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I just ordered a 3ds from AliExpress - Wish me luck.

I hope this isn’t perceived as advertising… I’m quite apprehensive about making this purchase and will absolutely update with my progress if/when the console arrives.

In the meantime, if anyone out there has any experience buying through AliExpress I would love to hear from you. This is my first purchase and I feel like it’s a total gamble.

If this is somehow perceived as advertising, mods please delete immediately. I do not want to violate any rules. This community is too awesome to lose!

twinnie ,

I order from there quite a lot. I’m not really a fan of buying Chinese stuff but all the electronics are made there whatever you do and this way I’m cutting out the man-in-the-middle dickhead types who closed all the local factories and moved production to China just to push up the share prices.

I’ve always found it to be pretty good, remember that you don’t really deal with Ali that much, rather individual shops selling their stuff on there. I’ve had problems with stuff arriving broken before but I’ve usually found their customer service to be pretty amazing, they’ll often replace stuff without much fuss. I once ordered a Bitcoin miner before realising later that it was a scam, and Ali refunded me all the money.

The two main problems are that nothing on there is good quality, it’s all just cheap Chinese stuff. The second problem is that it takes ages for everything to arrive.

AlligatorBlizzard ,

I’ve seen a few YouTubers buy AliExpress 3ds consoles, and all of those have been refurbished, often with after market shells which, while often not terrible, aren’t Nintendo quality. If the console shows up, it’ll probably be fine, but you’re still not necessarily getting an amazing deal. I got my New 3ds LL (Japanese version) in excellent condition from a seller on eBay based in Japan for about $25 less and I got one with an upper IPS screen - but mine is in black. If you really want a special 3ds and you’re okay with a decent reshell, buying through AliExpress might be an alright option.

brsrklf ,

To be fair, Nintendo 3DS shells aren’t exactly very high quality either.

I have an original Majora n3DS XL. After a few months, the golden paint started disappearing around the borders, where my palm/fingers would rest.

To their credit, I could get a free replacement shell (with the right colour and pattern) from customer service when I asked about it. But after this I just resorted to using a clear rubber outer case to keep the paint from rubbing off again.

LiveLM ,

n3DS XL.

Tell me about it. Got a red used unit and it was paint flakes everywhere.
Thankfully, someone on Ali sells matte replacement backplates. The one I got is fantastic.

altima_neo ,
@altima_neo@lemmy.zip avatar

Report back on how it turns out.

Jim_Just_Jim OP , (edited )

I absolutely plan to report on how it turns out. So far, it sounds like I’ve made a mistake, but everyone here will know soon enough!

altima_neo ,
@altima_neo@lemmy.zip avatar

I’ve had good luck with ali so far. But it’s helped to buy from reputable sellers. Some of them seem sketchy AF.

RightHandOfIkaros ,

AliExpress is either a scam or a great deal. There is no inbetween. I have been successful with clothing from them, and even an Xbox One wired controller that had both joysticks at the top like a WiiU Pro controller. I haven’t been scammed yet, but I do know that it can happen.

EddoWagt ,

If the price is too good to be true it’s probably a scam, otherwise it’s not in my experience

Blackmist ,

No worse than Amazon these days.

Thorry84 , (edited )

I’ve bought a lot of stuff from AliExpress in the past 10 years. Including some $10.000+ purchases. There have been problems, but overal I’m happy enough with the whole thing.

I feel everyone is trying their best to make it all work, but in the end it’s pretty complex to get something from the other side of the world to your home. Plus the language barrier can be a thing, where nobody in the chain really speaks any English. Usually the people at AliExpress, the seller and the actual people shipping the goods are pretty far apart from each other (China is a big country) and don’t always communicate the best.

Now there are of course a lot of scammers, just like on sites like Ebay and Amazon. AliExpress really does do their best to ban the scammers and prevent them from coming back, but it’s like fighting a flood with a broom and doesn’t do much. Recognizing the scammers can be pretty hard sometimes. The trick I’ve used is to either rely on small communities of people interested in the same thing recommending a shop or simply talking to the seller. If the seller is happy to talk to you and willing to do just about anything you ask, it’s probably a scam. If they are kind of grumpy and say this is what we do take it or leave it, you’ve got a proper seller on your hands. Especially with large equipment as I’ve bought, the seller wants to talk shop about the machines all day, but if you have any special requests regarding shipping or customs, it’s a no go. They will also happily provide you a quote for a fully custom machine if you ask, with actual good prices for what it is, but still very expensive.

