What have you bought from aliexpress?

[BreakOutTheKaraoke]

The Christmas threads have introduced me to that wonderful website, but it's so big I get a bit overwhelmed by it! What have you bought?

So far in my basket I have:
On Wednesdays we wear pink beanie from Mean Girls, for DD
Minecraft teddies for DD and Nephew
Random ball thingy stocking filler
Zara rip off shirt for me
Mike sleepsuit for new baby, due December

What else can I buy??

[Umlauf]

Oh I haven't even scratched the surface, just some wholesale gift packaging boxes and cellophane for my poncetastic hamper gifts... And now a mean girls beanie, thanks breakout !!

[BakeOffQueen]

I've bought some Hunter wellies and 2 pairs of Hunter wellie socks. All for me I'm waiting for them to arrive to see the quality, then may order some more as gifts.

[2anddone]

Watching with interest, have seen many things I would like to order but is the price you pay including getting the items through customs or do you have to pay again once they reach the uk?

[curiousgeorgie]

I'm confused about it... Doesn't postage and customs make it really expensive?

[Withmyfeetinthesink]

You can get most of it on ebay or Amazon for the same price, without the customs add-on.

With both, if you want rip-offs/copies of adult clothes (eg Zara bags), put in 'celebrity' and 'fashion' and most of them come up. They have about three million words in each title description . . .

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

I didn't have a customs add on. Should I have?

[Hensfunny]

Watching with interest.

I've bought elf on shelf x2

[Hensfunny]

LPS animals

[BreakOutTheKaraoke]

Postage appears to be free for most things, I think most sellers tick the 'gift' box for customs, so it's just a bit of bad luck if your parcel gets checked at customs and you get charged. Doesn't seem like a lot of people are paying customs charges?

[BreakOutTheKaraoke]

Would be very interested to hear others customs experiences though!

[bruffin]

20% import vat is payable over £15 including the cost of p&P. However you also have to pay the post office to collect it which is another £8.

My dd ordered a tshirt and a poster from the US and we ended up paying another £15 on top. The sender hadnt filled in the postage cost so the post office or customs (not sure which) over estimated it at $20 instead of $12.
The post office charged £8 for their handling charge, so $30 of items ended up costing us a lot more than expected

[Scaredycat3000]

Any goods bought from outside the UK may get extra charges if they cost over £15. HM Revenue website explains it all. However the sellers will do their best to avoid you getting charged by fraudulently filling in the import form that is attached to the parcel, they call it a gift or put a false price on it. It makes no difference what website you buy from. Many of the sellers use a combination of Aliexpress, Ebay and Amazon to sell. Amazon do not promote many of the cheaper sellers making it very hard to find these types of sellers. Ebay is a is fair to all sellers, and Ebay pay the seller and then they ship your goods. Aliexpress is exclusively from China that ships worldwide, so many more goods and sellers to chose from. Aliexpress take your money and only pay the seller when you confirm recite of goods or time is up, usually 2 months from shipping. Delivery can take anything from 10 days, to, I've been waiting for over 2 months for a top so far, check seller terms and feedback.
Many of the cheaper branded clothes and toys are not ripoffs, they are over runs from the factories as they are made there. I have seen Primark clothes with price tags visible on Aliexpress being sold for more than the tag shows! There are copies on there, but £100 sunglasses for £2, high end bags, shoes, etc clearly fakes. The type of copies you see on market stalls.
I'll post the long list of over 6 months of purchases later
Took so long to type that X posted with Bruffin! Yes sellers from US aren't reliant on exports.

[BreakOutTheKaraoke]

Wow, thanks for that! Any recommendations for good sellers? I'm excited to see your list

[Scaredycat3000]

You ready for this I can't recommend sellers as such, I pick an item and then pick the cheapest seller with good feedback, I'll only say if the you should avoid the seller.

Clothes, a 4XL is about a size 18/20. Clothes are made for Chinese women and models are smaller so be realistic in ordering your size.
This rather nice belt soft leather, very long but if needed simple to shorten.
Top , looks just like in the photo, look nice quality but bobbling a bit in the wash.
Blouse nice and baggy, not bad quality, wear it quite a bit.
Jumpsuit the seller sent me the wrong one, but it's just a variation of this one, cheap nasty material, badly made, unwearable, seller refused refund.
Top slinky and thin, up to size 14/16. Quite nice. Defiantly not a dress.
Dress if I could fit into I am a size 18/20 it I'd wear it a lot, synthetic material. Nice quality and well made.
Dress thick t-shirt material top and synthetic silk skirt. I'd buy a second if it fitted me, would fit up to a size 14. Very nice.
Angel wings t-shirt laser cut, nice.
Dungarees dress thickish t-shirt material, nice.
20's style straw hat very nice hat, for a small to medium size head. Needed a bit of reshaping due to squishing in post!
Hat with red top and brown brim. Love it, arrived squished also brown hat arrived with Styrofoam in hat, not squashed. Med large head.
Scarf , nice fabric a matt chiffon.
Sunglasses my favourite at the moment, in burgundy. Plus lots of other sunglasses, links no longer work.
Butterfly wall stickers quite nice, arrived well wrapped round a bit of Styrofoam.
Utterly useless phone case you have to remove your phone back and this then fits on but has no rubber seal, doesn't close or do the swipe though the case thing. Seller is being an arse, avoid.
Phone case fronts fallen off after 6 months, but saved my phone from loads of bumps, going to order another one, at that price.
Thin phone case will use whilst I order another, nice and slim.

