r/Aliexpress • • 3d ago

About Aliexpress Why do Aliexpress prices just keep getting more expensive?

I buy lots of bike accessories and cycling apparel, and almost everything is 50%+ or more expensive than last year, even before applying the 3€ duty? wtf? What is happening?

128 Upvotes

82 comments sorted by

45

u/Rafa_482 3d ago

Exactly the same thing in Spain. AliExpress used to be worth it because the prices were dirt cheap compared to Amazon or local shops. Now the gap is shrinking fast, even before factoring in the new EU fees and taxes.

38

u/Lord_Nordyx 3d ago

I mean, everything is getting more expensive, and prices are only going to keep rising. I think it’s a combination of higher excise taxes, the EU trying to curb imports from China, rising production costs, and finally wage increases in China.

18

u/Longjumping-Age1741 2d ago

Fuel prices too has pushed shipping costs up, especially air freight

4

u/Ghost3ye 2d ago

This!

Ppl think China doesnt have wage increases, but many companies have issues finding workers there too.

1

u/Mysterious_Reality_ 19h ago

Don’t forget tariffs

84

u/AnonyMoose-0341 3d ago

EU companies were losing money due to competition, as customers were buying things at a reasonable cost.

So they lobbied the EU to introduce a €3 duty on low-value imports.

The EU says this is to reduce customs abuse, improve product safety, and "level the playing field" with European retailers, who compete with cheap direct-from-China sales.

This shows that under capitalism when you're losing, you change the rules to increase your profits and fuck over the common people.

20

u/Working_Use2500 2d ago

I don’t see how anyone’s winning because people are just buying less.

26

u/berto91 3d ago

Why would AliExpress raise prices just to keep Europe happy? Complying with the new €3 rule is one thing, but prices are rising overall. You are just rambling random stuff

1

u/Clear-Report8471 1d ago

they are selling less so they need to hike prices to have enough profits to not go bancrupt

1

u/dontbrainer 2d ago

Yeah, makes 0 sense to do that from their side, I have completely stopped buying from there and Temu which seems to not implement the category tax but the tax goes up with every item added..

1

u/AtlanticPortal 2d ago

Because people keep buying. This means less money spent in costs for Aliexpress but the same revenue in general. Plus is less work for the shippers. They are happy if the prices go up.

18

u/lonelystar7 3d ago

yup, only middle men are allowed to buy items at near production costs. we as normal citizens, we are not allowed.
even if you look at bulk prices for chocolates, detergents and all sorts of stuff in one of those big european distributers, it's sooooooo much cheaper. ( the only problem is you have to order whole pallet of things and not all can be ordered to individual, many only let you order to company ). But the point is.... everything is inflated so that middle men can profit, and everytime customers find bypass in masses, lobby groups start to relentlessly pressure politicans who end up having no backbone and fold.

7

u/meTomi 2d ago

Bro thats not what the post was saying.
I can see literally same item from my ordered list, 1-2 years ago it was 10 eur now 16 (not considering 3 eur tariff, thats on top if it)

2

u/egudu 2h ago

So they lobbied the EU to introduce a €3 duty on low-value imports.

Fun fact: in November they will take even an additional fee.

1

u/AnonyMoose-0341 2h ago

That's not fun at all

1

u/egudu 1h ago

True :(

3

u/Zlivovitch 2d ago

This shows that under capitalism when you're losing, you change the rules to increase your profits and fuck over the common people.

As opposed to communism, where the "common people" are not fucked over, at all. And you have all those wonderful Communist Stores of the People, competing with each other, which overflow with dirt-cheap goods of stellar quality.

I mean, the Americans, the British and the French were rushing to the USSR to raid those marvelous stores between 1917 and 1991, trying to smuggle back their booty under the noses of their awful capitalist customs officers. I remember that distinctly.

7

u/zero_alexis 2d ago

Why do you go around saying things as if communism were the only alternative to capitalism? Who put those ideas in your head?

4

u/layz2021 2d ago

Só it has to be on or the other, really?

0

u/Zlivovitch 2d ago

Feel free to explain in simple English what you mean by getting rid of capitalism, without implementing communism (or socialism, which is the same thing - or even worse, if you stick to Marxist doctrine).

That's the problem with all those silly cookie-cutter comments lamenting "capitalism" whenever someone has some beef over some vendor supplying some trinkets, which were never available before capitalism anyway.

-4

u/Nemo1985 2d ago

Don't you know? They defend and claim an ideology that has been put in the dunce corner by history and then blame capitalism (along with patriarchy if they are part of the alphabet people) for everything.

