TL;DR I didn’t make it in time. Fuck you Trump!
Edit: For those asking, this was https://www.irvwpc.com/ Please support them if you can.
TL;DR I didn’t make it in time. Fuck you Trump!
Edit: For those asking, this was https://www.irvwpc.com/ Please support them if you can.
This definitely improved over time. I don’t order much from Aliexpress, but the last two items I ordered arrived in just over a week - a similar time frame as ordering from a US store that doesn’t do fast shipping. A few days in China, then on a plane, then a few days in the USA.
I’ve seen a similar thing happen overtime for Aliexpress shipping to Europe - it used to take 2 months to were I am (Portugal), now it takes a bit over a week.
I think they set-up some kind of consolidated shipping operation so that the sellers on their site can ship things via Aliexpress’ own system, which is way faster (and invariably involves air-shipping via The Netherlands) and often is listed as Free Shipping.
I’ve bought once or twice from sellers there that don’t use it and those packages still take 2 months to get here.
I mention this because it makes sense that Aliexpress has set up a similar system for the US given that it’s a market which is almost as big as the EU.
They also have warehouses in the EU which means that as a customer you don’t have to deal with duties and import VAT at all.