Buying equipment through alibaba??

I have looked and looked for a good manufacturer for my next brewery upgrade and believe I want to go with Stout Tanks and Kettles 20Gal System w/ HLT - HERMS system.

I found the following on Alibaba
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/508468403/Stainless_steel_conical_fermenter.html

It looks like the same vessels that Stout Tanks & Kettles use. I do not know. Maybe they buy them in and modify the vessels.

My question is this, there are a ton of options when looking on Alibaba for equipment.

Does anybody have experience buying any of there gear through some of the Chinese Manufacturers that can be found on Alibaba.com?????

Thanks,

There was a thread about it in the Classifieds. I think the consensus was that unless you bought quite a few pieces the freight assbanged you and made it not worth it.

I've seen so many things I wanted to buy off of Alibaba (not just brewing related stuff) but I don't think they're set up for individual retail sales. A lot of the manufacturers on there have a minimum order, which might be good if someone wanted to set up a group buy.

Anyways, I'm curious if someone knows.

I've purchased from Alibaba before. It's not really meant for a single order. Also most the time the company wants a bank to bank transfer which is sketchy as hell to say the least. Also lead times are about 2 months minimum. And you're buying from China which upsets my stomach....

I bought once it was even sketchier than a bank to bank transfer. They wanted the funds western union. I did get my stuff, but 3 weeks was a little nerve racking especially if it was a large sum of money.

What all did you buy? There is a plate chiller manufacture that quoted me 145 bucks for a 60 plate chiller with 1/2 inch npt threads. Sounds like a great group buy.

Duda diesal 60 plate is 259
Therminator is 200

I've lived and worked in China for 2 years now. Sketchy is an applicable description to so many things here. I would not recommend taking a blind chance on a purchase of any significance. Without being able to see it firsthand before shipping, I would not do it. $50-100 more for a plate chiller or fermenter is the confidence premium. I believe it's well worth it.

Just exhuming this old thread in case anyone has had success buying stuff from Alibaba since the original posting.

I was nosing around their website and they have these 10 liter, wide mouth, tempered glass, lead & cadmium-free carboys, complete with plastic handles for a couple of bucks (wholesale price of course plus you'd need to buy a couple of thousand)! I might drop them a line and ask for a few samples for "inspection"...

Try checking out aliexpress - I believe it's more or less the same site but a bit more aimed at direct sales to customer. Alibaba's B2B sales.

You won't believe it. I contacted one of the suppliers on Alibaba indicating that i'll buy 2 "samples" of their 10 liter jars and they replied "Sure, that'll be CNY50 each"! That's ~USD8 for each wide mouth, lead and cadmium-free glass carboy complete with lifting handles and double caps! They'd organize the courier service and I just need to pay the courier directly.

I'll ponder on this one over the weekend but if I go ahead with this purchase i'll surely let you know how they perform.

BTW, they said they have 20l ones too.

Thanks aangel but I checked aliexpress and they don't seem to offer large jars.

Here's the picture they sent:

Tippsy-Turvy said:

You won't believe it. I contacted one of the suppliers on Alibaba indicating that i'll buy 2 "samples" of their 10 liter jars and they replied "Sure, that'll be CNY50 each"! That's ~USD8 for each wide mouth, lead and cadmium-free glass carboy complete with lifting handles and double caps! They'd organize the courier service and I just need to pay the courier directly.

I'll ponder on this one over the weekend but if I go ahead with this purchase i'll surely let you know how they perform.

BTW, they said they have 20l ones too.

Thanks aangel but I checked aliexpress and they don't seem to offer large jars.

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I'd be very curious to see how those carboys really turn out. Ten liter glass carboys would be awesome for 1/2 batches. While still not unbreakable, the tempered glass might reduce the risk of breakage.

Keep us posted.

I'd only really go with China if there was something unique for sale - 3gal better bottles work nicely for me

I picked up a stainless steel carbonator cap that I'm super happy with for 13 bills shipped.