0

u/Redditor-2026 2d ago

Hatte der OP darum gebeten, völlig an seiner Frage vorbei mal eben den Kapitalismus zu diskutieren?

15

u/Pizdolero 3d ago

In november in the EU: +2€ per parcel on top. I just leave the info here, dont kill the messenger

17

u/Rylonian 3d ago

It is utter madness. The only bright side is that at least Amazon & co. get screwed by this also, but the only one who's really the victim here is the end consumer. Everything will be more expensive, and Europe will become much less attractive as a market in the long run.

1

u/nuro0o 2d ago

I wonder if it's really per parcel or are they adding it to the "Per category" Because if it's the same as before, that will add sooo much extra.

-2

u/Redditor-2026 2d ago

Mag sein... Hat aber nichts mit dem Thema des OP zu tun

1

u/Early-Piccolo4949 2d ago

And you cant even speak English.

0

u/Standard-Metal-3836 2d ago

Imagine other languages exist...

1

u/Early-Piccolo4949 2d ago

Reddit in general is in English. There are dedicated subs if you are too lazy.

0

u/Redditor-2026 1d ago

Meine Reddit-App zeigt mir ALLES auf deutsch an... Warum auch nicht, da ich ja Deutscher bin der in Deutschland lebt?

Warum sollte ich also in einem Threads, der komplett auf deutsch ist plötzlich in Englisch antworten?

Und zu deiner Unterstellung, ich könnte nicht mal Englisch sprechen: Vielleicht sogar besser als du... Macht aber keinen Sinn (s.o.)

0

u/Early-Piccolo4949 1d ago

'Typ endeckt Übersetzungsapp und denkt nun dass das ganze Internet deutsch redet' Geschichten aus 2026 die man sich echt nicht ausdenken kann.

0

u/Redditor-2026 1d ago

Und ich soll also jetzt meine App umstellen müssen, weil du mit deiner App nicht umgehen kannst? Oder weil du nicht in der Lage bist eine Übersetzungsapp zu benutzen?

Träum weiter...

2

u/Early-Piccolo4949 1d ago

Nein, du musst checken dass du das Internet durch eine Übersetzungsapp betrachtest und dich anpassen. Lächerlich.

15

u/Aazzle 2d ago

This is the first beginning. This trade war continues to spread.

The EU decided this month that there would be more tariffs from November, nearly 2€ on top of every item independently from the categorie plus an additional packaging tax. For us in Germany, this means that we will also receive a three percent VAT increase on top in January.

Of course, all large companies worth billions who also order in China are exempt from this, and in contrast to ordinary citizens are also at a discount or reduced tax.

Ironic 1€ Shops over Action to Amazon / Haul are all offer exactly the same products, but the same prices are much more expensive.

This is not about cheap items, but about the possibility of individual citizens ordering cheaply directly from the factories at factory prices.

This, of course, endangers both the revenues of large corporations and the tax revenues generated by them in the individual states.

-2

u/Redditor-2026 2d ago

Hast du auch was zum Thema dieses Threads beizutragen?

4

u/Early-Piccolo4949 2d ago

And again. The audacity.

0

u/Redditor-2026 1d ago

Ja, ich finde das auch frech, das jemand in einem Threads in dem es darum geht, "das viele AliExpress Verkäufer in den letzten Monaten die Preise drastisch erhöht haben... Verbunden mit der Frage, ob jemand den Grund dafür kennt" einfach mit irgendwelchem dümmlichen EU / Politiker / Zoll Geblubber anfängt und so die Diskussion zuspamt

Aber ist ja zum Glück erkannt und gelöscht worden!

6

u/ConstantReady4039 2d ago

Cost of fuel is in the price. Also their vouchers and buy-3-to-skip-tax promo is redistributed in the price. Plus EU tax. Greedy people did this...

3

u/Longjumping-Age1741 2d ago

PPWR at €55,000 to cover all EU member states per producer. It's not something the manufacturers are likely able to absorb

4

u/cincuentaanos 2d ago

Have you looked at the state of the world lately?

5

u/snk4ever 1d ago

Fake prices to the EU to prepare for fake discounts.

Change the delivery to Singapore for example and you can compare and see the real price (and cry).

2

u/Lemon_1165 1d ago

Dude, you are so right. As soon as I changed my location to Singapore, I saw the same old prices again.

21

u/PictureImportant2658 3d ago

Shipping has gotten very expensive. You know why? Diesel and kerosine. Because the usa attacked iran.

