As someone who lives in Eastern Europe, I often have trouble getting backpacking gear. There’s no Amazon in my country and a lot of brands won’t ship here. Because of this, I’ve bought an insane amount of things off of AliExpress – including backpacking and camping gear. Here’s my advice if you want to buy gear on AliExpress.
The Shipping Time Will Be VERY Long
While some AliExpress brands do have local warehouses (there is a “ship from” option when searching), many of the items ship from China. That means they have to go into massive shipping containers, travel across the sea, and then go through a slew of logistics before the postal service takes over.
It can take anywhere from 30 to 60 days for items to reach you!
In other words, your camping season may be over by the time your gear reaches you. If you need a piece of gear faster, then you’ll have to pay more to buy it from places like Amazon or local sellers.
Search local “ship from” option to receive your order faster.
Remember to Track Your Orders!
One thing that scared me about buying gear on AliExpress is that the items might not arrive. Surprisingly, I’ve never had that issue.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if some packages occasionally don’t make it to customers. Luckily, AliExpress is good about giving refunds for these situations. However, to get a refund, you actually have to remember that something is going to arrive.
Since it can take 60+ days for orders to arrive, it’s easy to forget that you ordered something. The 75 day refund window might come and go without your realizing. So set a reminder on your calendar to check your orders!
You Won’t Be Able to (Easily) Return or Exchange Items
Major retailers want to make online shopping as easy as possible, so they offer free returns. You might have to pay for return shipping, but this usually isn’t a lot when the retailer is local.
This is NOT the case with AliExpress.
Since most of the sellers are located in China, you can’t exactly send an unwanted item back. Sure, some of the sellers do allow returns but it would cost a fortune and take forever to send it to China. Keep this in mind before you buy any big-ticket gear from AliExpress! It’s always going to be a risk.
Don’t Buy Electronics
I advise against buying these types of backpacking items on AliExpress:
- Flashlights
- Headlamps
- GPS
- Power banks
- Solar chargers
Why? The quality control simple isn’t good enough.
For example, I once bought two cheap generic-brand FitBits on AliExpress. One of them didn’t work at all. The other one worked, but the step counter seemed off. The manufacturer did refund my money for the one which didn’t work, and it surprisingly wasn’t difficult to get the refund. But I basically wasted my money on the second one.
Note: If any of these electronics die on you, it could ruin your trip. So don’t buy critical backpacking gear from AliExpress. Better to stick to quality gear when your trip or even life depends on it!
Also Don’t Buy Clothes
As a material snob, I will never again buy clothes on AliExpress.
There’s absolutely no way to tell the quality of clothing on those sites. The sizing is also often off. Since there’s no smart way to return items you buy on AliExpress, it’s a huge risk to buy clothing off the site. It’s better to buy secondhand backpacking clothing anyway…
Gear I WOULD Buy on AliExpress
So electronics and clothes aren’t smart to buy on AliExpress. But here are some of the backpacking/camping gear I would recommend buying from AliExpress;
- Cook pots
- Camp utensils, cups, plates, etc.
- Alcohol stove
- Organizers
- Compression straps
- Sleeping pads
- Sleeping bags (though it’s probably better to buy secondhand)
- Tents (but with a lot of research first!)
- Tarps
- Camp chairs and tables
- Mosquito nets
- First aid bag (discard of the crappy items inside and fill with your own items)
The Reviews Are Fake… But Still Buy from Sellers with Lots of Reviews
This applies to reviews at ALL online retailers. But I wanted to mention it because a lot of people recommend “only buy from sellers with a lot of reviews.”
However, you will often find the exact same product being sold by multiple sellers. In this case, buy from the seller with the most reviews. They will probably have a faster shipping time. And, if the product is broken when it arrives, they are more likely to refund you without a hassle.
Expect Gear Weight to Be Off
If you are a hardcore ultralight backpacker, then be warned that the listed weight on AliExpress gear is going to be off. Sometimes it can be off by a LOT. Again, quality control isn’t always the best.
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