UV colour change loom bands and watch for loom bands, finally colourful s-clips. You'd need a new seller though.

Credit card knife bit flimsy but handy and sharp.
Watch Cheap and nasty, hard plastic avoid.

A lot of the jewellery shops have a minimum mix and match spend in the shop to make the postage worth their while, some nice stuff dirt cheap.
Elephant necklace and Peacock necklace. You have to buy two of everything I think because they send you a perfect one and one cut very slightly off, it really is minor. Lots of different designs in the shop.
Necklace a favourite, very nice. I bought black.
From one shop I bought Tree necklace also Single cat earring and Seahorse pendent not forgetting rose earrings and finally green hairclipsand I am happy with all of them.
My second minimum spend order contained deer pendent also Peacock feather but am a bit disappointed with earrings and cat earrings and finally star pendent They just are really not as nice as the pictures.

Shoes, sold in American sizes mostly and seem to come up small. Add 2 sizes to your size for the American size then add one to allow for the small sizes. So I'm a 6, add 2 for American, 8 then 1 for crap sizing, I order a 9.
Leather shoes not bad at all for the price, I like the rough leather and unfinished edges, as you can see clearly in the photos. I've bought similar in the shops before with an RRP of £50.

I got some lovely mixed lot of ribbon and elastic from this shop. The iron Tom & Jerry patch is useless.
Hulk mask thick plastic, very happy DS2.
Spiderman mask hoody. T-shirt material, sewing a little off but DS1 very happy. Very small sizing.

Phew, any questions?

[WeHateAmy]

I've just placed an order with them for two things and together they come to £15.30

Do you think customs will go by the total price or the individual one?

I bought a set of Despicable Me figurers for £7.67 and a plush Kyle for £7.63.

Would they be that harsh over 30p?

I bought both from Shen Yuen's Store, which seems to be quite good going on the Christmas thread from what other people are saying.

[simpson]

I have bought DD a frozen Elsa dress, fingers X it fits and is a decent quality.

[aubreye]

Used this website for years. This is out of my receipts since Dec 2013 Paid in dollars as cba to find how to change in pounds and I have an American Express card. Some of these are X-MAS presents for last year.

-Bought colourful scrunchie/hairbands at $3.71 for 96 of them. That's £2.24!
-Pink Minnie Mouse hoodie for DD2 at $6.20
-Blue and white patterned leggings for DD2 $3.43
-Black wool leggings for DD1 $6.90
-Pink snood for DD2
-Red Minnie Mouse belt for DD1 for $3.95
-Beige lace dress for me $100 (sounds a lot but haven't had a new dress for over two years and I have a work event and this is perfect.)
-Bunny Rabbit comforter for DD2 (she saw it and fell in love with it and it's called Buggy now because she said bunny wrong when she first saw it so now it's Buggy) $5.99
-10 Barbie Doll stands for $6.30 for DDs
-Nerf darts for DS1s Nerf gun 100pc for $9.19 after he lost his old ones.
-Rubber band shooting gun for my nephew for part of his birthday pressie at $2.50


I also bought a bit if food from there;

-Sugar free gum three pack at $2.67
-Chinese White Rabbit milk sweets $0.60 dollars for ten.
-Shrimp egg noodles $10 for massive pack

A lot of stuff that has lasted a long time.

[Myhensareladies]

Wow, these are brilliant. Thanks all above for posting.

[BreakOutTheKaraoke]

Great, loads of ideas there, thanks! So far I have ordered the Mean girls beanie, and a winter coat

[Clr2014]

Great idea for a thread! I've bought 50cm soft dolls of elsa, Anna and Olaf. Not arrived yet to comment on. Keen to buy Man U kit a poster mentioned earlier on bargain thread...

[WeHateAmy]

My order has been despatched, so fingers crossed for me that the customs don't notice my 31p overspend. It would be really harsh of them to charge me for it when the two items individually don't come to anywhere near £15. Come on karma, let me get away with it, I've been lovely this month

[Scaredycat3000]

I tried to post this last night but MN went down so I'll try again.
Very excited I've just ordered How to train your dragon 2 toys for the boys. We could only get a Toothless but we also wanted a Stormfly, this way they get four between them. They're sold out usually £9.99 each, we paid £14.65 for four. I expect a delivery in 2/3 weeks and will report back.
I've also ordered a Scooby doo £3.06. The Scooby doo is already in the post, yay.

[shufflebum]

Those dragons look awesome, thank you!

[ItsFunnierInEnochian]

The link to the Mike sleep suit isnt working on my phone I must have it for my niece. "Bowby" is her first and favourite character.

[scrappydappydoo]

I need a cuddly minion stewart (one eyed one) can someone recommend a seller please. ta muchly