Howdy all, Im sure many of you here have either heard of or poked around on Aliexpress the slightly mad version of ebay from China. They have some pretty awful gaming related products (portable Dreamcast made out of a discman im looking at you) as well as some more interesting items like fully boxed repros (I assume they are repros) for Meagdrives, Famicom etc. Im really curious to know if anyone has actually bought anything off of there and what the experience was like and if there are any sellers that you would reccommend or avoid like the plauge? As someone who always uses Paypal to protect myself from sending bank details out into the internet wilderness so Im also curious how you paid when buying?
I have, mostly modchips and random parts. It largely depends on the seller but it seems like the market is setup in a way to protect the buyer and seller. Most want you to confirm you received the product and they seem to actually watch their tracking numbers too. Absolutely no complaints so far.
I've bought from there twice, good experiences both times. However, I was told in advance by others that they had dealt with those sellers before and received their items.
Hmm good to know thanks all Well I guess that leads into everyones suggested sellers if anyone has any suggestions?
No problems here either. For a Chinese site they do seem to take customer satisfaction quite seriously.
On a related note, I was just reading about the founder of the Alibaba group a couple weeks ago, Jack Ma. He is a pretty interesting character and one of the countries most influential entrepreneur. Started out as a bad student and ended up as one of the richest mofo of the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Yun_%28Jack_Ma%29 But more importantly, he kinda looks like Prince Vegeta:
Most Chinese trader sites spam you to death with crap. It could be worth signing up with a new e-mail address. Certainly the ones that are all traders selling their wares end up in invites to a Chinese electronics trade show, allegedly cheap container shipping and bizarre products from fake iPhones to collapsible buckets!
I've never had spam from any part of the Alibaba group. They are actually a legit company which is rare for China. I've just ordered 10 repro rare Mega Drive games. The order was for a minimum 10 of the same game but I ask the seller if I could choose 10 different games which he said yes to. The games are made to order and come on unlabeled cartridges but if you ask they will provide the labels as well. The parcel should arrive in about a week (free shipping too) so I'll let you know how the quality is.
no spam mails etc. from the Alibabas for me as well, but they can be hell of annoying if you searching for some particular stuff at times, since the results may be flooded by them.
This is exactly what made me suspicious of them but so far I can't find anything to complain about except for maybe the lack of obscure parts I want which is hardly their fault.
I've yet to use the service but look out for the "full refufund" logo on the sellers page. If you receive items that are in terrible condition, different than ordered or just plain crap then the Alibaba group will refund you plus you may also get to keep the stuff you ordered. Like I said, I'vew not had to do this yet but it's nice to know such a system is in order.
Haha that was what attracted me to the site in the first place was all those lovely cheap megadrive carts. I noticed some of the sellers actually supply a paper case similar to what famicom and super famicom games come in as well. Ill be very curious to see how the carts turn out. Now if only they would do rom hack repros so I could have a cart copy of some of those silly streets of rage 2 hacks.
used them heaps have bought games off there and a camera and gb boy colour and some other items and its like one of the cheapest sites online to buy stuff from great site just bought some $4 megadrive and gba multi carts off there the other day with free shipping
I received a mail today telling me that my order has been shipped. If the quality is good enough I'll be getting another set of 10 I think.
I don't have a eprom programmer or molding equipment to make the actual cartridges. It's much cheaper to buy them than to buy the stuff needed to make them. Each game only cost about 500yen which is nothing really. All I have to do is make the covers and apply. The cartridge sticker.
+1 Im sure its pretty straight forward as well but when theres only 2 or 3 games youd actually need it for sometimes its just more convenient to buy them. Side note ive started noticing a couple of carts that look suspiciously simlar to these showing up on the yeebay for 15-20 bucks plus shipping so perhaps a few people are taking advantage of the wholesale pricing of Aliexpress?
