@ZaidPirwani I have over a year and a half of experience with sellers on Aliexpress and in that time I have placed some orders from Mega SemiConductor (who you linked to in your initial post). I am glad that you have at least had good success with them but I have not. The problem with Mega SemiConductor is that they don't actually understand or know much about electronics. A quick look at their listings, http://bit.ly/1NJW41p, and you will find that they rarely even include any details about the item, and I mean no details at all, except for what is in the title. I have received two orders where the items were not as shown in the images, received ESP8266 modules from them where only two out of ten worked, received FTDI modules that had counterfeit ICs on them, and I had ordered some op-amps from them that when they arrived all had bent pins due to insufficient packaging. Out of eleven orders from them, every order but one had issues or damage. You may ask why I ordered that many times from them if I had problems with them; in response I didn't check or notice that it was from Mega SemiConductor and it took probably three orders before I actually could recall their name and the issues I had experienced from them before. Their price is low which was alluring but their quality in the items and their packaging for shipping is poor. I haven't ordered from them for over six months now, the last time I ordered I didn't check that it was coming from them and once the items arrived damaged I made sure that I would never order from them again. Their boxes are made of really thin and weak cardboard, you could probably find more durable toilet-paper than that stuff. They completely tape every square inch of the outside with the typical ugly yellow tape (if you have ordered from Asia before then you have likely had an encounter with the yellow taped up box tradition). I nicely contacted them about five of my orders to which they usually wanted me to pay the shipping to ship back the items, which in three of the cases was going to cost me nearly as much or more than I actually ordered the items for, which I told them and even sent screenshots of the USPS international shipping rate calculated on USPS's website. They ended up offering a 50% refund in all but one of those situations. The remaining order they blaimed the shipping company for the damaged goods. In the other cases I decided it wasn't worth my time to try to get them to send replacements or a refund.

Another seller to stay away from is Chinese Super Electronic Market (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/614856). I have had similar results with them with three orders. The last order I had with them included three different TO-220 package type parts all of which were just in a plastic baggy inside of a paper envelope. The pins were bent in all kinds of directions and the parts were scratched up so badly that it was nearly impossible to read the text printed on the ICs to separate the different parts out of the mess.

Some other sellers that at least I have had poor results with:

- KE LI Trade Electronic Co. Ltd. (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1280487)

- S+S+S+ (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1757110)

- TUOZHAN (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1086484)

Some stores I would recommend that I have ordered multiple times from each of them with great success are the following:

+ A+A+A+ (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/110055) - I have had good success from this seller

+ Development Board Store (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/418423) - I have never had a single problem with this seller

+ Ace Wong's store (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/931011)

+ 3C Top-rated Seller (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/413563/search/2.html?origin=n) - They don't know much about electronics and sell a lot of random other stuff but they at least package their items well for shipping.

+ MountainDanxia CHEN's store (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/630111) - Actually knows a thing or two about the electronics offered in their store

Asia items can take three weeks or more to arrive so I try to order from USA sellers such as Addicore (https://www.addicore.com), Virtuabotix (https://www.virtuabotix.com/), Sparkfun (https://www.sparkfun.com/), or Adafruit (http://www.adafruit.com/) when I can find what I am looking for. Addicore is based in Utah and, like Virtuabotix, has very good prices. I have had email conversations with Addicore's head engineer, Craig, who has told me that they test every single assembled item that they ship. They, as well as Virtuabotix, guarantee their products or they will cover the cost of sending you a replacement or refunding you. Addicore provides free shipping on orders of $25+ and they ship out same day if you order by 6pm (MST) (5pm my time in CA). I usually get my items from them in two days. Virtuabotix, who used to be in Colorado but now are located in Oregon, provide free shipping on orders of $50+. Sparkfun and Adafruit's products cost more but they are large companies so I can understand that they have more overhead. If you want wearables or addressable LED products then go with Adafruit. Polulu (https://www.pololu.com/) is another seller, based in Nevada, that I have heard is a good seller but I myself have yet to order from them.

You can take what I have said and recommended above for what it is worth but hopefully if anything it will help at least a few people get what they need without disappointment.

another seller, A+A+A+ (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/110055) has even better store rating than the MEGA STORE and has good stuff with better rates.

though i have not tried this one before, now I am ordering, will post here later about my experience.

P.S. will be starting a project here on Hackaday with details of the seller with best ratings and experience and also of sellers which have rare items (low store rating) but who still deliver and have quality stuff.

