I have been ordering from aliexpress for several years and have had generally good experience. You need to understand that they are like Shopify - a marketplace for independent sellers. As such, one may encounter isolated instances of problems, but in my experience sellers have generally been quick to respond (allowing for time zone differences) to questions or concerns.
Yes, some of the stuff you find is cheap crap, but a lot is the same exact product you see on Amazon, except less expensive since you're cutting out the middleman.
In the case of the full cargo area protection, I haven't found that elsewhere & I especially like that it protects the sides from getting scratched.
Thanks for your reply, and perfectly concur with your assessment and perspective. Mine is carefully framed to project just my own experience and decisions based on the basic formula; (sometimes lower price + sometimes greater displayed options and variety)
- (unacceptably high record of documented 'issues' - extended delivery delay(s), phantom deliveries, boycotted communications, refused returns, wrong shipped items) =
NOPE.
However, through extremely careful scrutiny of the bot quality of reviews, excess critical thinking expended on specs and details, and more deductive reasoning than it's worth to study exact wording within a given listing, I could probably come up with above average success separating the 'legit independent merchants' from the rest of the spammer-scammer-troll-bot-'and even more malicious elements' using that site. But my BP, sleep and wallet are worth much more to me than the statistically high probability of added aggravation and other detracting features connected with a purchase there. Most important factor being that as a subsidiary of Chinese-owned Alibaba, purchases are not covered by provisions of US consumer protections.
Happy, and careful, and safe shopping all.