eBay alternative?

Years ago I used to source many things from eBay. However recently there is a lot of garbage! Probably 25% of my recent purchases have been defective even from 'Australian' sellers. What has happened to being able to buy reasonable quality Chinese electronics? Years ago I used to get heaps of goodies very cheap, and in the odd event of trouble, get a full refund or replacement.

It has only been this year that I have ever had to give negative feedback. Quite a bit of it too - both from work and personally.

Now I have a problem - Banggood and Aliexpress shipping is just too slow - or too expensive. However something I may have to put up with.

Has anyone any suggestions as what to do? Has anyone else noticed this?

Local shop and you will get proper stuff and all Not what you want to hear but thats how it works

I do Ebay, Alie, Banggood and some Amazon. But special stuff or proper stuff i get from local vendors or name brand vendors around the globe.

The "You get what you pay for" is very important to remember.

Ebay is convenient, i still use it a lot... but i only pay with paypall and stay far far away from Chinese sellers.
Had 2 problems this year, both Chinese, i give up on them.

Alwaysgoogle the things you want, often you can get them online from other sites like Farnell...
Maybeeven cheaper

ebay almost always sides with the buyer

Also AliExpress will often side with the buyer, however they have a stronger proof requirement that seems to me to be somewhat abstract, i had some of those 4 port MPPT micro inverters and 2 of the 3 I had quit making reasonable power after a few days, I posted up the graphs of the 2 bad ones and the one good one and they gave me a refund.

I think out of the few thousands of dollars spent on AliExpress this year that was the only thing I got that did not work perfect. Most of what I get is LED lighting related though so that stuff is almost always really reliable.

daromer said:

Local shop and you will get proper stuff and all Not what you want to hear but thats how it works

I do Ebay, Alie, Banggood and some Amazon. But special stuff or proper stuff i get from local vendors or name brand vendors around the globe.

The "You get what you pay for" is very important to remember.

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I don't mind paying a little extra - but living in the 'country' can make things unreasonably expensive, or simply unavailable. I do order a lot of things over the phone and have them posted.

Bit of a shame that eBay has become so flooded with garbage. Even more so, price on eBay is not necessarily an indication of quality. Some of the cheapest stuff I have bought has been exceptionally good value.