Best place for a hobbiest to buy small amounts of parts?

Friend of mine has a problem with the delivery people.

He lives at 123 abc Circle. That is off ABC Road and there is a house number 123. Seems the delivery people get on the Road and do not understant the Circle is near the end of that road.

With tracking being fairly good if he orders something, he tracks it and if it is marked delivered and he does not see it, he goes to the 123 abc Road house to get his package.

I have the inverse problem. I live at 3 X Rd, and keep having deliveries for 3 X Close. The worst case was a "delivery" of roof height scaffolding; that company wasn't amused by their incompetence.

Despite it having been there since 1930, it - isn't on most satnavs; they mutate the postcode YYY 9HL to YYY9EA - isn't on google maps; ditto - it is on bing maps, but isn't searchable - it is on openstreet map, since I put it there

I've trapped out all but the most incompetent fools by: - having the other occupant replace the first line of their address with "opposite the supermarket" - 3D printing a brass sign "Not X Close", and fixing it adjacent to the bell

My dad lived at 123 White Farm Road and there was a Church at 123 White Road. He would get a letter of theirs about once a month. The roads were about 10 miles apart. If they ever got a letter of his, they did not report it.

Once my natural gas bill got messed up. Didn't get one for about 2 months and one finally came. Weent to the gas company and somehow after living there for 5 years they han me "moved" to the town next to the one I lived in. Actually I lived about halfway between the two towns out in the country. It stayed messsed up for about 3 or 4 billing cycles.Eahc time I would go to them and they would change something, but somehow they seemed to not makc the correct change.

Amazon has a place to ask quesitons. Usually they're answered by other purchasers but some sellers (and even manufacturers) use it as a suport channel. I make two or three Amazon orders a month but haven't bought from eBay for five or six years (and never AliEx). n

The caveat is that it seems to be surplus, and mostly oriented towards radio type hobbying. So it's good for what he carries, but it's a limited selection. On the other hand, if you need RF parts, you may be more likely to fill out your needs from this one source.

It's worth looking, but it may not work for everyone.

I ordered a time or two, but he no longer wants to send to Canada (or any non-US location I think), which is a shame because it was very convenient to be able to get those RF parts in one place.

Michael

Is this Aliexpress a company in China, or do they just sell China goods?

AliExpress is Chinese. AliExpress is the consumer outlet for AliBaba, the huge Chinese company.

Allied

Amazon has a place to ask quesitons. Usually they're answered by other purchasers but some sellers (and even manufacturers) use it as a suport channel. I make two or three Amazon orders a month but haven't bought from eBay for five or six years (and never AliEx). n =======================================================================

On Amazon once an item has been ordered and shipped, but not yet delivered, hit the orders button to view your orders, then the "get help with order" button. In at least one of the choices in there you can contact the seller directly, but you will have to drill down a bit. Before shipment and after delivery the get help button isn't there, but I think you can use the request return button to contact the seller. I asked the seller of a little power supply I bought for a schematic, and they sent me a hand drawn sketch of the connections which just duplicated what was printed on the pcb anyway, sigh. But I at least was able to make contact :-).

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

MS doesn't have customers. They have hostages.

Hence the phrase "hostage to fortune"!

Mike.

With eBay you can have the same lame conversation with the seller

*before* the purchase. I don't consider getting questions answered by other buyers to be the proper way to get help. But then you can converse with other buyers who may not have all good to say about the item.

I will say I bought an Amazon branded shredder once which was the lowest price I could find for a unit of that capability with free shipping as well. The unit works great and I have no complaints which is rare with me.

I'm just not comfortable with buying from unknown quantities on Amazon. The few times I did it I wasn't happy and I'm not comfortable with the overall process. If I can't contact the seller, why should I buy anything from them?

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Rick C

Most of the new things of any big price I order from any place is something I already know about. I have orderd from ebay from China many items less than $ 25 and have been satified.

I have ordered some items off ebay that I look on Youtube to see if anyone has done a review on them. Good thing about ebay is you can look at a venders feedback and if they have done lots of business and have a rating of around 99 or beter then I feel good about them.

The way I see it, Amazon has ratings on the products but not on the outside venders.I ordered a book from one of the Amazon venders and did not get in about 3 weeks I tried 2 times to send them an email and did not get a response. Went to Amazons problem page and got credited in less than a week by them.

Depending on where you are sometimes they have free shipping. so far as i know they don't have minimum orders on most common parts, I think that I heard that digikey has free shipping if you are in USA and order by mail with cheque enclosed.

yeah... quality can be suspect too, but if y're prepare to be vigilant it can work.

you could look at "sparkfun" and "adafriut" and "pimoroni", but I'm not guaranteeing that they will be a good fit for you.

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This email has not been checked by half-arsed antivirus software

Yeah, but they lied to me about the price, "Buy now $3 shipping" specifically mentioning my location. I clicked the button and they charged me $30 for shipping.

Ironically I was buying a book about fraud by big business.

You don't have to agree to pay shipping on "faulty product" or "not as described". If the vendor can't make an acceptable offer in the time allotte aliexpress will take interest in the deal.

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This email has not been checked by half-arsed antivirus software

I still lost $120 US or so, even after they took interest.

Their argument was that it was a relatively large amount of money so I should lose half. If it was $5 or $10 they probably would have made the dishonest vendor pay 100%. So, caveat emptor.

--sp

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Best regards,  
Spehro Pefhany

Aliexpress is just an umbrella corporation and the goods that come through are sold by many thousands of independent sellers.

Think of Aliexpress as a Chinese "buy it now" only ebay.

I've had excellent luck, just be sure to check ratings and read the descriptions carefully.

That's so BS, but it may be a cultural thing. A friend was in a taxi in Vietnam and a cyclist was hit. The two drivers started haggling and bystanders joined in to mediate. In the end it was decided that the cyclist should get $50. They said my friend should pay.

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Rick C

in

Sounds like a good scam. Perhaps the same "bystanders" do that every day...

Mike.