Aliexpress vs DHGate? Why I prefer Aliexpress over DHGate

When it comes to online shopping and non-USA based marketplaces that offer just about anything under the sun, two big marketplaces come to mind: Aliexpress and DHGate. When it comes to Aliexpress vs DHGate (I’ve used both), my clear winner here is Aliexpress! And here’s why…

Lets briefly go over what each marketplace is and what it’s best known for.

DHGate

DHGate is a growing marketplace all thanks to social platforms like TikTok and Instagram that help spread its awareness, and with their sellers being from China. DHGate offers items priced individually and discounted prices the more (in bulk) of it you purchase.

You probably already know this, but DHGate is best known for designer inspired and dupes. And they’re loud and proud about it, basically. The regulators make very little effort to take down listings and sellers are very bold to post products eerily similar to the real thing without getting in trouble, yikes!

AliExpress

AliExpress is essentially the Amazon of China. You’ll find just about anything you can imagine sold there. And if you’re looking for a supplier or to buy in bulk, they’ve got their supplier edition marketplace called Alibaba.

AliExpress ALSO has an affiliate program! Did you know this? It works just like Collective Voice or Amazon Affiliates. It’s free and it’s actually very easy to join. If you’re a blogger like myself and think of getting into affiliate marketing I would checkout AliExpress Affiliates!

Why AliExpress?

Before I get into the why, let me preface this by saying that I have used both platforms extensively for my shopping ( – addiction, haha). And while I have had both good and bad experiences on both platforms, I have found that the pros and my personal experiences have been far superior on AliExpress than on DHGate. Let’s go over a few.

Buyer Protection

Hands down my number one of reasons why I choose AliExpress over DHGate. As mentioned, I’ve had bad experiences on both platforms in terms of sellers sending me a broken product, a wrong product in some aspect, or no product at all. It’s frustrating when this happens, believe me. Especially because you’re waiting weeks to receive your purchase.

Each marketplace has a customer dispute section that you can use to dispute an item. In my opinion AliExpress is a whole lot more streamlined than DHGate. Wait times are quicker as well.

With AliExpress, you simply open a dispute by answering a few questions (such as: did you receive the item? What about it was wrong?) and upload any photos and/or videos as evidence. AliExpress will let you work it out a bit between you and the seller. And if it doesn’t get resolved after one or two back-and-forth interactions, it’ll escalate to someone on platform’s end to review. Sometimes it’s automated, but usually someone will review and come to a judgement call very quickly.

With DHGate, wait times can take weeks or MONTHS! and more often than not, they’ll either side with the seller or give you a partial refund, leaving you with a product that was either totally different or broken to the one you were expecting!. Also, I found DHGate’s dispute process to be very glitchy. For example, the platform may show you a popup saying that you need to wait X number of days after receiving the item to open a dispute. What is that about? The only way I was able to resolve this was to go to DHGate’s online chat and talk with a live person (which is annoying and time consuming!). In addition to the glitchy dispute process, sometimes the reason for opening your dispute is not found in the dropdown, which again, you’ll need to reach out to a live agent via their chat feature.

I can give you a ton of examples of what could go wrong on either platform but I’ll save that for another blog post! For now, just know that AliExpress has your back a lot more than DHGate.

Less prone to scams

In my opinion, AliExpress does a much better job of cutting out sellers that are there with the intention of scamming their buyers. They close down their shop(s) immediately to avoid you, the buyer, from losing your money and wasting your time.

If you ever find yourself having purchased something and find that the seller and shop no longer exists, you can get your money back usually from cancelling your purchase (if it hasn’t been shipped out yet) or if it wasn’t delivered in time according to AliExpress’s delivery timeframe. As I mentioned above, opening a dispute through AliExpress is a breeze and they’re often very quick to reply and either ask for more evidence (very unlikely) or apply a refund (vey likely) if you do not receive your item in time, if the tracking is faulty, or if you received something very different than what you expected.

I find that there’s also less likely to be bait and switch sales on AliExpress vs DHGate because of their quick buyer protection turnaround.

Much Better Selection of Quality Items

I’ve personally found that AliExpress has a much better selection of just about anything you can imagine sold on their platform. From electronics, to crafting supplies, to designer inspired, high-end clothes, to even custom-made clothing!

It could be that AliExpress is the better known of the two online marketplaces. I love AliExpress for crafting and fabric supplies in addition to quality replica and designer inspired clothing (such as Zimmermann and Self Portrait dupes). Listings on AliExpress tend to be more detailed with photos of the actual product whereas on DHGate it tends to be a lot of copy and paste of the same jargon and descriptions.

Oftentimes, products on DHGate have missing measurements and lack actual photos of the product. You find yourself having to reach out to the seller and ask more questions about the items which is also a headache in and of itself (because they usually don’t understand or simply don’t respond). I found that on AliExpress, sellers tend to be more responsive.

Better User Experience

Overall, my shopping experience is a ton better on AliExpress than on DHGate.

For starters, DHGate has this annoying “coins chiming” notification that rings every so often, and I have yet to figure out how to turn this annoying sound off! And it’s even more annoying if you have a ton of tabs open which means that chiming noise goes off for each one of those open tabs.

In addition to all this, if you want to send a message to a seller, the user experience is just awful. It opens up a popup each time you want to send out a message. And while the messages for all your sellers are within that popup, it glitches a lot. Clicking on a seller doesn’t necessarily load the correct chat history of that seller (may be a totally different one).

The buyer’s purchase history page is also another headache. Sometimes the page doesn’t load correctly, leaving you to have to refresh the page. Also, it takes some getting used to where important information is located for a specific order.

And lastly, good luck opening and keeping up with a purchase dispute if you ever find yourself needing to get one started (and you likely will!). DHGate is weird about starting a dispute once you receive your order. You would think you could open a dispute as soon as you receive it but for whatever reason, DHGate says you must wait a few days after receiving the order. In addition to that, if you select and verify that you’ve received your purchase, you have to then jump through hoops to open a dispute because the system thinks that by verifying your order, that you are no satisfied with it!

Of course, that’s usually not the case. If you find yourself in this situation, go through their customer service online chat directly and have them open up a dispute for you. What a headache, huh?

Image Searching

Both DHGate and AliExpress have an image search feature, both of which only found on their mobile app.

However, I have found that AliExpress’ photo image search to be much more robust and easier to use than DHGate. In fact, if I find something on DHGate I want to purchase, I’ll usually save a photo of the product and search for it on AliExpress (it’s usually cheaper too, plus you’ve got a better buyer protection program through AliExpress vs DHGate)!

AliExpress Vs DHGate: In Conclusion

All in all when it comes to AliExpress vs DHGate, and after having extensively used and shopped at both online marketplaces for years, my personal clear winner is AliExpress.

That’s not to say that you should avoid DHGate altogether, but I would use this marketplace with a lot more caution.

In fact, I have put some tips on how to avoid getting scammed oh DHGate in my blog post here.

With DHGate, I had a lot of hope starting off because of how well known and talked about it was all over social media (like TikTok). But I’m generally a picky shopper and expect high quality purchases only (at reasonable and affordable prices). Much to my dismay, DHGate turned out to have a lot of negative experiences.

Whether it was from sellers not sending me my entire order (if I’ve purchased more than one item from a single seller), bait and switch products, items of much lesser quality than advertised, or simply not sending me anything at all and having to waste my time through the dispute process, it was more trouble than it was worth. Not a pleasant shopping experience at all. I’ve resorted to sticking with AliExpress for my good finds and am always excited when I receive something from them in the mail! More often than not, it’s a success and I am usually happy with my purchase!