat-to-u-s-national-interests/

I use Aliexpress a lot for things that I don't care if they are cheap, because it's hard to make a "bad flyswatter," for example. I avoid things that might catch fire, like charging cables or some electronics, and avoid hard drives and sketchy stuff. I buy a lot of SBC-related stuff like HATS and stuff for androids.

I've had good luck with various items, largely from Aliexpress, I can't really talk about which one could be the safest, so to speak.

Advice to keep an eye on: things are likely to be exactly what they describe it to be. And I do mean exactly. Say you get a AA battery charger, when you get one from your corner store, you'll expect it to charge the batteries in a timely manner. From Ali, the charger might take 12+ hours to do its job or maybe overcharge it. Or it'll work perfectly.

So, only get the ultra cheap stuff from these sites if you don't really care about it.

I bought a computer motherboard off aliexpress. it cost about 1/3 the retail price, arrived with no documentation, install cds, whatever. there was minor damage to the board itself, probably a piece damaged during manufacture and deemed unfit for sale.

this was back in 2017 or something. I've yet to replace it, though it might be getting close to time. I was able to get the software it needed off the net with another computer, and with that it worked just fine.

I buy cables from aliexpress.

Ive only had a few ones be broken on arrival, but i also always order 3 or more. (Mostly usb, audio cables etc)

You can open a dispute and get a refund or partial refund in those cases.

I have not and i will not use the other two you mention.

I haven't tried wish, but my experience with ali and temu were great with a few notes: Check the dimensions on anything you order sometimes the pictures can be decieving for certain items.. I stopped using ali when Trump stopped their ability to sell vapes (was easily $10 per item cheaper vs local smoke shops) As far as I have tried the "games" on temu are useless and unwinnable so I wouldn't bother with those; however the price of the items on the actual store are very competitive and good deals can definitely be had. Temu>Ali for shipping time, temu always has my stuff at door within 3wks unless you paid for extra shipping AliExpress would typically take 60-90 days. Ali>temu for item diversity/availability/options because Ali has been around for longer they have more listings. Although this seems to be getting better every day on temu.. I can't remember what payment I used on Ali but temu let's you pay with Cash app/PayPal which is ideal because I just load exactly what I need on that acct before I use it to place the order which won't allow for additional charges. Everyone gets data hacked everywhere any way. Temu is kinda pyramid if you play the stupid games but like I said it seems unwinnable (or you need to refer 100 people for a $50 item which I'm not dedicated enough for) but other than that they're pretty alright. My wife used wish and usually ended up okay but sometimes stuff wouldn't be as listed or they'd use a Chinese size chart which makes a large shirt=small usa standard shirt but ymmv

AliExpress has been solid for the past few years. There's indeed some sketchy sh*t there but it's usually pretty obvious what to avoid. And, of course, expect to get what you pay for.... a $5 tshirt isn't going to be the same quality as a $25 one from Amazon.

I've had pretty decent luck with wish. You just gotta do your due diligence and read the description in full and check reviews. I've never gotten duped or something of such poor quality it was useless. But my wife has and even she was like, duh I bought one ear bud.

I'm also almost never buying anything for more then $10, so if it breaks I'm not crying about it breaking me financially.

In my experience:

If there's a local eCommerce platform, just use that. Since i'm chilean 🇨🇱, my go-to platform would be Yapo.cl

Also, using Facebook Marketplace is an equally viable option.

Nothing's happened to me personally from Temu, and I've spent maybe $90 over five deliveries. I will say I went in thinking, "What's the worst they can do? Nobody can mess up making a laundry hamper, right?" and they went below and beyond in terms of quality. It made me laugh, to be honest. The things aren't all unusable, but quality is pretty clearly inferior. With heavy loads of laundry the ribbon serving as a handle did break.

Well, if you save your payment info on any site (especially sketchy ones) you can get a "you just bought with no returns" 3k$ worth of crappy Chinese phones delivered to your house that "you bought and got the goods, so it isn't aliexpress's fault no returns."

Amazon

I don't know how old you are, but I assume fairly young... there was a time ordering online didn't exist so I can promise you you can live without it