I use Aliexpress a lot for things that I don’t care if they are cheap, because it’s hard to make a “bad flyswatter,” for example. I avoid things that might catch fire, like charging cables or some electronics, and avoid hard drives and sketchy stuff. I buy a lot of SBC-related stuff like HATS and stuff for androids.

I’ve had good luck with various items, largely from Aliexpress, I can’t really talk about which one could be the safest, so to speak.

Advice to keep an eye on: things are likely to be exactly what they describe it to be. And I do mean exactly. Say you get a AA battery charger, when you get one from your corner store, you’ll expect it to charge the batteries in a timely manner. From Ali, the charger might take 12+ hours to do its job or maybe overcharge it. Or it’ll work perfectly.

So, only get the ultra cheap stuff from these sites if you don’t really care about it.

I buy cables from aliexpress.

Ive only had a few ones be broken on arrival, but i also always order 3 or more. (Mostly usb, audio cables etc)

You can open a dispute and get a refund or partial refund in those cases.

I have not and i will not use the other two you mention.

Aliexpress has been reliable in my experience.

I haven’t tried wish, but my experience with ali and temu were great with a few notes: Check the dimensions on anything you order sometimes the pictures can be decieving for certain items… I stopped using ali when Trump stopped their ability to sell vapes (was easily $10 per item cheaper vs local smoke shops) As far as I have tried the “games” on temu are useless and unwinnable so I wouldn’t bother with those; however the price of the items on the actual store are very competitive and good deals can definitely be had. Temu>Ali for shipping time, temu always has my stuff at door within 3wks unless you paid for extra shipping AliExpress would typically take 60-90 days. Ali>temu for item diversity/availability/options because Ali has been around for longer they have more listings. Although this seems to be getting better every day on temu… I can’t remember what payment I used on Ali but temu let’s you pay with Cash app/PayPal which is ideal because I just load exactly what I need on that acct before I use it to place the order which won’t allow for additional charges. Everyone gets data hacked everywhere any way. Temu is kinda pyramid if you play the stupid games but like I said it seems unwinnable (or you need to refer 100 people for a $50 item which I’m not dedicated enough for) but other than that they’re pretty alright. My wife used wish and usually ended up okay but sometimes stuff wouldn’t be as listed or they’d use a Chinese size chart which makes a large shirt=small usa standard shirt but ymmv

Temu is worse than TikTok when it comes to exfiltration of your personal data.

https://grizzlyreports.com/we-believe-pdd-is-a-dying-fraudulent-company-and-its-shopping-app-temu-is-cleverly-hidden-spyware-that-poses-an-urgent-security-threat-to-u-s-national-interests/

I’ve recieved everything I’ve ever ordered in Ali Express. One item was broken, but it was like $4 so who cares?

AliExpress has been solid for the past few years. There’s indeed some sketchy sh*t there but it’s usually pretty obvious what to avoid. And, of course, expect to get what you pay for… a $5 tshirt isn’t going to be the same quality as a $25 one from Amazon.

Nothing’s happened to me personally from Temu, and I’ve spent maybe $90 over five deliveries. I will say I went in thinking, “What’s the worst they can do? Nobody can mess up making a laundry hamper, right?” and they went below and beyond in terms of quality. It made me laugh, to be honest. The things aren’t all unusable, but quality is pretty clearly inferior. With heavy loads of laundry the ribbon serving as a handle did break.

Well, if you save your payment info on any site (especially sketchy ones) you can get a “you just bought with no returns” 3k$ worth of crappy Chinese phones delivered to your house that “you bought and got the goods, so it isn’t aliexpress’s fault no returns.”