I believe the prices are the same. But the app has a number of "games" to collect tokens that get credited as discounts. Seems to be mostly stuff designed to get you to open the app daily and browse their offers. Which might be "innocent" if it's just to get you to buy more stuff, or maybe they have more reasons they want you to have the app open. Who knows
At least Aliexpress doesn't have all the fake slot machine type games that temu has that always end in variations of "get $200 of discounts for your next order if you order x items from this list"
There are few things more scammy than AliExpress “discounts”. I have yet to see a cent of the hundreds of dollars of “savings” they gave or advertised to me.
They used to give 5-10 bucks of credit to new users a few years ago. Real credits, I very carefully compared prices from different IPs.
So I would register a new account for each order -- 10 USD is quite a lot of money in my country -- and saved at least a hundred on buying dev boards and other components.
When I did customer tech support for a major retailer, we had confused customers calling all the time because they would randomly get price-match refunds they never asked for. They were installing apps that were automatically requesting the refunds by searching their emails for orders and checking the prices on the websites. These people had no idea they had even given these apps permission to read their emails.
Sure. I can live for a day on those five bucks. You wouldn't believe what people in low income countries go through to save a bit of money: I've seen people I know (but couldn't stop in time) send copies of their ID to some shady company to get a five percent discount on gasoline.
eBay keeps pushing their app with a $5 discount, advertised using a focus-stealing popup interrupting your attempt to give them money, so some people must be taking the bait.
I have a package on the way with AliExpress. It is headed from somewhere in China to somewhere in the US.
Using my computer just now, I looked at one of the emails that AliExpress sent about this order. It had a clickable tracking number displayed; I clicked it.
That brought me to their website, where I landed on a page that included the last update for my order and also a link to "View Details".
That works for me. It was very easy to where along the line my stuff is (and that it is not in the US yet).
---
Meanwhile: I also copied the tracking number from the email. I pasted that tracking number into the box at usps.com.
The USPS knows of my tracking number and they do not have my item yet. Fair enough.
I ticked some boxes and told them to send me updates, which I'm sure they'll do once they have updates to send -- just as they have done for ~decades now.
Many sites will work fine in a desktop browser but refuse to do anything in a mobile browser, demanding you install their app or just immediately redirecting you to the iOS or Android app store.
It's still the case that you pay less in the app. You get 'coins' for a daily check-in, which are automatically(?) applied as a discount. Most items either don't actually use them or only give you a pointless 1% off or something, but I've gotten a $12 microcontroller for $5, for example. I think some coupons are app-only, too (though most aliexpress sales are fake and are better thought of as the normal price).
Companies are not going to hire a mobile dev team to create an app to give you a way to pay them less for a good.
They hire a mobile dev team to create an app to give you a way to hand over data that you otherwise wouldn't, is technically impossible to do through a web browser, and is worth more than the discount that they give you for using the app.
> Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
Translation: They are able to mine your personal data more completely with an app installed vs the website which they can sell for pure profit. They promoted installing it to extract more value from you.
That's definitely a feasible explanation (and the one I would assume to be true for AliExpress).
But there is another, slightly less evil, explanation that I know at least some companies have pushed their apps because of: the thinking is that if you're on their website, there is less friction to open a new tab and search for a lower price from their competitors, than if you're in their app. Obviously it's hardly any different - opening a new app (the web browser) vs. opening a new tab in the app you're already in - but the theory is that there's a slight psychological difference.
Of course I'm not saying that trying to prevent your customers from searching for better deals is a nice thing to do. Just adding that data mining isn't the only reason for some companies to want people to use their apps.
It's quickly getting to the point for me that "find the thing I want locally and buy online if it's cheaper" is reversing. I've actually been to one of the few remaining electronics retailers to look for a PC for my kid recently, and it was nice not to be assailed by dark patterns (yes, there are dark patterns in b&m retail, but they're much more obvious).
It also all goes to the party, who are the owners of Alibaba (and every other company in China).
