Ordering from China: Shops and Payment Methods

So you’ve found a gadget and your mind is completely made up? If you’re ordering from China for the first time, you probably got a few questions.

In this part of our guides on ordering from China, we want to get a little deeper into choosing the right China-shop and what payment method to choose. We want to give you a few tips & tricks for a successful order and a satisfying first (or second, or third) experience. If you should have any questions about finding cool new gadgets, take a look at our guide on how to find China-Gadgets.

Step 1: The Selection of the right Shop

If you’ve ever looked for cheap products from China, you’ve probably noticed that there’s a multitude of Chinese online shops. It’s hard to keep track of all of them, especially for inexperienced online shoppers. But if you’re following a few easy rules, we can help you through the steps of an easy and safe ordering process in the right shops.

The easiest way of choosing a shop is following one of our links because, in our articles, our editors have pre-picked a bunch of reliable Chinese online shops for you. You can be sure that we’re giving you the shops with the best prices – and that we’ve tested most of them ourselves a couple of times. Of course, most of the time, it would be enough to give you the cheapest offer. But since some of the shops may not offer your preferred payment method, it’s better to have several to choose from.

Something that might surprise many is the fact, that a lot of the products are also available on Amazon or eBay. And most of the time, there are also Chinese merchants behind the offers – hence the low prices compared to other, similar offers.

Should you, however, prefer to dig through the different shops on your own, you can find the low-down on almost every relevant Chinese shop on PandaCheck. There, you can find details on the payment- and shipment methods, as well as the trustworthiness of over 140 legitimate Chinese online shops.

Step 2: The Selection of the right Payment Method

Paying via PayPal

The most important criteria when choosing the payment method, probably is buyer protection. Because should you be unhappy with your product or something else went awry with your order, you’d probably want your money back. And since most of the Chinese shops don’t offer any protection, nor a proper return policy, there’s often only PayPal left.

Another big plus is the fact that, in most shops, you can just skip the pesky sign-up when using PayPal.

That’s why we can only recommend you always use PayPal if possible.

The Exception: AliExpress

Because the online marketplace AliExpress (part of the corporate group AliBaba) offers a direct rival to PayPal – called AliPay – they’re not offering PayPal as a payment method. But don’t worry. That doesn’t mean that you won’t get any buyer protection: AliExpress offers its own buyer protection, which is actually even better than that by PayPal because it also covers shipping costs. If you don’t want to sign up for AliPay, then a credit card is the fastest and safest method.

Checkout and other Infos

Low-Priced Name-Brand products & Knock-Offs

Especially when it comes to well-known designer- or sports-brands, you should be careful when it comes to extremely cheap prices of AliExpress, eBay & Co. Since the before named websites are only marketplaces and not shops, there’s a chance of merchants offering knock-offs. So should you consider buying name-brands from the far-east, you should check the merchant thoroughly. Try checking the ratings and other offers – Should you have any doubts about the offer, better pay the (minimally) higher prices at GearBest, Banggood et cetera.

Checkout

Before finalizing your order, there are a few things you should check one last time. First, you should verify your shipment method and the shipment costs. Generally, we’re linking to the prices with the cheapest possible shipment price, which means that you need to change the shipment method yourself if you don’t want to have the standard shipment. Please also make sure you’re using the correct discount code, should we have given you one, because they’re already included in our shown prices. That way you’re making sure that you won’t pay more than you’ve planned 😉

In Conclusion

When following our tips there shouldn’t be any bad surprises for your order from China:

• You can, in good conscience, use the links we’re providing for you – Our experts are browsing the best Chinese shops every day just to find the best prices.
  • However, better double-check merchants on marketplaces like AliExpress
• Always choose PayPal as payment method
  • Except for AliExpress: Here you can pay with your credit card in good conscience
• Double check that you’ve chosen the right shipment & payment method, as well as the right warehouse (European, Chinese, etc.) and that you’ve used the right coupon code before finalizing your order