I have previously ordered NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL and soccer (football) jerseys from jerseysfromchinaforcheap (my other review on jerseysfromchinaforcheap), supejerseys and jerseysusa.us. A reader of my blog gave me a hint that Aliexpress also sells jerseys at competitive prices and without postage, no matter if you only order one jersey at a time. I ordered one jersey as a test and here’s what I got.
What is Aliexpress.com?
Aliexpress.com is a privately owned Chinese market place that provides a medium for businesses and individuals alike to sell their products to consumers around the world. It is similar to Western counterparts such as eBay or Amazon. Aliexpress.com is a part of Internet-based commerce, business and portal services owned and operated by Alibaba Group. In 2012 Alibaba operated sites handled $170 billion – more than eBay and Amazon combined. Other sites include Alibaba.com (business-to-business from China to over seas) and Taobao (consumer-to-consumer). Taobao is one of the 20 highest visited sites globally. Alibaba’s sites account for 60% of parcel traffic in whole China.1
Aliexpress has all kinds of products for sale: clothing, electronics (computers, mobile phones), accessories, home & garden equipment, bags, jewelry, watches, car equipment, beauty & health products, toys, you name it.
Jersey Selection
Aliexpress offers a vast selection of NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL and soccer (football) jerseys from a variety of sellers. Some sellers offer rare collector’s items and customizable/personalizable jerseys as well. At the moment of writing (November 2013) there are whopping 43,000 NBA jerseys available.
Pricing
The pricing varies depending on the seller because every seller gets to price their products freely – just like in eBay. However the the enormous amount of sellers and the competition keeps the prices very reasonable, to say the least. The Allen Iverson US olympic jersey I ordered as a test costs in jerseysusa.us $18 (~13 €). In Aliexpress I found it at $20-$25 (15-19 €). However Aliexpress has one significant advantage: There is normally no postage – even for a single item. This yields two edges: now I don’t have to manage a group order of at least 10 items and there are no national taxes because the low item value.
Payment Options
Aliexpress accepts Visa, MasterCard, Western Union, Qiwi and bank transfer as a payment method. Since credit cards are allowed, there is no reason to pay with any other method because credit cards usually have buyer’s protection themselves. In addition, Aliexpress offers similar buyer’s protection as eBay where the seller does not get the payment until the items have been marked as received by the buyer. If the items never arrive, the buyer gets a full refund. If the items are not as described, the buyer can choose full refund or keeping the items. Aliexpress even has an Android app to shop and track your orders.
Delivery Times
It took exactly two weeks to receive the jersey. This is quite fast delivery from China as it usually takes 2-6 weeks to travel to Finland. The packaging was a neat and sturdy plastic bag. It was shipped as a signed shipment which means it was not delivered to my mail box but I had to fetch it from the post office instead. To my surprisement there was another identical plastic bag inside the outer one. The seller had kindly marked the item as “T-shirt” and its value as $10 to the customs declaration.
Quality
I wanted to honor one of the greatest little men in the NBA (not to take away anything from Isiah Thomas), Allen Iverson and order his US Olympic jersey. A.I. happened to retire about the same time. The first notice was that the jersey is “Swingman” so it is not the top “authentic” quality but it sits between the low quality replicas and the top quality authentic jerseys.
The letters and numbers are cut from cloth covered in plastic and that is the difference from the authentic jerseys which usually have them cut from thick cloth. The other difference is the jersey cloth itself which is not as thick as in authentic jerseys. However I am very satisfied with the overall quality as the seams are neatly and carefully sewn and everything is as they should be. There is no NBA hologram on the tag like with the authentic jerseys.
The side stripes are the only details that are painted and not sewn on the jersey fabric. Time will tell how these paint stripes will last when washed.
What is important for me is that the letters and numbers are cut from cloth and sewn onto the jersey. The cheaper replica jerseys that are sold in the US and in Europe have letters and numbers either painted with a special cloth paint or heat pressed (glued) onto the jersey. This is really bad quality as these replica jerseys cannot be washed without deteriorating the characters. Take a look at my first review to see what is the difference between replica and swingman/official types.
I ordered the jersey from a seller named “Customer is the God” and it cost me $24 (18 €) including postage. And because the item was less than 24 € (including postage), I did not have to pay any national taxes.
The Verdict
Overall I am very satisfied with the jersey and with the shopping experience at Aliexpress. I felt safe and secured with the credit card payment option and the buyer’s protection. The Aliexpress Android app gave me the impression that they really care about their business and are actively developing and investing on it. I will definitely order more later.
| Quality | Score |
| Payment Options |  |
| Authenticity | |
| Quality | |
| Prices | |
| Delivery Time | |