Should you ever need someone in a foreign country to do something for you, it's good to have as much information as possible at your disposal about them.
I'm an app developer and all my apps have the "Data Not Collected" privacy nutrition label. I love the idea, but Apple's enforcement of it is very lackadaisical. I've reported dozens of apps that were blatantly lying on their privacy nutrition labels to Apple and I'm yet to see any such app's nutrition label change.
I can't help but feel the whole Apple privacy PR will be blown in the future where some report will come out that Apple has been logging and sharing user data with NSA since 2001.
Why have rules (or laws) if they don’t enforce them? Or only enforce them selectively when they feel it necessary, such as when not doing so would threaten your stock price (or re-election campaign)? Maybe I just answered my own question?
Reminds me of meat processing regulations. I can sell my animals whole to buyers through a custom processing exemption, but they must go pick up their meat from the butcher. The law says I cannot pick up and deliver it, but it is trivial to find people advertising that extra service. Reporting them does not result in any obvious action.
In both of our cases, our honesty is a liability in the marketplace, because people are ignorant of such laws (or simply don’t care). Really, they simply want the product that they want, as conveniently as possible. We are then forced to compete in the marketplace with liars and cheats.
I am sure our peers here can find countless examples in other areas where this flavor of dishonesty prevails. Hell, I would love to hear some counter examples, because I cannot help but view this state of affairs as intentional at this point.
The purpose of system is what it does (or, in this case, does not do).
The cynical way to look at this is that the purpose of the system (the privacy nutrition label) is to support Apple's carefully-crafted and -marketed image as the most privacy-focused of the tech giants. Actually having enforcement of the contents of said labels would be a nice potential byproduct of that, but that's not strictly required to accomplish the system's purpose.
I uninstalled the app recently; despite having layers of ad tracking protection, I would see my Amazon searches appearing in my social media feed in near real time, and this irked me.
I dropped their .com into a Home Screen icon, and this completely stopped (at least as far as I’ve observed). It’s definitely more janky from an experience perspective, but still easier than driving to the store.
Shopping works better on web sites because can open multiple tabs to browse multiple products. Especially important on big stores like Aliexpress and Amazon where need to compare lots of products. Desktop is better for that but mobile browsers are still better than apps.
Using web apps on Firefox really is the way given its support for uBlock Origin.
Screen real estate is precious on phones, so being able to permanently block "Install our app!" and even entire navigation categories (shorts on LinkedIn) is quite valuable.
Then you can "install" the site on your home screen or simply place it in collection folders so it's sitting ready on your "New Tab" page.
I don't have Amazon Prime (nor am I in the US) yet use Aliexpress perfectly fine on my mobile phone without using an app. Frankly, I don't understand how the two is related at all?
Reddit is fine, just a small popup at the bottom. Facebook kn the other hand turned off most functions on mobile, e.g. chat. Good thing though if you don't use the chat long enough, friends start using other means of communication.
Soon we'll realize that the experience of using reddit (and other mainstream social media) differs a lot based on what country you're in, and sometimes even the state.
For example, seemingly a bunch of places in Europe/elsewhere has disabled old.reddit.com unless you're logged in, but seemingly a bunch of people in other places can use it just fine. I'm sure what both of you are seeing is both correct, there is just something changing the experience that gets served to each of you.
I always wonder if it's worth it. Like: is it actually convenient, or is it 'solving' inconveniences which actually do not exist or didn't exist before using the service? I have never used Prime or AliExpress but also don't consider our typical shopping very inconvenient. And the most inconvenient parts are actually the ones which seem necessary to to get the proper goods (from past weeks: vegetables/fruits/shoes - it's not really possible to order that online and get exactly what we want). And everything else is available from other webshops.
On AliExpress I see things like 64 TB (no, not GB!) USB flash drives for less than 10 euro, obviously a scam. I also see less spectacular products but still good looking deals, but without a brand name so you can't search the web for reviews.
On Amazon I never see products like that. That's why I prefer Amazon (and Coolblue and bol.com in Belgium).
