What are you buying on Ali Express?

It's been awhile since I've placed an order there. I almost did, in January? when I saw an alpha die I liked. But I'm still waiting for my Vicki Boutin stuff to arrive at my LSS, so I can't really spend anywhere else yet.

I look at enamel dots there - trying to find big lots of them. But i havent ordered anything yet.

I've ordered blending brushes and stand alone dies.  My last order of dies cost me $25 at Ali and would have cost me $287 at the retailer.  I'm know this is a hot button issue for a lot of people but that savings is too much to brush aside.  That just proves that the US retailers have a profit markup that is ridiculous.

A friend and I did a shared buy of enamel dots a couple years ago...I'm still swimming in dots.

Their quality is crap and they steal designs from designers and small businesses. I will never buy from them.

I still won't buy from them since they steal designs, I don't care how great the die quality is. The stamps are crappy (FTR I had a friend buy a bunch of stamps from them and the stamps disintegrated after a few months and never stamped a good image.)

ETA: you are definitely allowed to spend your money where you want, I just can't spend my money on knockoffs and stolen designs. 

The dies I got were the same quality as the dies I get in the US. I tend to buy US, but spending $75 compared to $12 was too good of a deal. I only use my PayPal account. Didn't want my credit card number out there even more than it is.

For me, $75 for three wave dies is ridiculous. The markup for that particular set didn't make sense. I could have bought a BigShot and three die sets with that amount of money.

If I put dies purchased from Ali next to dies purchased from US businesses, I can't tell any difference in quality. And while there are stolen designs on some of the sites, there are also designers that sell only thru Ali (Nicole from Nicole Silhouette is one). The couple of stamps I ordered were not super high quality, but they were roughly equivalent to InkaDinkaDo and some of the other brands from big box stores.

I try not to purchase what I know to be knock-offs, but it's not possible to stay up on all of it. And one item that I knew was a knockoff of a design (and I purchased the actual die from the actual company first) - Ali had the same design in a larger size and I needed that larger size as well.

Some of the big, popular companies have their dies manufactured in China. I know that they need to pay their designers, etc. - but a small company that I buy from often here in the US creates her own designs and has them manufactured in China, and one of her nesting sets sells for around $10. That tells me that it shouldn't be necessary to charge over twice that amount to make a go of things. Don't get me wrong, I still buy from the companies that charge that much, but I'm much more discerning about which designs I think I need. 

ETA: I've had a credit card on file with them for a couple of years now, and it has never been compromised (it's a prepaid Bluebird debit card and I never put much money on it - I'm not crazy). But in that same time, I've had cards that I use only here in the US and never allow a site to save the info that were compromised.

i ordered a bunch of wafer thin dies.  haven't tried them yet but they look okay.  

i also notice that Ali's prices are getting higher and higher. still lower than US prices but the gap is narrowing.

Exactly. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I've bought a LOT of shaped nested dies on amazon. Circles, hearts, tags, rectangles.

I have NO issue buying shapes at really reasonable prices. I will not pay $30+ for basic shape dies. No one owns a copyright on a circle.

I try to steer clear of anything name brand - I do look stuff up as best as I can before buying to see if it's a knock off.

But otherwise, I don't feel ANY issues about buying basic items for a LOT less.

I buy a lot of shape dies. Or just really interesting dies that I have just never saw anywhere.

Has anyone bought the "dancing die". Thats what it called. Its actually not dancing. It's 2 people in 4 different positions doing the side ways tango.

Can you imaging getting a nice card and opening it and that die cut is in there. I have thought about buying it. I showed it to my DH and he said oh so in a month it will arrive here. Other than a gag I can't see me using it for anything. Unless people are doing x-rated scrapbook out there.

I've been wanting to refresh some of my supplies lately and I am not finding much from the traditional US companies that appeals to me. So I decided to check out Ali. I ordered once a few years ago but haven't looked since then. So I've spent some time on there this week looking around and I'm shocked at how high the prices have gotten. I added some cute enamel dots and stickers and they are $3/sheet. The same price I'd pay for something without a coupon at Hobby Lobby. The draw to Ali back in the day was that it was cheap so the long shipping times were ok. Well I'm still waiting to see something cheap...

That's funny!