Aliexpress for martial arts gear?

Ush1

Anybody any experience of ordering gear off of Aliexpress.

I ordered some muay thai shorts, headgear and some pads and waiting for them to arrive. Just wondering if anybody had experience and if certain sellers stuff is of decent quality?

jimmii

I would be sceptical especially on the headgear not really something you want to order from somewhere where the quality can be dubious.

RoboRat

Full disclosure.... I am one of the owners of wolfhound so I am not trying to mislead, this is just my honest experience.

I have dealt with tons of companies who claim to make shoyoroll/ Grips/ Tatami etc.. even had a guy contact me with photo's of my own gear thrown in with the various other product images!

My experience is that it's very hit and miss with a lot more misses than hits. The sizing can often be crazy and the quality is questionable... looks great initially but when you start washing it, you see the difference... generally the problem arises with the stitching or the fabric not being preshrunk or treated correctly.

If you are willing to accept that you may get utter ****e and it is worth the risk, as returning it isn't really an option... then go for it. Not all the manufacturers are crap and some are actually quite good.

You also need to take into account shipping, Duty and VAT on top of that so be aware that what looks like a bargain, might cost a lot more. Customs and excise have copped onto imports so there is a strong possibility that you will get hit and they now assign a value rather than valuing off the shipping invoice. Most of them also use DHL / Fedex who always hit you with Duty / VAT as they make additional revenue off paying this for you, then charging you and including an admin fee.

That's my 2 cents anyhow.

Ush1

RoboRat wrote: »

Full disclosure.... I am one of the owners of wolfhound so I am not trying to mislead, this is just my honest experience.

I have dealt with tons of companies who claim to make shoyoroll/ Grips/ Tatami etc.. even had a guy contact me with photo's of my own gear thrown in with the various other product images!

My experience is that it's very hit and miss with a lot more misses than hits. The sizing can often be crazy and the quality is questionable... looks great initially but when you start washing it, you see the difference... generally the problem arises with the stitching or the fabric not being preshrunk or treated correctly.

If you are willing to accept that you may get utter ****e and it is worth the risk, as returning it isn't really an option... then go for it. Not all the manufacturers are crap and some are actually quite good.

You also need to take into account shipping, Duty and VAT on top of that so be aware that what looks like a bargain, might cost a lot more. Customs and excise have copped onto imports so there is a strong possibility that you will get hit and they now assign a value rather than valuing off the shipping invoice. Most of them also use DHL / Fedex who always hit you with Duty / VAT as they make additional revenue off paying this for you, then charging you and including an admin fee.

That's my 2 cents anyhow.

Thanks for that.

Full disclosure on my part, I may eventually be looking at selling the equipment myself through a gym. So I guess I'm sort of looking for a good whoesaler also for big orders.

Black Sheep

I ordered shin guards from a couple of different UK vendors - different styles - and thought that returning whichever I didn't want wouldn't be a problem (the sites' refund and exchange sections were pretty straightforward).

Anyone, one vendor in particular is like pulling hen's teeth from in terms of getting a refund. They've grudging acknowledged having got the goods back (I could show that via tracking) but are basically trying to ignore my emails asking about processing the refund.

It's dumb, ensures I will never go back to them or recommend anyone else buy from them.

Anyway, my point is that if you're ordering something where fit could be an issue then try to suss out that they're not going to make you jump through endless hoops.

I think in the future I would pay more to deal with people I trusted.

Edit to add: Just saw the post re: wholesaling, I guess that is a different context so disregard the above.

Peetrik

Black Sheep wrote: »

Anyone, one vendor in particular is like pulling hen's teeth from in terms of getting a refund. They've grudging acknowledged having got the goods back (I could show that via tracking) but are basically trying to ignore my emails asking about processing the refund.

It's dumb, ensures I will never go back to them or recommend anyone else buy from them.

Name and shame pls

Black Sheep

Peetrik wrote: »

Name and shame pls

I ended up bypassing email and just ringing them today (yes, how old fashioned).

They gave me a bit of a sob story about meaning to reply to me but being so busy etc. but in the end they agreed to process the refund.

I was pretty cheesed off when I wrote the original post in this thread, having probably been waiting all week for a reply, but on the basis that I'm still going to give them the benefit of the doubt I won't name them.

Did shoot you an email though, Peetrik.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Through personal experience I'd rarely order online (although I'd ordered some gear from RDX on ebay and the gear was top notch), but I've been stung on other items and I've known gym owners who have been vey badly stung with orders coming from Asia ~ enough to make most now order from reputable sources like Wolfhound (since we're all being honest here, I didn't know RoboRat was Wolfhound).

In short, if I was spending enough on an order and hoping to sell it on I wouldn't touch Ali or anything from Asia, its too hit and miss.

RoboRat

If you are looking to go down the route of retailing it yourself, it will take a significant portion of time and money and I am not saying this to put you off... we have carved a nice market domestically and have a lot of international orders that is increasing every year.