I see this kind of fakes on eBay or Amazon all the time. It's even harder to report it than on AliExpress and I never had an obvious report of fakes upheld (AND eBay warns they will forward your identity to the seller. Great thing if the organised crime is involved in this)
Case in point, fake 2TB Sandisk ExtremePro microSD:
If you believe that, I have some USB storage to sell you. Huge capacity, barely used. I keep my inventory in storage under this bridge, which I also happen to have for sale. Interested? ;)
I can't imagine ever wanting to install an amazon app either. Both of these stores have perfectly functional websites. What would I gain installing their spyware? Also, why so defensive?
Not if the local reseller simply calls itself a marketplace and logistics company and the local regulator lets them get away with it.
Amazon, in my experience, does arbitrate disputes about returns and defects, but the important point is that from a legal perspective, I don't think they have to, so you're at their mercy.
You can't even be sure that VAT is handled correctly, which local retailers can usually not get around.
Having bought many things off AliExpress over the years I can say with complete confidence that I've never made a purchase on Amazon that was dropshipped from Ali. The shipping times are far different and it would be immediately obvious.
Yeah it would be hard to hide. When I order from AliExpress it arrives via Chinese carriers I have never even hard of, and about half the time the final delivery is through a Chinese gig delivery company that must pay practically nothing to the driver because they will usually drive up in front of my house and chuck the package out the window onto my front lawn.
I've ordered things from AliExpress shipped from the local warehouses (2-3 days delivery) ; I've ordered things on Amazon UK that were fulfilled and shipped from Amazon UK that were delivered in 3-5 working days.
Not a £1 tat, and not one off. Not that AliExpress is my choice, no, far from it. Sometimes it's better, closer to the manufacturer, that's all.
Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in the app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
I believe the prices are the same. But the app has a number of "games" to collect tokens that get credited as discounts. Seems to be mostly stuff designed to get you to open the app daily and browse their offers. Which might be "innocent" if it's just to get you to buy more stuff, or maybe they have more reasons they want you to have the app open. Who knows
At least Aliexpress doesn't have all the fake slot machine type games that temu has that always end in variations of "get $200 of discounts for your next order if you order x items from this list"
There are few things more scammy than AliExpress “discounts”. I have yet to see a cent of the hundreds of dollars of “savings” they gave or advertised to me.
They used to give 5-10 bucks of credit to new users a few years ago. Real credits, I very carefully compared prices from different IPs.
So I would register a new account for each order -- 10 USD is quite a lot of money in my country -- and saved at least a hundred on buying dev boards and other components.
Very true, I almost never use Ali Express because I have no clue what anything is going to cost until I get to roughly the final step of checking out.
That's how you know you absolutely should not do that.
Like a white van with FREE CANDY written on it...
It worked for Reddit... It used to be a 100% website experience and now I'd venture the majority of their traffic is from the mobile app.
Now we know why...
And someone would install random apps to save $5 on $100 purchases?
"random apps" and it's the largest eCommerce company on the planet
So what? I install 0 ecommerce mobile apps.
What, I suddenly need to buy Alibaba crap and I can't wait to get to a laptop browser?
When I did customer tech support for a major retailer, we had confused customers calling all the time because they would randomly get price-match refunds they never asked for. They were installing apps that were automatically requesting the refunds by searching their emails for orders and checking the prices on the websites. These people had no idea they had even given these apps permission to read their emails.
You'd be surprised on what general public can go to save $5.
I mean, I'm haunted by the things I did for a Klondike Bar.
Sure. I can live for a day on those five bucks. You wouldn't believe what people in low income countries go through to save a bit of money: I've seen people I know (but couldn't stop in time) send copies of their ID to some shady company to get a five percent discount on gasoline.
eBay keeps pushing their app with a $5 discount, advertised using a focus-stealing popup interrupting your attempt to give them money, so some people must be taking the bait.
They also don't give you a proper tracking number. The only way to track your shipment is in the app.