Has anybody bought a grain mill from aliexpress where I live they are very expensive ( about $300+) ive been eyeing one off for a while but always skeptical of stuff from China.

Has anybody bought a grain mill from aliexpress where I live they are very expensive ( about $300+) ive been eyeing one off for a while but always skeptical of stuff from China.

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One would be wise to be skeptical of Chinese goods given the plethora of problems with quality. Misrepresentation of a material's content is not a new phenomenon. Their quality control with items associated with human consumption is not stellar.

Any update on those carboys?

Ok, I went for it and they just arrived! Figured USD8 each so how bad can it get. Of course, you'd have to add your own delivery charges depending on how far and fast you want it sent.

Before I write any more, I want to acknowledge that I'm hijacking someone else's thread - hope you don't mind OP!

The conclusion is that I'm glad I got them in spite of the faults. I've only been using plastic so far so having solid glass wide-mouth carboys feels fantastic!

The cons (basically all the plastic parts):
The plastic workmanship is crap. The inner silicon cap doesn't fit well and so isn't water tight. The outer plastic screw-on lids feel thin and brittle and one arrived with a crack in it. They also don't seem to add any value. The lids are not water tight by themselves nor do they press down on the inner caps to make them water tight. The plastic handles hold up reasonably well to forceful yanking but they do wobble which scares the hell out of me. I can't imagine how they'd hold up for the 20L jar but thankfully I prefer 2 half-sized jars.

The pros:
1) The glass is thick and solid. There are tiny blemishes in the glass but they all seem to be on the outside and, from running my fingers around, it feels perfectly smooth inside. The seller confirmed that the glass is lead and cadmium-free but that it's NOT tempered. The tempered glass belongs to a different product range. I like how amongst the square patterns on the sides there's a large square "window" that'll allow me to stick on a strip thermometer.
2) The price.

Luckily I can fix the flaws in the plastic components and I don't need the jars to be airtight. I'm looking forward to my next brew day even more.

The jars in the bath tub:


Some blemishes on the glass:

iijakii said:

There was a thread about it in the Classifieds. I think the consensus was that unless you bought quite a few pieces the freight assbanged you and made it not worth it.

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depends on what you buy.... for example , you can buy the rtd temp probes that auber sells for less than auberins sells them for even with 3-5 shipping.

I bought a power supply board for my old samsung plasma about a year and a half ago from them because I could not find it ANYWHERE else... I was shocked that I received it about 36frs after placing the order and it shipped from china!

most of the stuff sold by many of the sponsers here are ordered in bulk by them from alibaba, marked up and then resold... exact same product and same quality just more direct source.

aangel said:

Try checking out aliexpress - I believe it's more or less the same site but a bit more aimed at direct sales to customer. Alibaba's B2B sales.

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Ditto... I have seen a lot of good deals here.
here are pid temp controllers for electric brewing that funtion identically to the units sold by auberins at over 2x the cost with shipping...

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro...ature-Controller-XMT612/209587_598878204.html

I needed a new thermometer, so I thought I'd give this one a try. I'm willing to gamble the $3.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Meat...old-Temperature-Detector-Tool/1062371036.html

I bet that "temperature detector tool" will work great in your "mash holding cylinder."

Tippsy-Turvy said:

Ok, I went for it and they just arrived! Figured USD8 each so how bad can it get. Of course, you'd have to add your own delivery charges depending on how far and fast you want it sent.

Before I write any more, I want to acknowledge that I'm hijacking someone else's thread - hope you don't mind OP!

The conclusion is that I'm glad I got them in spite of the faults. I've only been using plastic so far so having solid glass wide-mouth carboys feels fantastic!

The cons (basically all the plastic parts):
The plastic workmanship is crap. The inner silicon cap doesn't fit well and so isn't water tight. The outer plastic screw-on lids feel thin and brittle and one arrived with a crack in it. They also don't seem to add any value. The lids are not water tight by themselves nor do they press down on the inner caps to make them water tight. The plastic handles hold up reasonably well to forceful yanking but they do wobble which scares the hell out of me. I can't imagine how they'd hold up for the 20L jar but thankfully I prefer 2 half-sized jars.

