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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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Plenty of items on eBay are just people who buy from China directly and mark up prices. If it is likely made in China and I don’t want it quickly, I’ll buy off aliexpress. That said, alibaba wanted me to upload photo ID which I noped out of. Temu started spamming my email address when I’d never used them. The unsubscribe link went to their website said to adjust your account settings if you didn’t want spam… I never created and account and avoided them completely following that.
Shit, most of Amazon is that as well.
Amazon is usually OK if you buy things that are sold by Amazon or sold by the manufacturer (if it's a well-known brand). The third-party sellers on Amazon based in China are almost always reselling stuff from Aliexpress/Alibaba with a significant markup.
Half of them aren't in China though. It's dropshippers, so you still get your cheap death traps, but you get them in a few days, Amazon get their enormous cut, and they get to take no responsibility when it burns your house down.
That's why I said "sold by Amazon". The drop shippers are all third-parties. Instead of the item saying "Sold by Amazon", it'll say something like "Sold by [some third party] and fulfilled by Amazon".
Stuff sold by Amazon themselves is generally okay, since they're directly responsible for it (no third party they can blame for any issues).
I try to avoid Amazon where possible though. B&H is pretty good for electronics, and I know I'm not going to get cheap Chinese knockoffs when I search their online store.