#(And the one Japanese store I know that isn't Amazon is a bit more specific)

[thoughtvoid]

I know Aliexpress is bad for a variety of reasons. (Though the One that I can remember is that it's one of the foreign markets that will steal art/craft/designs from small artists.)

But. After many impulse buys, I do need to say. That when it comes to buying various 'official' merchandise, there's obviously going to be knockoffs, but. Idk, for buying a bunch of frivolous Pokemon and anime stuff, I haven't been disappointed.

Had one expensive order, and it was super nice quality, well packaged, shipped pretty fast, and looking at is, was probably from the official Chinese company that distributes that merch.

Of the cheaper orders, only one was 'bad'. All of the advertising on the listing is straight BS, and they were tripling down on it being the official product and a certain high quality. And it was okay, but definitely not what they were trying to hype up. I went in expecting a bad quality, so I didn't care, but it really was just 'looks similar and is still good, I like it, but it's not five star, it's probably a three star. Just be honest about it, geez'. It's a 'you get what you pay for' thing, and it wouldn't normally bother me. But. The one thing that bothers me is lying, and lying so desperately.

Like. Between the truest, perfect definition of a knockoff (poor quality of something that's normally expensive/sought after), and the perfect order, I had the. Well, another knockoff, but one that the seller specifies with the description/specification. Arceus adventure pack bag by Hori: Originally $30, currently ~$45+ buying from other countries or $80 from Amazon. Total for a copycat (listing said Miniso, though the bag itself has no labels anywhere): $17. Does it look as good as the real thing? No, it's all screenprint and doesn't pop like the Hori bag looks like it does. (Based on a YT unboxing vid.) Is it as good quality? I doubt it, Hori makes some real nice accessories, and this bag mostly feels like the free hip pouch Target gave out if you bought Zelda:TOTK in store. But does it function the same, have decent padding, and look similar enough to get the point across? Absolutely. And I'm usually a function over form, so I don't need it to be the perfect branded item. I just happened to see one of the adventure packs during holiday season (not on sale), thought 'oh, it holds both Switches? I could use something like that', thought the Arceus looked best, but shrugged when it wasn't really available at a reasonable price. And then when I saw it a month and a half later as a 'too cheap to be the real thing, and it's not' listing, I was just. 'I'm okay with that, let's go'.

Aliexpress has been mostly hits, tbh, and even the one miss was only a miss because the seller is adamant about trying to make you think you're getting something good for. Like 12 bucks. But it was still good overall. At this point, I'm just waiting on two orders that had sellers who waited until the last minute to make labels for things they weren't actually ready to shop out. Which. Feels sus enough that I'll record the unboxing, I guess, but my gut says they're fine. Ali just set what I feel was an unrealistic deadline for when to ship things at the tail end of holiday season. I wouldn't begrudge sellers if they make labels to get the system to not flag them as not sending anything when they just need more time. (Working retail is different from an online store, I know, but I will never be able to act like the customers who expect everything faster than is reasonable. When you put up with people coming in thirty minutes after placing an order, asking where it is, when I can be filling anywhere between 5-20 pick-up orders constantly throughout the day on top of 60+ orders to ship out, and haven't even seen theirs come in? I imagine anyone selling stuff during that time to be backed up.)