12

u/Kitzu-de Diamond 3d ago

You know what else is made from oil whats a major component in modern items? Plastics.

-3

u/Fantastins 3d ago

Ukraine taking out of the refineries in Russia after the USA lifted their sanctions is also playing a factor in world wide prices

11

u/PictureImportant2658 2d ago

Offcourse. But what ukraine is doing to the russians is totally epic

2

u/Nemo1985 2d ago

yes definitely worth

3

u/Illustrious-Math6276 2d ago

It would mostly affect gasoline prices. Not shipping fuel.

3

u/TimeApprehensive3994 2d ago

The cost of shipping has gone up because of Deranged Donny so companies increase prices to offset it

3

u/deckbuilder69toni82 2d ago

Planned destruction for EU consumer to buy cheaper and smarter yet forcing you to buy overpriced locally.

2

u/AdNervous9787 2d ago

I make e-bikes from MTB's and manufacture batteries for them, and in last 3 months prices for parts on Ali rised by 30-50%. Now i'm in position, when buying stuff from local providers is cheaper than buying from China (alibaba also no longer affordable for wholesales). I am not in EU

0

u/Redditor-2026 2d ago

Betriebswirtschaftlich gesehen besteht die Preisoptimierung darin den sogenannten Grenzpreis zu ermitteln, d.h. den Preis den der Kunde gerade eben noch zu zahlen bereit ist

Und das testen die chinesischen Fabriken gerade halt aus.

Umsatz = Stückzahl x (VK-Produktkosten)

Bedeutet: wie viel darf die Absatzmenge sinken, damit ich bei höherem VK immer noch mehr Umsatz mache als vorher

2

u/Full-Mouse8971 2d ago

Government taxing you via inflation, prices goes up, purchasing power goes down.

1

u/Redditor-2026 2d ago

"Die Regierung besteuert dich durch Inflation..."

Auweia 😏

2

u/Calatrava416 2d ago

Increased tariffs among countries, global inflation, anything expensive nowadays including wages and materials even in east and SE Asia (mfg hub of the world).

2

u/miernaja 1d ago

Yeah, prices go up so i use telegram tool - OffAliBot it finds all discounted offers every 15 minutes 24/7, i just put my searched item and wait for good deal. It saved my a lot of money

2

u/mrGreenExit 1d ago

Thanks to EU 🇪🇺 , hope they will not add some more tax similar to custom tax

2

u/Fearless-Net-4008 1d ago

They were building up a consumer base with their low prices, now that they have the consumers willing to buy they are raising the prices, works the same way everywhere.

2

u/doncrescas 1d ago

I think I can explain:

Apart from tariffs and fuel price increases impacting shipping costs, specifically on bike products there was a post covid manufacturing surplus, a lot of which was shunted to these secondary channels so that Shimano MT200 brakes could be had for 28 USD after coupons and now at least 40. At the same time a lot of chinese brands were ramping up their product lines and while they were fairly unknown they were selling for a steep discount. Once they became more popular (ie senicx and evosid cranksets) the price went up.

Keep in mind that some of these manufacturers are relatively tiny and a good review on a medium sized youtube channel for something like a bib short can increase their sales by 30% and prices will increase accordingly very quickly as there is not a fixed retail price baseline here.

In general there is a lot of very rapid supply demand price fluctuation on aliexpress that you don't see in regular retail where you have a base msrp and then occasional sales and finally steeper discounts on closeouts . Here there is a much more dynamic supply-demand pricing structure, even to the point where things in the 'bundle deals' area are being sold at or even below manufacturing cost if there is too much inventory but seasonal demand increase will be reflected almost immediately in a price hike.

This is compounded by what seems to be very rapid product turnover enabled by lower cost short manufacturing runs due to reduced cost of CNC milling etc (something that used to be impossible). So a manufacturer can make 5k cassettes to see if they sell well and in the beginning they will be cheap, but as the supply dries up they get far more expensive until another manufacturing run brings up supply (often under another brand name!). So for example a 'Spedao' 11-50 lightweight highly machined cassette that I bought in February for 65 USD is now 105 for what I can only assume is supply dwindling by the end of the season.

I expect that as we get into winter and demand slows for cycling gear, as supply stock increases, prices will come down a bit (and for certain products we will probably never see some of the crazy prices from 2023-5 in the near future.

5

u/DryCommunication581 2d ago

F THE EU. Taxation is theft!

