Trust

How we vet AliExpress products

AliExpress has roughly 100 million products, and the variance between sellers offering the same item is enormous. This is the exact process we use to filter what reaches the site — written down so you can hold us to it.

1. Seller filter (the cheap dropout step)

Before we touch a product page, the seller has to clear a hard floor:

• At least 95% positive feedback over the last 90 days.
• One year of trading history minimum. Brand-new stores fail by default — too easy to ghost a customer.
• A real storefront with consistent product photography, not lifted-from-Pinterest collages.
• Free of the 'Choice' cluster of recycled brand names that signal a drop-shipper.

Two-thirds of candidate products die at this step. That's the point.

2. Product-level filter

• 4.5+ stars with 500+ reviews. Fewer than 500 is too noisy on AliExpress.
• Listing photos match the spec sheet. If the box says 16A and the spec sheet says 10A, we walk.
• For electrical items: a real safety mark (CE, FCC, ETL — not a fake-looking image of one).
• Listed shipping to the markets we serve (today: US, EU, IL).

3. Hands-on testing

Where we can, we buy the product ourselves and use it for at least eight weeks before publishing a recommendation. Eight weeks because smart-home gadgets often fail at the firmware-update mark, battery sensors show their real drain only after a month, and textiles reveal their wash behaviour in the second cycle, not the first.

Posts about products we've tested hands-on say so explicitly.

4. Review-aggregated picks

For categories we can't physically test, we read 50+ verified buyer reviews across two retailers, weight recent reviews more, and cross-check against first-party YouTube reviewers who ran the product for at least a month. These picks are labelled 'review-aggregated' on the page.

5. Scoring

Each shortlisted item is scored on five dimensions:

• Build quality — does it feel like the price implies, or worse?
• Value — what does the same money buy on Amazon / locally?
• Setup friction — for smart-home, can a non-tech buyer get it working in 10 minutes?
• Longevity signals — best guess at 12-month survival rate.
• Ecosystem fit — does it play with Tuya, Alexa, Google Home, HomeKit?

6. Quarterly re-checks

AliExpress products churn fast. Every active recommendation is re-checked quarterly: listing still up, price moved less than 25%, seller feedback still above 95%. Products that fail get a strike-through and a replacement note.

What we don't do

• Take payment for positive coverage.
• Rank products by commission rate.
• Accept paid placements in roundups.
• Hide negative findings to protect a sale.
• Recommend AliExpress products in three categories: hard-wired electrical, security cameras, or smart locks.