NZGuitars.com

MiniForklift wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 6:21 pm In the past I’ve placed 4 or 5 orders through AE and not one of them ever turned up. Never had any issues with eBay regardless of what country it’s being sent from

Ordered 6 items in the last 4 weeks. Four have turned up so far...

MiniForklift wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 6:21 pm In the past I’ve placed 4 or 5 orders through AE and not one of them ever turned up. Never had any issues with eBay regardless of what country it’s being sent from

My hit rate is probably better than 90%, but thats still not fabulous.

Miza wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:53 pm

MiniForklift wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 6:21 pm In the past I’ve placed 4 or 5 orders through AE and not one of them ever turned up. Never had any issues with eBay regardless of what country it’s being sent from

My hit rate is probably better than 90%, but thats still not fabulous.

Mine is near on 100% success, so obviously have had a better run than some. Delivery times are all over the place so pays to be selective of their chosen shipping method.
That said, strings are one of the many things I couldn't be faffed ordering from there.

Miza wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:53 pm

MiniForklift wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 6:21 pm In the past I’ve placed 4 or 5 orders through AE and not one of them ever turned up. Never had any issues with eBay regardless of what country it’s being sent from

My hit rate is probably better than 90%, but thats still not fabulous.

I have three criteria:
Shop must have been on AE for at least 3 years, must have a high score (>97%) and must have a large order rate (>50).
Price of item comes secondary to the above.

Never had a package not turn up from AliExpress and I've ordered a ton off there including guitars and bicycle wheels, I generally only use AliExpress standard shipping or on bigger items UPS / DHL though...

I bought a bunch of stuff from AE but never trusted it enough to buy strings from. Best deal I found was to sign up to StewMac StewMax and get free delivery for a year and 15% off strings. Pack of 10 D’Addario’s worked out to be about $65 landed. Plus you get free shipping on everything else for a year. Even got the '57 Mini Tweed 5W Amp Kit shipped to NZ for free

One of my parcels is in locked down Shanghai, won't see that one in a hurry

Have never had any issues with delays buying stuff of AE, usually turns up fairly promptly.

Buy strings off Ali Express?




When I can get legit ones for $7.60 from stringsandbeyond.com?

Miza wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 1:53 pm Meh, I'm still not convinced the packs I got were fake (if they are, it's exceptionally good fake packaging).

But I won't be making a habit of buying strings that way. For the few bucks you save, how long you wait and the risk they never show up (happens a lot with AE) is not worth it.

I take back what I said... I watched the video below and compared two sets, one bought in NZ and from AliExpress. The latter are absolute fakes. Very hard to tell when looking casually but there it is...

Jay wrote: ↑Tue May 17, 2022 6:56 pm

Miza wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 1:53 pm Meh, I'm still not convinced the packs I got were fake (if they are, it's exceptionally good fake packaging).

But I won't be making a habit of buying strings that way. For the few bucks you save, how long you wait and the risk they never show up (happens a lot with AE) is not worth it.

I take back what I said... I watched the video below and compared two sets, one bought in NZ and from AliExpress. The latter are absolute fakes. Very hard to tell when looking casually but there it is...

Do you think the fakes were any worse than the originals, though? Leaving aside risk, morality etc.

robthemac wrote: ↑Tue May 17, 2022 7:18 pm

Jay wrote: ↑Tue May 17, 2022 6:56 pm

Miza wrote: ↑Thu Apr 14, 2022 1:53 pm Meh, I'm still not convinced the packs I got were fake (if they are, it's exceptionally good fake packaging).

But I won't be making a habit of buying strings that way. For the few bucks you save, how long you wait and the risk they never show up (happens a lot with AE) is not worth it.

I take back what I said... I watched the video below and compared two sets, one bought in NZ and from AliExpress. The latter are absolute fakes. Very hard to tell when looking casually but there it is...

Do you think the fakes were any worse than the originals, though? Leaving aside risk, morality etc.

My mate bought the fakes and did not notice. I will install a set tomorrow and let you know. They certainly aren't coated but may sound good enough for a while...

Well the results are in and all of them were as fake as a politician's smile.

The D'addarios looked fully legit until I entered the serial number on their website and they came up as counterfeit. I then went back and found 2 spelling mistakes buried in the internal packaging but they pass the eye test and I will still put them on something (even though they are 10s and I ordered 9s.

Ernie ball packaging was fully on point but string winding was different and I'm not fully confident that the high E string will stand up to tension.

Elixir packaging looked authentic as but strings (as mentioned by Jay) have no coating and a weird dent in the ball end of one of the strings.

Painless experiment though as I put a dispute through to Ali and got a full refund of purchase price and postage and I now have a good supply of strings for emergency breakages.

Yes, the string winding is awful on the fakes. I use the fakes as gig spares.

That is, if I was gigging…:(

If it's branded and purchased from China, why would you expect it to be genuine?