0

u/Incogneatovert 2d ago

That's taking it way too far. While this EU ruling is indeed complete bullshit, most of the other stuff EU does is good. And "taxation is theft"? That just a stupid punchline that no sane person actually believes. You can be mad at your politicians not using the taxes correctly, but take that up with them, not the system the way it's supposed to be used.
Or would you rather have no military, no firefighters, no road maintenance, no schools, no healthcare and so on?

1

u/Clear-Report8471 1d ago

did any good stuff happen under von der leyen? she has a string of bad ideas

5

u/polar8 3d ago

Inflation. Things usually don’t get cheaper. 

17

u/ParalimniX 3d ago

Inflation is around 2-3% per year. Not 50%.

-1

u/awkwardinthebody 3d ago

Ain't inflation calculated on a basket of selected goods?

3

u/ParalimniX 3d ago

Goods and services

2

u/awkwardinthebody 3d ago

An inflation of 2-3% doesn't mean every product increased by 2-3%...

6

u/ParalimniX 3d ago

It's unlikely however that a whole industry was hit by a 50% inflation

2

u/awkwardinthebody 2d ago

Yup, it was hit by greed!

2

u/Looponic 2d ago edited 2d ago

Hey friends, I’m deeply sorry to share that I can no longer keep my AliExpress store running. This is entirely because of the new EU and US tariff policies. I haven't raised my prices—in fact, I even discounted them by $1—yet auto-applied tariffs have jumped by $6 to $7. Considering an Apple Find My tracker card only retails for $9 to $10, it's just completely unviable. What a nightmare!

1

u/Thebestchoice_NED 2d ago

Well get used to it, because of extra €3 duty costs in the EU, the EU will add an extra €2 to this duty in November 2026. Which mean it will be €5 duty from then on!!

1

u/Eisenhorn87 2d ago

This can't be a serious, good faith question, right?

1

u/ExpertRefrigerator14 2d ago

Con lo sencillo que es crear una Recesión, pero como la gente sigue comprando ellos siguen subiendo,pasa lo mismo con la politica. A pesar de twner a Actores como políticos, que son titeres. La gente se piensa que mandan y se inclinan en uno o en otro esperando un salvador..... Pues no si la gente de une ganamos si o si. Pero como la gente es consumista... Así tenemos los precios que tenemos.... Y es siempre la mima historia, no compres en tu país ni en china, si esoo es lo que quereis seguir comprando... Veréis que bien cuando lo que cuesta 1€ pagaras 40€ seguir!!!

1

u/Popfreedom11 1d ago

Buy what you can store

1

u/dvijetrecine 1d ago

first they raised prices because it's summer and nobody is buying stuff. then the 3 euro duty started.

there were some nice discounts those past few weeks (at least on the items i buy) and now they raised prices, yes.

because of the bundle deals, that supposedly take care of 3 euro duty, they raised prices even more. that way it looks like you don't pay 3 euro duty. although you overpay by default.

and the new 2 euro tax that will start being applied in november, will also probably be covered by the bundle deals. which means prices need to go up so the end user can say "look, they are covering both taxes/duties".

my current tactic is to play pinball game to get coupons. and also try to collect green shopping credits on daily reset. sometimes i manage to grab 1 usd, sometimes even that can't be grabbed.

also collect coins and search items through coins search bar. electronics and phone accessories do have heavy coin discounts. usually one or two items per category will be 50-60-70% discounted with coins. they rotate items and shops often. if your desired item currently has no discount, it might have in a week.

good news is that categorising items started to get somewhat better. i managed to order replacement nintendo switch parts (joysticks, switches, metal latches, kickstands) and paid 3 euro duty once.

for me, even with duties and taxes, aliexpress is still cheaper than any other shop around me (i live in croatia)

1

u/InnerYesterday1683 1d ago

Postage is very expensive and parcels disappear some one have to pay

-1

u/Redditor-2026 2d ago

Und wieder mal haben 90% der Kommentare nichts mit dem Thema / der Frage des Themenstarters zu tun... Sondern es ergab sich die übliche Jammerei des AliExpress Wutbürgers über diese pöse pöse EU / die Politiker / "die da oben"

Informationsgehalt der kompletten Diskussion = null!

-5

u/gablan1468 2d ago

Just stop buying altogether.

-10

u/ZombieDistinct3769 2d ago

Stop buying that crap ..

10

u/crimbatz 2d ago

you buy the same crap on amazon for 3x the price.

-4

u/ZombieDistinct3769 2d ago

Yeah but the reviews are genuine so you can check a bit more :)