then just buy it, who knows what you’ll get
For outdoor gear, I go with Löffler.
It’s still made in Austria and quality-wise on a completely different level.
I sometimes visit AliExpress but I’m at a loss what to buy - because the brands are meaningless to me and nobody but some nameless reviewers from Russia can vouch for the quality of their stuff.
It’s even worse on Temu.
There’s way too much choice and there’s no way to ascertain the quality of the goods.
I have no idea why people shop there to begin with? You can find the cheap stuff here, too.
Consumerism and late-stage capitalism I would assume, where the act of buying something fills (or is perceived to) a psychological hole.
I’ve never gone there for online shopping.
I know what I want, search for it and buy it - things like a box of assorted resistors, or electrolytic caps (I never have the right value), Arduino boards, etc and stuff like Ethernet cable tracers and checkers.
I bought an IR thermometer to measure floor temperatures when I had a problem with underfloor heating which was about 20 CHF.
The last thing I bought was a set of lightweight bike lights to put on the bike when I don’t plan to need them but in case I get home later from a ride.
Normal bike lights which are any good cost upwards from 50 CHF and the rechargeable batteries are neither replaceable nor particularly long-lasting after many charge-recharge cycles so need replacing fairly regularly.
Replacement parts for my Xiaomi vacuum such as filters, batteries etc are also good value from Ali-Express.
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Those Russian reviewers are the best! I’ve seen some do extensive testing on products and put the results in the reviews.
Plenty of reviews on Youtube too.
For example, a chap reviewed the Geiga-counters mentioned earlier, with calibrated samples.
Indeed, filters, dust bags for vacuum cleaners, batteries, LED bulbs, interdental cleaners and silver jewellry is usually rhodium plated so doesn’t go black.
You might say it is not worth buying dustbags but I have to buy them online anyway and the total Ali price is only a couple of Francs more than the postage I pay here.
Bought this shirt from Ali Express-real quality and linen. A German seller was selling it for 35CHF!!! I got it for 7CHF
I bought, at different times, a new battery, new main brush, side brushes and even a new LiDAR laser which wasn’t much over CHF5 !
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So the collar isn’t a “normal” foldable collar, I gather from the top comment?
The replacement toothbrush heads for Philips were extremely bad. They were longer than original and the bristles stuck between teeth.
I bought some ‘identical’ tooth brushes for our Braun electrics. Both stopped working in the first month. I figure they were too tight and wore out the motors.
One of our Philips toothbrushes also stopped working with fake toothbrush head.
Yes right. The collar is not the foldable type. I dont wear such foldable collars.
I bought some razor blades once, but they were not sharp, so they were useless.
I have been buying hearing aids for years.
Depending on the type the price varies between CHF50 and CHF 200
The most expensive ones allow you to individually set the increase in volume for different frequencies on each side via Bluetooth over my mobile phone.
I’ve just spent >400 chf on buying random 11.11 junk, time to shut down the screen, I’m going to have plenty for usb cables and pendrives to loose again over the next year 
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So, judging by the comments, buying from Ali Express is the online equivalent of going down the market and buying stuff from the suitcase of Delboy Trotter?
Yes especially when they don’t even let you check the product but force you to buy at least 3 of them 
seriously it’s something really annoying going on since many months, I didn’t figured out how to avoid this… it goes lithe this: I search for xyz, grid of miniatures shows up, I click on something but instead of going to the product page I’m presented with only a web blocking pop-up where I can’t see anything more then the miniature picture and a buy button, there’s no way to close this to get to the actual product page
at least it prevents me for overbuying junk, I’m usually done with the shopping once I hit such “land mine” for a third time
when the miniature page comes up, you choose the product again and then the product page comes up. it’s a bit annoying. i think they added it to compete with Temu.
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One has to be extra careful when buying China junk.
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Heres my last two purchases from Ali Ex. Saved quite a bit. And one knows its the same thing that the others sell here for double the price or more.