do you guys shop on places like aliexpress/Temu and if you do what items have pleasantly surprised you?

Temu is just driving the social media impulse "buy buy buy you need it buy it now!!" Culture when in reality their stuff is crap, and even for the cheap prices... You probably weren't going to buy it anyway. They are really striving in being a shitty company that's bad for us and the planet.

Good video here that explains more of how they're just manipulating us to buy more: https://youtu.be/7hGD5Cz_now

I feel like AliExpress and temu aren't really equivalent. Temu makes it seem like you're, well I guess the tagline is shop like a billionaire. Aliexpress doesn't exactly hide the fact it's a cheap Chinese market.

I sometimes use AliExpress for DIY electronics like microcontrollers and other components. An Esp32 usually costs around 8-12 euros in Europe. On AliExpress I buy them for 3 (plus shipping). Its worth it if you are buying more than just a few. Shipping is usually slow but if its not urgent its cheap and so far of good/ decent quality.

I did also buy a small industrial camera on there which did not work. I contacted the seller and after some troubleshooting they agreed to ship a new camera to me (still waiting on that one) but in principle I am satisfied with the service for the price I payed.

I use AliExpress for electrical parts (except anything with memory), 3D printer parts, and small crap I don't mind waiting for, but never anything I would be angry about if it never arrived. Also, nothing I consume or wear or need for safety, and I'm wary of anything that's supposed to be plugged into the wall for long periods of time unattended.

I wouldn't say I've been surprised, but my expectations are low. It's all cheap stuff, but as long as you're not needing the stuff you buy, it's fine. Dollar store quality with the scent of plastic and cigarettes.

That being said, beware of scams. The one that seems acceptable to them is to list one cheap part for the listing, along with variations of the full device. That way it looks like the lowest price in search results, but when you click it, the selected variation is the cheap part. Like, you'll search for "pliers set" and see a listing for $1, compared to others around $15. When you select it, the product page will have a carrying case for $1 and the various pliers for twice as much as the competition. What's better is that the case will be selected automatically, not the thing in the picture you clicked on or the picture you see first in the product pages' gallery.

There are also scam stores that pop up with super low prices compared to others on the site can disappear overnight and the cancellation/refund process is a super pain. Contact customer service once and just submit a claim with your CC company. Their refund process will try to keep telling you to wait for another week, and that includes the reps you get on chat. If you're suspicious and still order, always follow the shipping info. They will estimate a reasonable delivery date, you'll get a shipping notification, but it will sit in limbo. The shipping folks are separate from the scammers, so if you see the package actually move towards a shipping center, you're in the clear. If it says they received shipping information for over a week, you got screwed.

Ignore flash drives/SSDs, batteries, and assume any flashlights are 1/100th the brightness claimed (literally). Oh, and watch shipping costs. Something with free shipping can be 10x the price of the product if you add a second one to your cart.

Those platforms are notorious for selling counterfeit products. Whenever you see a deal that seems too good to be true, it more than likely is.

I buy my body jewelry, earrings etc on AliExpress. Also buying Zirconia jewelry and gold plated works very well since there are hardly any premium charges. it's also pretty much the only area of goods I've found where in 98,9% of the cases the product and materials used is exactly as advertised, meaning no oxidizing, radiation and magnet friendly, etc.

Keep in mind that a lot of your local marketplace sellers just order rebadged stuff from alibaba. I've found literally the same electronics i've bought locally on aliexpress for like half the price.

I got a camping tent from aliexpress and it was pretty good. I have used it a couple times a year for about 4 years now. I think it's called the lanshan or something like that.

I bought an Anbernic RG351P from Aliexpress as well. I have used it for countless hours playing retro games on it. Not quite nintendo quality, but definitely a lot better than other emulator consoles I've used.

I've also bought some great quality clothes from taobao. No reps only stuff like raw denim, hoodies, and styles that aren't too popular in the US like high waisted pleated pants or heavy tees that are 11oz

I bought a big mousepad off ali, and its great. Well made, vibrant colours, stitched edges.