Thanks for this

Thanks for the tip, that store has a lot of stuff and very cheap

I used this store a couple of times.  http://www.aliexpress.com/store/506373  I use them for my SMT inductors, LED.  Their stuff might get a bit hard to find (seem like common theme in Aliexpress parts store).  They have lower quantity requirements.

I mostly shop for the cheapest speciality stores that seem to know what they are trying to sell.  i.e. don't buy chips from a place that sell hand bags. The other day I was trying to get bluetooth keyboard/mouse.  Most stores lump 2.4Hz with bluetooth, but one new store among the cheapest bunch knows enough to say bluetooth 3.0 specifically.  I guess I'll find out in about a month's time.  Hmmm.  I guess it was too good to be true.  The seller is being suspended by Aliexpress.  So I guess checking out review is important.

That mega store seem to sell servo cheap.  May be I should get a dozen just to play around with.  Very strange that the free shipping is limited to 5 servos.  You would think that they would be happy that you are buying more.  I cheated by ordering 5 of the singles and 1 of the 5 pack.

Oh wow- Mega Semiconductor is amazing! Damn you, everything there is stuff I need/want and within impulse buy range. Too bad I plan on moving within the timeframe of delivery. Bookmarked for when I do!

Hey @ZaidPirwani, you can start an Aliexpress project and let people join as collaborators so they can contribute, or they can just post deals and steals in the comments. 

Hey @ZaidPirwani, you can start an Aliexpress project and let people join as collaborators so they can contribute, or they can just post deals and steals in the comments. 

will do.

I like WeMos Electronics (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1331105) as they have a good range especially SMD, price is cheap, items well packed and ship quickly - never had a problem. Have had a couple of problems with other sellers with specific semi's that are reasonably rare, most of the time they won't ship and don't notify you, then when enough time has passed and you email them about what is going on they say they can't ship and refund, but have wasted your time. Have had a couple of sellers argue with me over missing shipments or incorrectly advertised parts but in general the sellers are responsive. I have an issue with about 5% of my orders which while annoying (especially the delays this causes) I still use Aliexpress because of the huge range and cheap prices although you do need to be patient with free shipping.

I myself am happy too with AliExpress, but I wanted to know if there were other shops on AliExpress which other people preferred..

After searching for any item, selecting TOP RATED and then order list by MOST ORDERS usually gives the best option to buy on top, but sometimes, I go for a specified seller - even if that means paying a bit more (dollar conversion rate is 100x in my country, so a bit more is still MORE) -  I go for a few specified sellers usually cause they have good ratings and all my previous orders with them have been good.

 Yes there are some basic ways to check for the item, usually the description is copied by every seller but some tiny details one should always consider, like some sellers count the Arduino USB Cable as 1 part and the Board as another part, so you see a listing like 6$ Arduino Uno with USB Cable, 2pieces/lot - 6$=1 lot - where 1 lot = 1USB Cable + 1 Arduino Uno

@esot.eric  as I wrote, many of the sellers don't have clue what they are selling, so the description may be off. It is good idea to avoid apparently wrong listings - as many other sellers are likely selling the same stuff for the same price and you can find the listing that looks OK.

Generally, I'm happy with Aliexpress, but YMMV.

Have... you ever actually had problems on AliExpress?

I've ordered ~150 things, and had maybe 5 issues with stuff I've bought. Then I contact the vender and they go "oh, okay. I give refund!"

The same experience here. IMHO there is not such as thing as good or bad seller, they are all selling the same cheap shi...stuff made in the same factory, most of them for the same price (+-10%) majority of them don't know what the are selling (obvious typos in product description), they just know the price.

If you know what are buying and realize you get what you pay for, if you avoid apparent scams, you are perfectly OK with almost any seller.

Erm... I've never actually made a purchase, but I've found a "product" that seems to be sold by numerous sellers, that has *clearly* different description vs photos... "you get what you pay for" must be extended in new ways, in this era!

Same here..   Ordered about  a hundred odd items, even in bulk, and faced problems with only a few.
The vendors are terrified of negative feedback , and usually give refunds right away.
Some of them are highly cooperative.  I once got a TCD1304 sensor as a replacement for an MLX90316 which didn't work. The vendor
simply took my word for it.
Oddly enough, stuff that never got delivered were consumer items like earphones. I blame shipping/customs :|