Asking for experiences with Aliexpress solar sellers that claim to have EU stock (EASUN POWER EU VAT-FREE Store especially)

[Luk88]

Hi, I'm new on this forum, but I was lurking for a long time. What made me register today is I would like to aks if anyone has any experiences with solar equipment aliexpress sellers specifically in context of European shipping. I'm explaining why below.

In general Aliexpress feedback system cannot be relied upon, because if someone has a bad experience and they come to a mutually acceptable arrangement with a seller the transaction gets cancelled and there is no opportunity to leave feedback. I myself had few of such experiences in the past. So knowing I'd not see any negative experiences on AE I decided to ask here.

Trying to complete parts for my new solar project (16 100AH lifepo cells, a BMS, an isolar smh ii 7kw inverter) I found two sellers on Aliexpress that claim to have these items in stock in Europe now. For example lifepo4 prismatic cells come up in searches with 3-day shipping from my country on 10 listings from each of these sellers, but when you add more than 1 item to the basket it switches to 7-9 day shipping from France, eventually if you add for example 4 it switches to 11 days from Spain. Fine. I thought, I don't really care if it takes 2 weeks as long as it doesn't take more than 3. Surprise, surprise, when after placing an order a seller messaged me 3 days later saying, sorry, there is more than a month wait for this item, you can cancel if you wish.

This is hugely inconvenient, because for one, I loose an opportunity to buy these cells from someone that really does have them during those 3 days I'm expecting them to be posted. Second, my money is frozen for weeks, because to cancel an order (even one that is not shipped) one has to wait 48h on Aliexpress (unless the unscrupulous seller chooses to cancel sooner - why would he?) and then you have to wait for the money to go back to your account which can take up to 14 days.

Personally I think these sellers do this on purpose to kill competition. They post such listings for fairly cheap items just so people get hooked in, and get their money frozen, rather than spend it on local sellers selling more expensive stuff or honest sellers from China that say outright it will take a month or more to ship.

So that was batteries, I had my experience, I know how that seller works. I'll avoid them now.

But I also ordered an inverter from a different seller that seems to be spoken highly of on various forums. The seller is "EASUN POWER EU VAT-FREE Store" (there is nothing VAT-free about it BTW, you pay vat at a point of purchase, but I digress). I ordered the inverter as "Shipping from France with DPD" (to be delivered in 7 or 8 days). After placing my order I immediately sent the seller a message asking,
- Do you have this in Europe and when will you post?"
He replied
- yes, we have it, but it will take till the end of the week (this was Wednesday) to post, or during the next week at the latest, becuase of Easter holiday in Poland

This is first red flag, why would Easter (one day off on previous Monday) in Poland have anything to do with shipping an item from France? But I decided to give him a benefit of the doubt and wait till the end of the week. It is Friday now and of course it hasn't shipped. If it truly was going to be shipped next week I'd be fine with it, but If that guy comes back saying:
- oh, sorry, we don't actually have it, you have to wait a month
I'll be seriously annoyed. I'd rather spend double the money on something like Victron Multiplus-II that I can get locally in real 3 days than have to wait a month suffering daily power interruptions as I'm working from home.

So I'd like to ask anyone who has experiences with such shipping in Europe, especially from "EASUN POWER EU VAT-FREE Store" Do they eventually deliver as they say, or do they string you along same as the previously mentioned battery guy?

I ordered lots of items on Aliexpress from other sellers (not in solar business) and when they said they have stuff in Europe, they always posted on the next day and updated a tracking number. If it then took 2 weeks to arrive that is not their fault. But this to me just seems like something different. What do you think?

If there is interest in the battery guy I'll post screenshots of our conversation and transaction on Aliexpress.

Edit: So it seems the inverter that was supposed to be available is also not going to be available. I just got a reply from "EASUN POWER EU VAT-FREE Store" to my question if they are sure they will ship next week. I got a reply
- We will do our best to do it. This item too popular
So in short, no, they will not. When it said they would post one from a warehouse in France that is bull****.

