Stay away from Alibaba. That is the best way to get &*%^$^& Depending what you are looking for, I am sure people on this forum will be able to help you source it. Alibaba is full of crooks after your money.

 

I have had no issues with them latest venture was getting a source through than that did several photos into vector art... my client has a short budget and I found no one in USA to do then for $15 each... overall satisfied. but having said that, not sure I would source hardware through them

 

Hello Charles,
Please can i have your supplier's contact?

 

Thanks Charles. I was actually trying to find a supplier that could do some custom work as far as button ups and polos. I have had many interested suppliers msg me saying they could do certain things for me but I am still iffy on going through with them. I have heard my fair share of horror stories as well as some happy customers.
Any tips on what to look for when trying to see if the supplier is legit?

 

Any tips on what to look for when trying to see if the supplier is legit?

Here is some general advice I found:
If they accept PayPal payments, then that's a good sign.
As for quality ask them for samples, and at first place only small orders to ensure there is quality consistency and if things go pear shaped, at least you won't have lost as great deal of money.

 

I haven't had any problems either.

 

I found my cap supplier on there....
VIETNAM T.C AND B COMPANY LIMITED - cap, Durag, beanie
20+ orders and all has been good....

 

Do you pay any import taxes or fees from buying over seas from Alibaba?

 

No worries David!

Btw, this is only some general advice I found in a review of Alibaba (can't remember the link though), by people who have used it as a B2B directory. The general consensus is it's a very useful directory, beware of the fraudsters in there, if you find the company that interests you do a good research, plus the advice I wrote earlier.

Good luck!

 

Hi David,

Also make sure to get an up front cost of everything. (products, sample costs, and shipping costs) Some companies advertise on there really cheap like $2.50 per piece or less then after shipping and any other fees they throw in it can cost $10/piece. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks Rocco yea that makes sense. I am in contact with a few companies I'll make sure to get the full quote.

 

Alibaba is great if you carry out your due diligence.

We've sourced labels, packaging, stickers and all sorts of things through it

 

We use Alibaba alot. We've had our success's and failures. I always check if they are a gold supplier and whether they use paypal. If they don't have that, I go no further. Always, always make sure you get ALL the costs up front. They are very clever at confusing you, so do your research on shipping. Don't expect any after sale service and remember that the quality may be less than you're used to.
Overall though, I don't mind using them when I have to.

 

I always check if they are a gold supplier and whether they use paypal. If they don't have that, I go no further.

That's very important!

 

I have been checking out alibaba and am also looking for some legit manufacturers. I have read that to get the Gold Supplier status only requires money, but a lot, like $3000+ a year. So I am looking at Gold members that have 2+ years of status. I don't think they would last that long if they were scammers.

Regarding Paypal, the manufacturers, I've been looking at are mostly from Pakistan and I've heard Paypal is not allowed there. Not sure what other payment methods are safe for the buyer.

Also, does anyone know the taxes involved to get items imported to the US? Thanks.

 

Very true,I deal with Pakistan manufacturer's so the PayPal thing is void. Some have been verified and have a status symbol for that. Also gold supplier is good but often alibaba has a 299$ gold one year special. Only thing is i warn you on is sizing is not always perfect and consistent.

 

I didnt get any clothing product from there, but I got some erasers and it was a great experience with the trader there. Quite smooth .

 

Don't waist your time out sourcing your product over seas. I'm here in Texas and offer all fabrication of sports apparel, leather goods and much more. You will find yourself robbed of quality and money going over seas. I am one of very few full custom fabrication registered companies in the nation. Let me help you out with your next order leaving more then enough meat on the bone to chew off, at great wholesale prices. Why buy a 50,000 machine when I offer the finished product turn key at a low cost with out any voids. Email me or message me. Have some samples on my profile pics.

 

A an issue with one manufacturer who refused to make my caps because one of their employees stole $10,000 from the company, eventually had them made. Be cautious, use the chat service, buy samples first. and use the escrow service.

 

Do you mind recommending the place where you got your stickers from off of Ali Baba?

 

I buy a lot of satin ribbon and have been interested in getting some of it from overseas, but the one time I made a contact with a representative of a mill in China, he was a nice guy and easy to work with but I had to pay the shipping to get a small sample which was $65 (That's too much already...A quick check on the USPS website indicates that I can ship a 7 oz package to China for $12....) And then the samples weren't what I was looking for. Needless to say I did not feel like spending another $65 to try again.