This is not correct. I do not have the app and get tracking for my orders.
I get email updates but whenever I click the track link it tells me I need the app.
I have a package on the way with AliExpress. It is headed from somewhere in China to somewhere in the US.
Using my computer just now, I looked at one of the emails that AliExpress sent about this order. It had a clickable tracking number displayed; I clicked it.
That brought me to their website, where I landed on a page that included the last update for my order and also a link to "View Details".
That works for me. It was very easy to where along the line my stuff is (and that it is not in the US yet).
---
Meanwhile: I also copied the tracking number from the email. I pasted that tracking number into the box at usps.com.
The USPS knows of my tracking number and they do not have my item yet. Fair enough.
I ticked some boxes and told them to send me updates, which I'm sure they'll do once they have updates to send -- just as they have done for ~decades now.
This also works for me.
Many sites will work fine in a desktop browser but refuse to do anything in a mobile browser, demanding you install their app or just immediately redirecting you to the iOS or Android app store.
It does show a popup to that effect, but if you dismiss it you can still see the tracking info. Definitely annoying, but not unworkable.
If on mobile, ticking "desktop mode" in your browser usually goes around that dark pattern.
Depends on the shipping company, and likely on your location. I get tracking numbers for most but not all shipments
You just have to press the right link on the site and you get the tracking page (despite saying you need the app).
It's still the case that you pay less in the app. You get 'coins' for a daily check-in, which are automatically(?) applied as a discount. Most items either don't actually use them or only give you a pointless 1% off or something, but I've gotten a $12 microcontroller for $5, for example. I think some coupons are app-only, too (though most aliexpress sales are fake and are better thought of as the normal price).
You pay less money in the app.
Companies are not going to hire a mobile dev team to create an app to give you a way to pay them less for a good.
They hire a mobile dev team to create an app to give you a way to hand over data that you otherwise wouldn't, is technically impossible to do through a web browser, and is worth more than the discount that they give you for using the app.
>You get 'coins' for a daily check-in, which are automatically(?) applied as a discount.
This should be illegal
> Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
Translation: They are able to mine your personal data more completely with an app installed vs the website which they can sell for pure profit. They promoted installing it to extract more value from you.
That's definitely a feasible explanation (and the one I would assume to be true for AliExpress).
But there is another, slightly less evil, explanation that I know at least some companies have pushed their apps because of: the thinking is that if you're on their website, there is less friction to open a new tab and search for a lower price from their competitors, than if you're in their app. Obviously it's hardly any different - opening a new app (the web browser) vs. opening a new tab in the app you're already in - but the theory is that there's a slight psychological difference.
Of course I'm not saying that trying to prevent your customers from searching for better deals is a nice thing to do. Just adding that data mining isn't the only reason for some companies to want people to use their apps.
It's quickly getting to the point for me that "find the thing I want locally and buy online if it's cheaper" is reversing. I've actually been to one of the few remaining electronics retailers to look for a PC for my kid recently, and it was nice not to be assailed by dark patterns (yes, there are dark patterns in b&m retail, but they're much more obvious).
It also all goes to the party, who are the owners of Alibaba (and every other company in China).
Should you ever need someone in a foreign country to do something for you, it's good to have as much information as possible at your disposal about them.
Absolutely crazy the amount of dodgy apps people install and giving permissions to read the system when asked...
Yesterday on here, somebody was demo'ing a sun clock website that asks for your position.......
....and yes, many HN'ers were clearly happy to give there precise GNSS coordinates to some random scrote who askes for them.
It's great for shopping. But in the US you have amazon prime. We don't.
I have Prime, but I can't imagine installing the Amazon app either. The website works just fine.
This is the way. It's prudent to treat apps with skepticism, it's unfortunate it's come to this.
I study Apple's Privacy Nutrition Labels religiously every time I consider installing an app.
I like the ones with "Data Not Collected".
