Well, I can no longer recommend purchasing from the U.S. on E-bay, at least in Canada. My last order took over a month to get here (with no duties or tariffs or anything).
In contrast, I've been doing some purchasing from AliExpress, and I have to say they've really upped their game. I've had a number of orders over the past few months, and they generally take 7-10 days for delivery, from order to in my hand. Pretty amazing.
I've also found that if you keep the orders under $100, they come in with no tax and duty. I don't know what would happen with a big order, but I mainly use them to purchase small things (such as connectors, cables, adapters, etc.) that are hugely marked up here in North America.
In the past, I've had difficulties with AliExpress, but no more. The only thing you have to watch out for is name brand fakes. If you apply a little common sense, though, they're pretty easy to avoid. And I don't tend to purchase those things, anyway.
Chances are the delay was actually due to the seller dragging his feet on shipping it. As for Ali Express and Temu, I notice delta very many ght be in as little as a few days to other times taking weeks for it to arrive. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to delivery times, there's been some items that took so long that I forgot even ordering it!
The delays were with the E-bay global shipping program - I was following the package progress.
I've just been amazed at the speed of shipping through AliExpress. Once it's gone out, about a week. And that's from China to my door in Canada. They've obviously made some improvements in the past year or so.
As for E-bay, at least to Canada, it's just gone downhill.
Big stuff, I always buy locally.
@artisan-radio They are shipping speed pack and ways like that that are faster to North America and and a lot of the time you have a shipping choice even DHL with more expensive things and that can get it to you in 3 days from China.
Yeah that global shipping with Ebay the seller ships it to the ebay depot where it is then looked after by ebay and it sits there for days sometimes. But think of the number of packages they have to handle daily so the delays can be understandable.
I like mouser Canada for all electronics like power supplies for example where they are in Canada but stock comes from Texas but for $20 CAN it gets shipped Fedex express in one day and Mouser pays all import fees.
Amazon is now delivering 24/7 and things in a local warehouse near to you and you can place an order in the evening and have it tomorrow at noon or place an order in the morning and get it at by 10 the same evening!
Amazon has always been really fast shipping, in most cases I receive delivery the day after I place an order. As for eBay, I'm not really familiar with their E-bay global shipping methods, I've bought from overseas before and it always took a few weeks or maybe longer.
One thing I noticed about Aliexpress is it appears all their items are $10 shipping, whereas on Temu it's only $2.99 shipping, or in many cases free shipping, so it's generally cheaper to buy Temu.
And speaking of which, there's always good deals on radios there.I really don't need any more but I'm tempted to grab a pair of these, two radios for only $6 and it's even free shipping!
Here's an example of what I mean.
Yesterday, I just ordered the updated version (V3) of the Quansheng UV-K5 from AliExpress, the same amateur radio walkie talkie Rich ordered a while ago. It was dirt cheap and not available that I could find on Amazon - it has an increased amount of flash memory so that you can upgrade it with improved custom firmware. Even if it was on Amazon, it would be double or triple the price - Amazon isn't that great for specialized equipment.
Ordered yesterday, shipped this morning, and I expect it to arrive in about a week if previous experience holds.
Free shipping. If you order through AliExpresss's Choice program, everything is free shipping. Built into the price, of course, but it makes it easy to purchase. You have to order at least C$10 to get that free shipping.
For certain (usually smaller, inexpensive) things, AliExpress is the way to go. Adapters, cables, even cheap radios. And there are lots of things there that just aren't available anywhere else.
I can't recommend E-bay anymore, because of the tariffs and shipping concerns. Particularly if you're selling into the U.S.
I have no experience with Temu or any of the other potential purchasing sites.
For bigger and more expensive things, that need support and/or warranties, then purchasing locally is always the way to go.