 

hi,david, I know well Alibaba.com, I think nowdays they are the biggest B2B website , how to say, there are good supplier and of course scammers, you have to tell them. There are three types suppliers: manufacturer, trading company, trading &manufacturer. in general, manufacturer is reliable, but also some trading company also pretend manufacturer, it is hard to tell, my suggestions to you below: firstly, they have to registered Gold supplier, because for this suppliers, they have to register with their chinese license; secondly, sometimes, it is hard to tell them, so the finally way is that you place a trial order firstly, during this order, you can know much about their ability, service, shipping etc, after you confirm, you can place your big order; thridly, there is basic way, the people who contact with you , must have good skilled of english, because most good factories , will hire
experience workers , better to know two kind of languages, the small factories, they don't have much money to hire experience man to work for them. hope I can help you .

 

why don't you use cheap express? such as EMS, but they will be slow than UPS, DHL.. another way , you can organize some samples together, and you can ask your chinese supplier to pay firstly, in general, supplier will have contract with express, maybe it can be cheaper...

 

Hi,

I am working at the Textile Company in Turkey. Also our many customers from Alibaba. But not only suppliers but also fake customers too. I am customer service representative at the company. You can trust Gold Member companies.

On the other hand, ı want to do my own business too according to that ı am looking forward to partnership in Europe. I am gonna send the products and my partner is going to sell them on his country. Both sides are going to win.. ı am going to send with no profit and its gonna be the best quality, ı am gonna take care every single details. If anyone interested in please send me message. ı need person whom ı can work trustfully.

All the best,

 

I am still searching for a great company on Alibaba to get T-shirts and many other products.... but I haven't found any good ones. I tried many fabrics, tried all the samples but I still did not found any good products. the printing isn't good or it isn't looking at all like I requested... the chinese people are hard to explain stuff to. I'm stuck on this part for months now. So if anyone had any great experiences with an company on Alibaba and would like to share that information. shout me a PM... would be great

Cheers, KOTG

 

No self promotion on the boards (also we can buy T-shirts here much cheaper than $2.40.)

If I was to try it again, I think I'd contact the company and instead of them sending me a sample I'd send them a sample of what I'm looking for. That way they can let me know if they can do it or not. I still don't know why I had to pay $65 to get a small package shipped.

 

Mercy - I have bee absent on the forum....so missed your question. Since I last tried to use my source, he had closed shop....and now so have I

 

Hello,

Recently, one of my friends download the Alibaba app and get 2 coupons with some discount price.

He purchased $10 mouse from the Alibaba and used a coupon. After three days, the order cancelled automatically.

He contacted support team and also talk with retailer directly by chat. He said it's not affordable for us so we will not deliver the product and cancelled order.

So, be careful in some cases.

Thanks.

 

I have used 4 factories from Alibaba to manufacture screen printed and embroidered t-shirts. 3 out of 4 factories supplied me with the cheapest lowest quality fabric, I had clients sending t-shirts back because they washed the t-shirts and holes appeared. Also the stitching and screen printing was sub standard. The fourth factory completely ripped me off, I never received the screen printed t-shirts, I received a shipment of plain white t-shirts. I ordered black cotton screen printed t-shirts. The same company are still on Alibaba.

As far as I'm concerned stay well away, unless you are happy to lose a huge amount of money. I have three friends that have lost huge amounts of money on Alibaba. We all know after having all these problems that Alibaba is not the direct factory, 95% are just middlemen sitting in an office and in reality, live nowhere near a factory.

I would recommend using Thailand to manufacture t-shirts. They produce the best quality fabric in Thailand, the stitching is very neat and the unit cost is very similar to China. I've been using Sugini factory based in Thailand for a couple of years now. They produce my fabric to composition, screen print and embroider, create new patterns, cut and stitch, produce brand labels and tags, package my t-shirts singly and they are easy to communicate with. This is a direct factory so no middleman .

 

Since this thread has been revived, I'll say that I recently gave Ailibaba another try. This time I knew exactly what I wanted to order and got seven or eight responses to my request. The representative from the company I decided to order from was very cooperative, he took photos of the product and forwarded them to me and his English was very good so we didn't have any trouble understanding one another. The international shipping was reasonable and I had my stuff the following week.

If you know exactly what you want to order I do recommend Alibaba.

 

Do you have any specific Mfg's from that platform you can recommend?