CheckMag | When 50% of purchases are broken or wrong, it's time I stopped buying from AliExpress

I'm not an engineer, or a repair shop owner. Like many people, I like to prolong the life of electronics by repairing them instead of buying new ones, or occasionally (attempting) to repair for fun and sometimes a little profit. Fixing up broken devices is also a good entry point for trying out a different device without paying top dollar for a new or functioning one.

After smashing the screen on my iPhone 13 mini (I am a sucker for small phones) I opted to purchase a replacement from AliExpress. The Apple authorised replacement is on a non-starter when the cost of repair exceeds the value of the device. 

As a general rule of thumb, whether rightly or wrongly, I will always purchase from a seller with decent reviews and lots of products sold. Although I accept that ratings are no guarantee of quality, I opted to purchase an OLED screen, trying to keep the experience as close to stock as possible, paying almost twice the price of an Incell LED from a seller with hundreds of sales and higher than 4-star reviews.

What I got, while functional, certainly wasn't an OLED. Instead, it was an LCD with some pretty hefty backlight bleed and extraordinarily large bezels. The camera notch looks like it was pulled from an iPhone X.

After submitting a return with AliExpress and posting the photos below, it took less than an hour for a response where the AliExpress proposed solution was "No Refund".

But this isn't the first time this has happened, looking through my order history from AliExpress, almost 50% of all purchases have been mis-sold or broken.

Over the last few years, I have purchased 8 items from AliExpress. Most of the time for the purpose of repairing an existing device. I bought two screens from two different sellers for an Onyx Boox e-reader. The first arrived smashed (although that was refunded), the second was the wrong model. This was also refunded, although I had to ship it back, where the cost was only a few dollars less than the original purchase price.

I purchased a rear housing for an iPhone SE3, but was sent an SE2 housing. Given the similarities, it is extremely hard to prove the difference and the AliExpress proposed solution - "No Refund".

When combined with the iPhone 13 mini screen, that's a 50% success rate on purchases from AliExpress.

Maybe if I was a repair shop, and purchased the same item multiple times, I could identify the good sellers. But as it stands, I'm not, and purchasing a one-off item from AliExpress to repair a product is a lottery at best and a scam at worst. 

Sure, European and US re-sellers might sell the same products at a significant markup, but at least you stand a reasonable chance of getting your money back if the product is wrong, or doesn't meet your expectations. Unfortunately, in some cases, such as my e-book screen, you can't find a part anywhere else except AliExpress. 

For more common devices, there are some excellent resellers, such as iFixit and while they may charge a significant premium, at least you are guaranteed quality and can send it back if you're not happy.

As for me, I probably should have bought my iPhone screen from Amazon. In future, AliExpress certainly won't be on my shopping list unless I am extremely desperate or feeling very lucky.