I am fine with them as well.
I was intrigued by how people were able to get common items at ridiculously low prices when I had to pay 5x to 20x the price locally so I gave AE a go about 13 months ago. Now, some 160 orders later, here’s a summary of my experience.
- I am sure there is some logistic justification, but the postage fees seem arbitrary, I spend 1/3 of my time in a different country than the one I work and postage fees vary a lot between the two (both EU member states and close to one another).
- For heavier items (like transformers) but also, strangely enough, for very light items (waterslide paper), the postage fees are ridiculously expensive, far more than I would pay to get these items locally. For small batteries, the postage fees go in the 100s of Euros which seems bizarre.
- I had issues with 13 out of the 160 orders (~8%). A few got lost in the mail but AE was quick to refund me. I only had to chase one of them and be a little persistent to get the refund. A few orders had some minor cosmetic issues that I did not bother with. A couple arrived with small damages. I was offered a partial refund on one, and requested a partial refund on another. One order took more than 3 months to arrive.
- I only left three bad reviews among the 160 orders (but did not review things that I did not test). Two for a seller who cancelled the same order twice after claiming they wouldn’t be able to post the (not really bulky) item, and one for an item that did not work as advertised (the review referred to the item, not the seller, who was helpful).
- Quality is all over the place. The cheap 3.5mm and DC jacks are rubbish, but so are the ones that I get locally at twice the price.The cheap knobs were noticeably lower in quality than what I can get locally (at twice the price, though).
- I took a few gambles with cheap ICs and transistors and they measured okay. OTAs were OTAs and JFETs were JFETs and worked fine, although I had no means to test whether their parameters were on spec (I haven’t tested the cheap Nanos yet). Much better than the fakes of ebay, but I did not risk further than that though. For me, the local shops hailing from the 1960s are the definitive source for anything odd and obsolete (assuming one does not need more than a couple pieces). I have shopped in 18 different shops throughout the two countries (17 physical, 1 online) and found nearly everything that is considered obsolete (save vactrols and tempco resistors).
- I was able to find in AE a few (sometimes common) things that are impossible to get locally, like 1A potentiometers, vactrols, tube sockets, and centre tapped 600 Ohm miniature transformers.
- AE prices are a steal for small common items bought in bulk like IC sockets, headers, resistors, ceramic and film capacitors, but not so much for IDC cables, 6.35mm jacks and sockets, or things like CMOS ICs, which I can get locally, faster, in comparable prices. The small prefab modules (buck/boost converters, amplifiers, breakout boards) are great too.
I can also confirm pretty much everything others have mentioned about the do’s and don’t’s and about the marketing aspects that are a waste of time.
AE can be a good source for parts, especially if one does not have access to the big US/UK retailers and other places (like Tayda or Amazon) because the combined postage/taxes/tariffs can increase the end prices two or even threefold.
I only use AE to complement what I can get from the myriad of small shops (semi) locally, but I can also easily imagine that I will lose interest if they mess up an important order, or when I stock up on all the essentials. For me, AE is useful but by no means essential to get things done.
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