I limit what i buy off ali but it has some things you cant buy elsewhere.

Another one is reflective stickers for my motorbike mags. They were cheap, stuck well and looked legit.

I mostly buy parts for my woodworking shop at home from Ali. A benchdog is a benchdog and they are absolutely the same to what you get at Amazon,etc. And they are literally 1/3 of the price here even if you add shipping and customs. So if one is truely shit I couldn't care less.

So far I had no bad experiences really - one shipment was missing a 2 bucks piece but I can live with that. Some things actually surprised me as the quality I got was better than expected.

Electronic wise I bought a Qotom mini PC from them years ago (directly from the Qotom shop) which still works as my UTM.

So far I really can't complain.

I've used aliexpress for bootleg lego and have had mixed results. Some sets were perfect copies with all pieces, and others were missing some. I was also able to get some discontinued sets which was nice. The quality of the pieces themselves were pretty good. It is a bit of a risk but hard to beat the price as its wayyyy cheaper.

I was looking for some eletrical component for my arduino and the only place that had it was aliexpress. That was a pleasant surprise. Three months later I still got almost daily spam mail from them. I block the mail address, but they just generate a new address to spam me with. Lukily it has stopped now. I'm never buying there again if I can help it.

I used to buy a lot of things in AliExpress, but since they've changed their business it's usually better to just order on Amazon.

The things on AliExpress used to be dirt cheap and it was a no brainer buying random electronics components in a pack of five for a price of one in the EU shop.

Or sometimes I was looking to some oddly specific item and I always found it on AliExpress. It's no longer the case, it seems the search results are 10 products of 3 manufacturers that are essentially the same thing.

I been getting things for my work from temu. Drill bits, router bits, sandpaper, etc and compared to what I get at lowes it's a great deal.

I buy items from AliExpress all the time. Mostly electronics, but occasionally things like tessa tape, vehicle covers, motorcycle parts, and other random shit. Never had an issue.

AliExpress is great if you have a 3D printer and you can't stop messing with it.

There are some nice stuff of Ali that was original intended for the Chinese market. But you have to know you get what you pay for in China. If it’s too cheap, it’s going to be crap.

No. I happen to live in China and not even here people want that crap. They are making fun of foreigners buying cheap shit for a premium.

I bought an electric field heater for my dynavap, so that's good.

I bought an intel i7-5775c for like £70 about 2 and a half years ago from Aliexpress. Really strong cpu for the price, overclocks well and has meant that I haven’t had to upgrade my motherboard and ram to ddr4 yet.

I buy Lego from Ali. It's so much cheaper and the quality is same.

Sometimes if there's a good deal for something I know I want. For instance, I was wanting an RG35XX (portable retro console). I had never heard about Temu, went there and got the $100 off bundle (basically a set of thresholds to hit for up to $100 off). I found the RG35XX for $53 ($17 less than Amazon), and that coupon knocked it down to $28. For me that was a no brainer.

I got a decent little fanless i5-based computer with 6 ethernet ports to use as a router, and it was cheap and works well running OPNsense. That's about the only thing I've bought on AliExpress.

Some arts supplies are good. I'm very poor and I hate consumerism, but I can't really afford the good stuff so I sometimes resort to stuff like this. They do good acrylic markers and have a huge pack of normal markers that's also really decent.

My first (so far) purchase has been wireless adapters for my earphones (iems). Signing up was interesting as they do not allow ye to register with an email that has aliexpress in it.

So far said adapters are good, really good (trn bt30)

I got a really good Glock 18 style electric water pistol off Aliexpress for this summer, at half the price they were being hawked for on Amazon. It even comes with a drum magazine- it was great for a music festival I went to recently!

I've bought from aliexpress in the past for obscure electronics that you can't really get anywhere else for a good price. But I will never shop at temu, I am incredibly suspicious about how they have such an incredibly large advertising budget yet their prices are so low. Either it's a straight up scam or they are expecting to make a lot of money later down the line