Buying on Ali Express:
- Buy for $2
- Click on item
- $75 shipping cost
- No way to sort by total cost
Buying on Ali Express/Temu/Ebay
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Item I want is listed for $20
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Click item
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It’s actually a 15cm USB-C cable for $20, the actual item which is ‘color B’ is $75
Time to build an alternative Aliexpress client that shows all that right in the search overview.
In brazil: 400 reais item clicks it Actually 700 with taxes.
Same in Europe when buying from North America stores. Listed price is 100 USD so I assume it will be 100 EUR, by the time I received the item I have paid close to 160 EUR and often you need to spend going through filling in your information before it gives you that total price and sometimes they unfairly compete with their prices before tax with other stores with prices after tax. Which is illegal, but hey/
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I’ve found the Lowe’s site/app is even worse, you can sort by cost but it will “categorize” them so it shows the more expensive items first then lists the next set in cost order. I would rather just not have the option.
That sounds terrible 😐
Imagine, some website developer got asked to spend hours designing a complicated sort that made for a worse experience than a basic search.
No way to sort by total cost
But you can filter by free shipping.
Anyway, yeah, what an irrational decision the OP discovered.
This has not been my experience at all, delivery is almost always free for purchases over something like $20.
You can forget entirely about returns though, zero chance to get one of those to work
I’ve never had a single issue with returns on Aliexpress
Where I live you have to foot the bill to return the item to China yourself, which is going to be a good $40-$50 and take a long time. Basically never worth the money and effort
We must be shopping for different kinds of things, though I have exaggerated the shipping costs, I find it hard to work out what the cheapest item is. I have also commonly found what someone else mentioned, that they have different items for each “colour”, and have something cheap on one colour and the thing you actually want for a lot more on another colour. You search for the thing you want, and it comes up in the search showing the price for the thing you don’t want because the system things they are different colours of the same thing when it’s not.
The color-thing is a bit of a gotcha, yeah.
When you get a refund it doesn’t include shipping. So yep.
Under EU consumer law, it’s a requirement for the seller to refund you the shipping cost as well, unless you paid for extras like faster delivery. I understand that’s not a thing in the States, though.
That honestly sucks. Like it’s fine for inter EU shipping but seems like it will result in a lot of products straight up being unavailable in Europe eventually.
Exactly this. I’m dumb, but I ain’t stupid.
eBay:
Item $5
Shipping $25
This is fine by me as it makes comparing prices cheaper when I’m trying to avoid Amazon. I remember once recently I tried to avoid Amazon and found some website where it was a couple of quid cheaper so I went with it. First I had to create an account, then I had to let them save my payment details, then they added tax to the item, then they added delivery, then they added tax on the delivery, then I remember some other arbitrary admin fee or something, and at the end it was nearly twice the price. So I told them to delete my account and I went with Amazon.
Living in The Netherlands means I can check out with iDeal (will become Wero) and often even without an account.
With Amazon I have to check I am on the right store to get actually normal priced shipping (3-5 euro instead of 20-30 euro). If they have something on Amazon.com I can only pay with a creditcard instead of all the normal options other versions of Amazon offer. The only thing Amazon does correct and most other North American stores don’t is add the tax to the price which they are supposed to do.
one of our customers at work has two online shops: one with everything free shipping but higher prices and one with lower prices and shipping extra. both go well. i can’t say their names tho, because he’s afraid people would be angry if they find out it’s basically the same offers in both shops 😄
Also, 20$ meal, 5$ tip VS 25$ meal, 0$ tip
Kind of different since the tip is going directly to the worker.
It isn’t though, because they still have to tip out the dishwashers, cooks, busboys etc. At that point it’s part of all those people’s wages and the price is just a deceptive lie.
I guess I was thinking delivery since the OP was about shipping. With delivery apps, the full tip goes to the driver so I always tip well.
If only we could know that it’s $5 tip before ordering.
Or free shipping at xx Euros, which results in me paying/buying a lot more unnecessary stuff…
Amazon comes to mind
Depends on how many I’m buying and if shipping is cheaper for multiple items.
25+25+5 is cheaper than 30+30+0.
On sites where people tend to sort by low price, keep shipping separate.
On sites where people buy based on emotion, give free shipping to improve conversion rates and close the deal.
people buy based on emotion
Not me. I ask the AI to do all my shopping, because it is perfectly logical and always performs the optimal action.
Oh, hey, incidentally I now have an order of 265 dozen eggs on my front porch.
How in Lemmy hell you managed to make an “AI = Bad” post in this thread is beyond me.
Spoken like a man who doesn’t eat enough eggs
Some places don’t charge tax on the shipping so you’re paying less if you don’t choose free shipping.
In most places the tax is included in the price and often mandatory because nearly every country in the world can figure out a way to do exactly that.
Some States have exemptions on shipping charges. So you pay less sales tax if you pay $25/$5 over $30/free.
States and localities have different ways of handling sales taxes.
Not everything is about the US though
Plus, if they sell to people in the EU they need to charge VAT anyway on the shipping. Some exception apply, but you as a person will not run into them.
That’s assuming meme math.
Practically speaking, I can buy from Amazon for the same or less than a storefront. So if you’re charging me $30 at Target and $25+$5 at Amazon, its still no loss to order off my phone rather than fight the crowd at a Big Box.
That’s before the time savings of never having to leave my house to shop. For some reason, Lemmyites understand working from home as a cost savings but stumble on shopping from home.
wait what does free shipping have to do with going to the store. why are they shipping it if you’re going to the store
wait what does free shipping have to do with going to the store.
If something is shipped to you then you don’t need to spend time traveling and shopping in a big building
I’m talking about sales taxes on shipping charges.
I’m talking about the final out of pocket cost of either retail purchase.
Product $5 shipping $20…
I’m not buying.
It’s a more fair way to compare prices including comparing to buying it in a physical store.
When you buy something online, they can ship it directly from the warehouse, so they save on shelf space and the shipping to the store.
Ordering on aliexpress:
$5 item, free shipping but it crosses the ocean on the back of the next available sea turtle, and if you have any issues they’ll send you a replacement component and a loose guide on how to desolder the old component and solder the new component.
But it was worth a try
Ali is very good for stuff that you can’t really mess up and still get good reviews from unknowing people. Like stickers, cases and such.
What are you? Some kind of communist?!
Literally a good tip if you sell on ebay.
If you’re selling an instrument on reverb, absolutely do this. People balk at shipping price concerns. Say you cover it, raise your ask.
I buy on reverb quite a bit and with expensive music grear I’m suspicious of free shipping. I’d much rather pay for shipping to ensure they actually package and ship it with care.
With free shipping, if it’s packed like shit I can’t really complain, if I spend $30, on shipping and it’s packed like shit, I’m gonna question it
Yeah, as a buyer I’d agree.
But your average buyer is dumb.
$2500 vintage guitar would not sell
$2600 vintage guitar shipping included sold within a week.
