I've placed many orders with Aliexpress. Orders for everything from gun parts, outdoor and camping gear, tools, lingerie... all different stuff. Much of them placed last year or earlier. However, this month I placed orders for camping equipment with multiple sellers. All of them had "high" ratings. This is what I got and what happened in response:

1. Stainless Steel Serving Trays: Showed in the ad as a serving tray. Came in the size of a pack of playing cards. Perfect if I am giving a dinner party for Dwarves.
2. Titanium Stove Shield: Well, I have to say that it WAS titanium but the size... again Lilliputian. ASlso so thin that is cut my hand almost deep enough for stitches.
3. Titanium Tableware Set of Six Items Each: NOT titanium in the least. It is aluminum and it chemically reacts like aluminum and not titanium. It burns when ignited. That's aluminum. Here is the kicker: hey sent only a fork and a spoon for each set. No knife. No clip and no chopsticks. I complained, my result: NOTHING.
4. Tent Poles from Sun Outdoors: Holy smokes... I don't even know where to begin. False info, fake tracking numbers, multiple attempts to cancel; and they kept delaying till they said ti was too late. I still don't have them by the way. Multiple comms to Aliexpress customer service. One wise azz gave me the UP postal service phone number and told me to call them.Knives I ordered: Never came and were cancelled by the seller because "they are dangerous items not allowed to be shipped to the US". This from the same AliExpress that has been offering firearm sound suppressors advertised as oil filters or solvent separators as well a Glock full auto switches for almost two years now and from multiple sellers.
5. Hatchets: Never shipped ands was able to cancel those thank god.
6. SnowPeak knockoff Double Walled Cups: Bad quality and the bottoms are NOT double walled but not so bad as to be sent back and they did arrive on time.
7. TOMSHOO Titanium Tent Stakes: a) Not titanium. b) TINY. Great for a tent if you're the size of a mouse.
8. TOMSHOO Steel Bowls: These were pretty damn good. One shining beacon of light in a dark nightmare of retail purchasing.
9. Hand Brewed Coffee Filter: Ordered two, only one came. Got a refund though.10)Snow Peak Plate: Never arrived. Cancelled by seller. Got refund. Still don't know why.
10. Hiking poles: Had to cancel as they were never going to arrive on time. They were actually MORE expensive than similar items on Amazon. Hell, they were the same items with different lables.
11. JO Camping Store Stove: Well, at least I got it but the quality? Let's say that JO is pretty much the right name for these guys.
12. Bear Gryllis Knock Off Fixed Blade Knife: Surprisingly well made till I tried to use it and the tip curled under itself. I'm not sure what kind of steel they used but I have pots that are tougher.
13. A variety of LED Lights: I am happy with every single one.
14. AlieXpress Customer Service: Customer Service? They don't provide service for the customer. Indeed their idea of "customer service" is serving the customer up fried, boiled or baked! Totally unhelpful. Ketop asking for pics of things that didn't arrive. One can't prove a negative, right? Told me to open a dispute with the sellers after I came to them after multiple disputes and communications with the sellers. Then they asked for more pics. One wise azz gave me the USPS phone number and told me to call them with no tracking number. Call me crazy but they took my money and I didn;'t get the goods... shouldn't they be doing that? I know that Amazon does. Oh and they didn't give me the tracking numbers. One seller told me the the shippers are mysteriously changing tracking numbers... which would be impossible as my spouse told me, who has been in international steam ship logistics for 40 years and the C suite level.
15. Reviews... out of the perhaps 15 reviews I left, the four and five star ones were posted. only ONE of the one star reviews were posted and none of the others whether 3 stars to 1 star, were ever posted. ALL of the five star reviews I read were fake. How could I tell? They all have bad english grammar and they all read about the same and there is no way that many people could look at the crap I got and wax poetically about it. The review process on AliExpress is badly broken and not to be trusted.

I saw prefab tiny homes and ADU's advertised for prices around $25K to $40K... with $350,000.00 shipping costs!!!! Once again I checked this factoid with my International Shipping Guru and they simply laughed. It does not cost $350k to ship a tiny home the size of shipping container made from a shipping container. If that were the cost of shipping then we would NEVER have offshored so much of our manufacturing.

It's all deceptive.

All in all what I got were some great LED lights, some decent tools, some shite tools and a whole lot of grief in this process. This was about $800.00 in total aggregate orders. To make the point firm... I've placed orders like this before for multiple items from multiple sellers and had a small fraction go bad or be trash. THIS TIME? Only a fraction came in good and the MAJORITY were painful to say the least. They lost a customer with me. I am hoping that the mods don't block this. People need to know.