I'm an app developer and all my apps have the "Data Not Collected" privacy nutrition label. I love the idea, but Apple's enforcement of it is very lackadaisical. I've reported dozens of apps that were blatantly lying on their privacy nutrition labels to Apple and I'm yet to see any such app's nutrition label change.
Here's a good overview of the problem: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.02658v3
Oh man… that's a rude awakening.
I can't help but feel the whole Apple privacy PR will be blown in the future where some report will come out that Apple has been logging and sharing user data with NSA since 2001.
Why have rules (or laws) if they don’t enforce them? Or only enforce them selectively when they feel it necessary, such as when not doing so would threaten your stock price (or re-election campaign)? Maybe I just answered my own question?
Reminds me of meat processing regulations. I can sell my animals whole to buyers through a custom processing exemption, but they must go pick up their meat from the butcher. The law says I cannot pick up and deliver it, but it is trivial to find people advertising that extra service. Reporting them does not result in any obvious action.
In both of our cases, our honesty is a liability in the marketplace, because people are ignorant of such laws (or simply don’t care). Really, they simply want the product that they want, as conveniently as possible. We are then forced to compete in the marketplace with liars and cheats.
I am sure our peers here can find countless examples in other areas where this flavor of dishonesty prevails. Hell, I would love to hear some counter examples, because I cannot help but view this state of affairs as intentional at this point.
The purpose of system is what it does (or, in this case, does not do).
The cynical way to look at this is that the purpose of the system (the privacy nutrition label) is to support Apple's carefully-crafted and -marketed image as the most privacy-focused of the tech giants. Actually having enforcement of the contents of said labels would be a nice potential byproduct of that, but that's not strictly required to accomplish the system's purpose.
I uninstalled the app recently; despite having layers of ad tracking protection, I would see my Amazon searches appearing in my social media feed in near real time, and this irked me.
I dropped their .com into a Home Screen icon, and this completely stopped (at least as far as I’ve observed). It’s definitely more janky from an experience perspective, but still easier than driving to the store.
Shopping works better on web sites because can open multiple tabs to browse multiple products. Especially important on big stores like Aliexpress and Amazon where need to compare lots of products. Desktop is better for that but mobile browsers are still better than apps.
With Firefox, yes. I wouldn't fully trust other browsers to care about my privacy.
Using web apps on Firefox really is the way given its support for uBlock Origin.
Screen real estate is precious on phones, so being able to permanently block "Install our app!" and even entire navigation categories (shorts on LinkedIn) is quite valuable.
Then you can "install" the site on your home screen or simply place it in collection folders so it's sitting ready on your "New Tab" page.
I think you need the app to use the delivery lockers (which I prefer over home delivery)
AFAIK, the app is just the website in a webview.
I don't have Amazon Prime (nor am I in the US) yet use Aliexpress perfectly fine on my mobile phone without using an app. Frankly, I don't understand how the two is related at all?
AliExpress won't allow me to open most pages in the account section on my iPhone. Instead I get a page telling me to install the app.
While browsing, there are also popups offering the app approximately every third link I click. Some of them are telling me to install the app.
Unless the situation has changed recently, it's not perfectly fine, it is unusable on purpose.
AE website on mobile is terrible, they basically force you to use the app. I exclusively use the website on my PC
So they're pulling a Reddit, basically.
"The app is great because the website is heavily degraded".
Reddit is fine, just a small popup at the bottom. Facebook kn the other hand turned off most functions on mobile, e.g. chat. Good thing though if you don't use the chat long enough, friends start using other means of communication.
Haha, yeah. Reddit for the longest time hasn't allowed me to browse certain subreddits without the app. I basically ignore search results from it.
As the sibling poster mentioned, might depend on location, but it DOES happen.
Reddit is NOT FINE. They throw up full page modals now telling you to continue in the app.
Soon we'll realize that the experience of using reddit (and other mainstream social media) differs a lot based on what country you're in, and sometimes even the state.
For example, seemingly a bunch of places in Europe/elsewhere has disabled old.reddit.com unless you're logged in, but seemingly a bunch of people in other places can use it just fine. I'm sure what both of you are seeing is both correct, there is just something changing the experience that gets served to each of you.