 

[Luk88]

No one?

For the sake of completeness, let me add that after I wrote the above I went directly to easunpower.com and there I bought the same item for the same price and I had it delivered in under 3 days.

So I cancelled the Aliexpress purchase.

Also, I did decide to buy bigger batteries (280ah) rather than 100ah as there was a seller with a very good price that said he's got them. I bought them and I had them delivered in about 5 days. So it is possible to buy batteries from Aliexpress and have them delivered straight away.

Then I noticed this problem is a lot more widespread on Aliexpress and I suspect it may be a fault of a platform itself than the sellers.

The seller I initially ordered cells from, in the meantime, has gotten a couple angry comments saying what I said "he do have the stock, it said delivery in few days, but it's a lot longer". In reply he added information to the listing that items are out of stock and will be shipped late May. That is fair enough.

But... The way it was done, just boggles the mind. He still has pictures saying "2-7 days EU delivery", it still says delivered in 7 or 9 days from France/Spain. And that's how the description looks like:

He added the "Note" but left everything else. Is it bad translation? It is willing misinformation? Who knows?

Then, he replied to one of the angry comments with "we can't set longer delivery from EU warehouse, the platform doesn't let us". Which may finally hint on what is going on here.

In the meantime I tried to order a couple of other battery items from Aliexpress for a friend. This was 4 different sellers of complete 24v batteries and every single one despite listing ~1 week delivery said "not in stock, at least 45 days wait". So this seems to support his explanation. However, I then looked at the seller I got my 280ah cells from and now all his listings have delivery from EU to EU, but have delivery dates in late June (its mid April now). So the platform does let them set longer delivery dates...


And before anyone says "stick to reputable sellers" let me say, the same seller that delivered my batteries in 5 days also had the same listings with the same 1 week delivery on other items I know for a fact he hasn't got. He changed them since.

So what is the conclusion of this too long post? Don't expect too much from Ali, or you'll be disappointed :-(

 

[drjaymz]

I purchased from Easun 3.2 hybrid and it did come from China and took 10 days via fedex. All seemed to go ok. When in comes to Aliexpress I've always started with low expectations and don't spend more than you can afford to lose. I think most of the time it works out. I know others have no end of trouble with just uk ebay and yet I've never had issues.

 

[Luk88]

I purchased from Easun 3.2 hybrid and it did come from China and took 10 days via fedex. All seemed to go ok. When in comes to Aliexpress I've always started with low expectations and don't spend more than you can afford to lose. I think most of the time it works out. I know others have no end of trouble with just uk ebay and yet I've never had issues.

Thanks for replying, but please note there are many sellers with EASUN in their name. I'm not sure any of them have anything to do with EASUN company that has the domain easunpower.com.

About that store called "EASUN power VAT free store". It turns out the store has a habit of listing things they don't have. While real easunpower sent me the same item for next working day delivery (from a warehouse in Germany). For the same price. They were delaying for over a week before they admitted they don't have it.

So I learned, of I need any easun inverters it s much better to go to their website.

 

[drjaymz]

Thanks for replying, but please note there are many sellers with EASUN in their name. I'm not sure any of them have anything to do with EASUN company that has the domain easunpower.com.

About that store called "EASUN power VAT free store". It turns out the store has a habit of listing things they don't have. While real easunpower sent me the same item for next working day delivery (from a warehouse in Germany). For the same price. They were delaying for over a week before they admitted they don't have it.

So I learned, of I need any easun inverters it s much better to go to their website.

I think this a a general Aliexpress issue, bangood and aliexpress not as bad as alibaba where its completely random.

Having seen inside a few different solar inverters it looks like they are either all made in the same factory or the main PCB is a standard design block and the price really is no indication of what you ended up with.

But for the purposes of the orginal post what I can do is offer the information of how long it took to buy a specific item from a specific supplier and have it shipped to my door in the UK. And perhaps from what I hear even if you used the same link they have some crazy fullfilment system meaning that you might still get a different experiance.