I am just making you aware in advance, I met a guy who was going into GAA gear and had the same conversation with him. To date, we have not taken a cent from Wolfhound and completely reinvested it into building the business. It takes a lot of work managing the suppliers and it will drive you crazy sometimes and being honest, you will question the return for what you invest into it.

It took us 16 months and around €1800 to get the right supplier and we tried and tested around 15-20 different manufacturers. We had to pay for samples... sometimes we got them, sometimes not, all were not up to scratch bar one and we done a small run initially with him.

If I can offer some advice, take it or leave it, never order a large amount of stock. Even if you have been dealing with a supplier for years, some of these companies play the long game and lure you into a sense of comfort and when you eventually make the big order, then they hit you.

Also, research as much as possible, use WHOIS to check how long their website is in use, if its only new and they are claiming 5 - 10 years of business, it may be that they have just changed but it would make me concerned. I would also invest in a QA person locally initially, even the mention of a QA audit will scare off any potential scammers. A lot of these people claim to make the garments, when in reality they are brokers and they will go with whomever is cheapest to make the most margin and this is a pain in the ass as they sizing and quality will vary.

Accept that in most cases, if there is an issue, getting you money back is not going to happen... you are in Ireland, they are a fair distance away. The only way you can make a good business contact is by paying a fair price... cheapest makes the most margin but if they are making decent markup from you, they will want to keep you as a customer and will want to iron out any issues.

Another service is ESCROW, this is essentially a middle man who holds the money until both parties are satisfied. A lot of suppliers don't like it but if there is no issue, then they should have no issue.

Don't trust Alibaba, I always say its called that not because of the cave of riches but more to the fact that there are 40 thieves for every good egg! In my previous job, we ordered from a gold level supplier... trusted etc! Paid 10k in advance and never got anything, others paid this guy 250k and he is still up there even though he was reported multiple times. Alibaba don't give a ****, end of story.

Hope this helps and in regards to getting out there etc, you will have to figure that out yourself!!!

Edited to say, if you are interested, I can look after production for you, add a small bit of mark-up down my end and then you can sell through your gym. We deal with a good few gyms domestically and internationally who do this with us. They get good markup albeit not as much as if they went direct, but that's the cost of peace of mind. Just putting it out there :-)

Mellor

Have to echo RoboRat's comments.
I got some rashguards designs for a manufacturer last year. It's a well known domestic brand here.
I order two of them myself. He was keeping my updated with progress photos from the factory (presumably in China) and on more than one occasion I pointed out mistakes. Layers turned off, colours bleeding, alignment. It was great to get the finished article a rashguard of my own design. But they were subpar quality which pissed me off. The stiching frayed in places an they simply aren't up to scratch of my Tatami rashguard (for example).

I've parted ways with that company as it was more frustrating that satisfying. And have decide to go down the route of getting my own stuff made. I went the alibaba route, quote requests, narrowed it down, sample requests. Some guys never made the sample (communication was intermitant so I withheld payment). Luckily, the one sample that did arrive was top quality. Durable with heavy stitching. I've put in a small order now some guys from the gym have got a few rashies for cheap.
It worked out for me, but from talking to others, I got very lucky. Headgear, gloves, gi's etc are all more complex than a rashie

RoboRat

Mellor wrote: »

Have to echo RoboRat's comments.
I got some rashguards designs for a manufacturer last year. It's a well known domestic brand here.
I order two of them myself. He was keeping my updated with progress photos from the factory (presumably in China) and on more than one occasion I pointed out mistakes. Layers turned off, colours bleeding, alignment. It was great to get the finished article a rashguard of my own design. But they were subpar quality which pissed me off. The stiching frayed in places an they simply aren't up to scratch of my Tatami rashguard (for example).

I've parted ways with that company as it was more frustrating that satisfying. And have decide to go down the route of getting my own stuff made. I went the alibaba route, quote requests, narrowed it down, sample requests. Some guys never made the sample (communication was intermitant so I withheld payment). Luckily, the one sample that did arrive was top quality. Durable with heavy stitching. I've put in a small order now some guys from the gym have got a few rashies for cheap.
It worked out for me, but from talking to others, I got very lucky. Headgear, gloves, gi's etc are all more complex than a rashie

Gi's can be a nightmare, unless you are lucky and have someone who is experienced in producing or can provide exact technical drawings, you can expect to get all sorts of crazy sizing back. Luckily I am a qualified industrial designer so I was able to do the research and make our own designs and supply exact drawings with material cutout files, which according to a lot of our customers are far better fitting than other brands, but that took a lot of time.

The negative side to that is that I have seen other brands are using our sizing now which is very annoying but shows that intellectual property has zero bearing over there. Our manufacturer even managed to include Gi's that he was obviously producing for another brand which was a literal rip off of our design, even had the exact same label with a different brand name on it.

I have been working on some very cool innovations but I am trying to get them implemented locally as I know if I give the tech drawings, they will be plagiarised to death and the USP's that I develop will be completely obsolete within a matter of months.

Mellor

I'm current only doing Rashies and shorts. Really apprehensive about doing a gi for all the reasons you mentioned above.
I think you are right to go local for an bespoke innovations. Or else they'd be everywhere in a month.