I just request the desktop site, it's fine
Both are web stores. Both have websites AND apps.
They are compared / contrasted. Nobody is saying one is concretely related to the other.
Where is "we"?
Likely the place where people are "willing to trade privacy for convenience", according to Baidu's CEO.
I always wonder if it's worth it. Like: is it actually convenient, or is it 'solving' inconveniences which actually do not exist or didn't exist before using the service? I have never used Prime or AliExpress but also don't consider our typical shopping very inconvenient. And the most inconvenient parts are actually the ones which seem necessary to to get the proper goods (from past weeks: vegetables/fruits/shoes - it's not really possible to order that online and get exactly what we want). And everything else is available from other webshops.
According to their profile: Norway
A lot of people install TikTok. Or Instagram.
Or Claude/etc on their personal computers and then even live dangerously.
But isn’t the promise of the app store that the apps are checked for malicious code and more control of the permissions compared to a browser website?
You probably buy things off amazon that are dropshipped from AliExpress all the time. Stop with the elitism
This is not about the products that are shipped, but the app itself. I would caution people to never install it as well.
I buy directly from AliExpress all the time. I wouldn't install their app.
On AliExpress I see things like 64 TB (no, not GB!) USB flash drives for less than 10 euro, obviously a scam. I also see less spectacular products but still good looking deals, but without a brand name so you can't search the web for reviews.
On Amazon I never see products like that. That's why I prefer Amazon (and Coolblue and bol.com in Belgium).
I see this kind of fakes on eBay or Amazon all the time. It's even harder to report it than on AliExpress and I never had an obvious report of fakes upheld (AND eBay warns they will forward your identity to the seller. Great thing if the organised crime is involved in this)
Case in point, fake 2TB Sandisk ExtremePro microSD:
- £17 on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/336728033240 - even the images prove it's a fake (also $570 on sandisk.com)
Agreed, there's more of that on AliExpress but Amazon is not free from that either.
Few years back, Amazon had a rampant "fake USB storage" problem too. Then, one day, all the fakes were gone, just like that.
If you believe that, I have some USB storage to sell you. Huge capacity, barely used. I keep my inventory in storage under this bridge, which I also happen to have for sale. Interested? ;)
I can't imagine ever wanting to install an amazon app either. Both of these stores have perfectly functional websites. What would I gain installing their spyware? Also, why so defensive?
In first world countries, buying from a local reseller grants you customer rights (like returning or replacing defective items).
Not if the local reseller simply calls itself a marketplace and logistics company and the local regulator lets them get away with it.
Amazon, in my experience, does arbitrate disputes about returns and defects, but the important point is that from a legal perspective, I don't think they have to, so you're at their mercy.
You can't even be sure that VAT is handled correctly, which local retailers can usually not get around.
I cannot imagine installing amazon as an App as well. It's a website
Having bought many things off AliExpress over the years I can say with complete confidence that I've never made a purchase on Amazon that was dropshipped from Ali. The shipping times are far different and it would be immediately obvious.
Yeah it would be hard to hide. When I order from AliExpress it arrives via Chinese carriers I have never even hard of, and about half the time the final delivery is through a Chinese gig delivery company that must pay practically nothing to the driver because they will usually drive up in front of my house and chuck the package out the window onto my front lawn.
I've ordered things from AliExpress shipped from the local warehouses (2-3 days delivery) ; I've ordered things on Amazon UK that were fulfilled and shipped from Amazon UK that were delivered in 3-5 working days.
Not a £1 tat, and not one off. Not that AliExpress is my choice, no, far from it. Sometimes it's better, closer to the manufacturer, that's all.
Love Temu and AliExpress for specialized components at dirt cheap prices. I would never, ever install their app. Ever, security nightmare.
Similar to how I use Amazon Prime but would never order something I ingest, put on my skin, or (usually) wear from it.
Not elitest.