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My $40 order of Sonoff switches at Kolkata RLO since 26 July. It's not marked as a gift, hoping at least they will charge commensurate duty and release it!

How is Banggood compared to Aliexpress? I see that they have a India specific site accepting Paytm and other local payment modes. Prices for a few items that i wanted are almost same as Aliexpress. Shipping is a flat 1$ for most items. Do items reach faster than Ali? Any experience?

Most of the items in the recent past are stuck at customs backside of GPO, BLR. I almost ended up paying customs for 5 different items from Banggood. [each was between 10$ to 30$]. I sensed it was not worth it. Even though they mark as gift, its held back.

Banggood is certainly not better or I would rate even worse; but so far I have bought only one item of about Rs 600 in Banggood, while I have made many orders with Aliexpress.

When I ordered, I expected the item to reach faster / quicker than 'China Post' since it is shipped through other private Couriers, as we are paying towards shipment. But it was worse, the tracking was unreliable (One-day it indicated that the item is in Delhi waiting for Customs clearance.., the next day it showed that the item is ready for shipment from HongKong. There was 4-5days of waiting without any updation.). Finally it reached me in about 24 days. Moreover, you will not receive any intimation about the new tracking Number in Indian leg of the shipment.

With Aliexpress / China-Post, atleast the tracking is better and I have received the items in hand between 8 to 24 days normally, although on one occasion it was more than 60 days.

One advantage of Banggood.in is that you will have an option of opting for 'Customs duty' reimbursement incase if anything was charged, for a nominal fee, depending on the cost of your item. In addition to that they charge GST; so mostly you are likely to pay more than what you find in AliExpress.

Don't know whether it's coincidence or not but 3 days after I filed a grievance at the PG Portal, my package restarted it's journey to BLR.

Now I am hoping that the Customs fellows haven't levied every possible duty on it in revenge :D

The duty isn't the issue.

Its the GST which gets levied on the entire value plus the customs duty! :deadhorse

Is it safe to order something from Aliexpress worth US$27 (AliExpress Standard Shipping with tracking) in current scenario?

Nothing to worry about. I have been getting parcels worth 1-100$ coming in without issue. Just three days back I received wireless earpods through Netherlands post sent from China and they reached within 20 days.

In case you are ordering through CN or HK or SG post, it is normal for the consignment to get held up in Kolkata or Chennai for more than a week. This has already been mentioned earlier in the thread. These bags are opened batch wise and especially for CN post it will take a long time to clear customs. Hence its perfectly normal to have a total turnaround time of 1-1.5 months for parcels from the date of order to the date of delivery. HK and SG post will be relatively faster with 20-30 days.

My next pending order is from Bangood and is my first order with them. So far Aliexpress and Gearbest has had 100% success rate and not a single order was misplaced. Now have to see how this experience goes since they have shipped through a private carrier called Alljoy. Hope the service lives up to its name :uncontrol The best experience is always through Gearbest with Priority line shipping. Can sometimes reach within five days or so without any customs trouble.

The Kolkata delay has now expanded to 3 weeks instead of the earlier 1 :Frustrati

Yes that's quite normal. When I told 1.5 months max turnaround time, it is one week of transit from CN to India, one week from Customs to your house. Whatever is in the middle will be the customs clearance time. :D

I just ordered something from a seller based out of Hong Kong using Hong Kong post. It was a small item under 200 grams with a value under 50 $.
From ordering to having it in my hand took flat 11 days. Pretty prompt I must say.
Ali express on the other hand has become very unreliable for me.

I had ordered a Viofo A129 Dual Channel dash cam from AliExpress on 19th July. It was shipped on time and reached India on 27th July. However, it has been stuck in Chennai for more than three weeks now. The tracking details say "India, CHENNAI FOREIGN POST OFFICE, Transfer from office of exchange (Inb)." I can see from the previous few posts on this thread that it can take upto 1.5 months for customs clearance.

This is my first order from AliExpress and the only thing concerning me is that under my order details it is mentioned "Order will be closed in 31 days". I know 31 days is a long time but as nothing has happened over the past three weeks, I'm just a bit worried if it takes a further month for its clearance. Has anyone faced an issue wherein the order closure date has been crossed with the product not been delivered? Is there anything that needs to be done from my end to get the consignment moving from Chennai?

There would be an option of extend Processing time/extend purchase protection. Just use that 3-4 days before time ends and all should be good.

Usually what it means is the parcel is with Bangalore customs , you can try reaching Bangalore Sub Foreign Post Office +91 80 2286 9993.
They will give the local tracking number , with that local tracking number you need to call the customs dept +91 80 2286 9992 for further processing .

They may ask for the credit card statement , invoice , order page , through email .

Thanks. I was planning to buy Mi Band 4 but I guess by the time it will reach here, it will be launched in India. So, decided to wait.