If something does go wrong with your order, don’t count on AliExpress doing anything. They are just the platform provider and don’t know you or your order. They aren’t involved in any way and handle millions of orders a day. Just use the tools they provide to talk to the seller, they will often happily help you and every time my shipment got lost, they refunded or sent another. If a part broke in shipment, they shipped me a replacement. And just because the product wasn’t what you thought it was or the shipment got lost in transit or there was something else wrong, doesn’t mean the seller is a scammer. Don’t report them as one, as for small shops this can cause problems and for the larger established shops AliExpress simply ignores the reports. Usually the seller does their best to get you your stuff, but when sending something from one side of the globe to the other, shit happens. International tracking has gotten so much better the past couple of years, so it’s easier to see where it went wrong.

AliExpress has also gotten very good with customs, they present you a price which is based on what you are going to pay. No hidden fees that get applied later in the process. They discount the product in the shopping cart with an indication of what you have to pay for customs handling and import fees. In the past this used to be a problem, where the price was too good to be true, only to turn out to be exactly that. But these days they are very good.

So if you have patience, do your homework and be careful out there, AliExpress can be a great source for products. If you want to be a Karen and shout at someone for not delivering the crap you don’t need within 24 hours, please just go to Amazon.

One thing to note: There is an environmental impact to buying directly from China and there’s no guarantee the products weren’t made by slaves in poor working conditions without mind for safety or the environment. So don’t go buying small crap you can get anywhere from there. Buy locally where possible and if you do order make it something big or buy a larger shipment. But this isn’t really an AliExpress thing, this applies to sites like Ebay as well as other big Chinese shops.

thehatfox ,
@thehatfox@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve ordered various things from AliExpress before, I’ve never had any major issues. One item was DOA, and another never arrived, but In both cases I got refunded quickly and easily.

It seems no worse than any other online marketplace now.

I assume these 3DS units are some sort of refurb. Are they Chinese region units?

Gullible ,

It seems no worse than any other online marketplace now

True and incredibly distressing.

phx ,

Yeah, I’ve had a few sellers among a lot of orders try to pull a fast one, but by-and-large they’ve been good and the few that arrived bad I did get refunded for. The main thing I’d say is to be careful of things that plug in but don’t meet electrical code in your country (Amazon is getting bad for this as well) as that’s definitely some janky stuff you can find

comfyquaker ,

I got my 3ds LL from ali. works as expected and can play JP and US regions. its also white and it was pretty cleaned up when i received it. ive played through star fox a few times and I am halfway through OOT. approaching a year of ownership.

Ive bought a few handhelds and only had a DSi go bunk on me.

at this point amazon, etsy and other large online retailers/resellers serve the same stuff as aliexpress does, just with better shipping and return policy.

Link ,

Did you softmod it to be able to play US and JP games? By default it shouldn’t be able to do this as all 3DS systems are region locked.

comfyquaker ,

they must have done it or the system they refurbed had it done. i thought i initially when i was buying it i was getting a 3ds xl but arrived as an ll

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t trust AliEx any more after I took the loss of 3 orders for ~$60 in 2020. When I called, they hung up on me at random every time. After the 3rd try I washed my hands and walked away. Stealing from me once is on them, twice would be my own fault. Prior to that experience I spent a few thousand dollars on the platform for odds and ends.

I expect something like this to be an emulator and nowhere near the quality of a real Nintendo product, but I could be wrong. I would buy used or a homebrew project that is well documented and might cost a little more.

kralk ,

Did you charge it back through your bank? Very easy to do in the UK at least

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    PhobosAnomaly ,

    In fairness, I very much doubt a chargeback would even get so far as a human.

    From what I’ve seen with other companies across different continents, a chargeback triggers an automatic account ban with whichever retailer and that’s that.

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