The pros:
1) The glass is thick and solid. There are tiny blemishes in the glass but they all seem to be on the outside and, from running my fingers around, it feels perfectly smooth inside. The seller confirmed that the glass is lead and cadmium-free but that it's NOT tempered. The tempered glass belongs to a different product range. I like how amongst the square patterns on the sides there's a large square "window" that'll allow me to stick on a strip thermometer.
2) The price.

Luckily I can fix the flaws in the plastic components and I don't need the jars to be airtight. I'm looking forward to my next brew day even more.

Click to expand...

One just cracked. Luckily i had already bottled the beer and it didn't shatter or cause injury.

The really REALLY frustrating thing is that I don't know why it cracked. I am super-obsessively careful and have even built side bumpers and stuck foam pads on the bases. Never did i bump it during the day. It was just sitting on the bathroom floor with cleaning solution in it when I noticed, later, that most of the solution was on the floor.

I guess the adage remains true - you get what you pay for. I'm just upset and wanted to vent. Never mind.

I guess that I have been fortunate with my purchases from AliExpress and Alibaba. I have SST nuts (1" and 1/2" pipe thread) I paid $3.00 for including the shipping, a half dozen FOTEK SSRs in 40A and 25A, a handful of REX-C100 PIDs, numerous K Type probes, three different size waterproof glands (wiring through the side of enclosures).

Weldless Ball Valves (1000 WOG, the very same one that HomeBrewStuff sells), piles of silicone and rubber O-rings, refractometer (ATC) and many, many other misc. hardware parts.

The reality is that much of the stuff being sold to us from homebrew shops is from overseas and even though the law requires that they tell you its made there and not here, very few tell you in the web site and if it was taken out of a bulk package, even the sticker on the bag is gone.

There is a lot more to my experiences with Alibaba I'll not record here since its not on topic but my overall impression is that you have to be careful, negotiate samples, use the Buyer Protection on AliExpress (it really works) and do not expect perfection.

Firewalker11 said:

I guess that I have been fortunate with my purchases from AliExpress and Alibaba. I have SST nuts (1" and 1/2" pipe thread) I paid $3.00 for including the shipping, a half dozen FOTEK SSRs in 40A and 25A, a handful of REX-C100 PIDs, numerous K Type probes, three different size waterproof glands (wiring through the side of enclosures).

Weldless Ball Valves (1000 WOG, the very same one that HomeBrewStuff sells), piles of silicone and rubber O-rings, refractometer (ATC) and many, many other misc. hardware parts.

The reality is that much of the stuff being sold to us from homebrew shops is from overseas and even though the law requires that they tell you its made there and not here, very few tell you in the web site and if it was taken out of a bulk package, even the sticker on the bag is gone.

There is a lot more to my experiences with Alibaba I'll not record here since its not on topic but my overall impression is that you have to be careful, negotiate samples, use the Buyer Protection on AliExpress (it really works) and do not expect perfection.

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VERY VERY true...
People here will brag about how wonderful something is that they paid 2xtimes the price for through a local middleman and bash the exact same product being sold direct because its "cheap chinese junk" They choose to believe because they paid more for it from an american distributor that its somehow a different product....
There are some members here who are just not savvy enough to tell the difference between junk and a good buy and those people are the first to complain when they buy something without really checking feedback or doing any research and they are unhappy...
Common sense goes a long way in accomplishing more with spending or wasting more $$.

I have bought some stuff and was disappointed but nots not the case more often than not... I spent just over a grand on my whole Kal based electric setup and I have way more functionality with rims and flow switches and meter and 3 pumps.... some people here spend close to 10 times that and have a less capable setup...

My biggest issue with Alibaba is being flooded with solicitations long after I make an inquiry. Once you make direct contact with the sales people in China, they tend to be relentless.

I'm much happier with my experience with Chinese sellers on Ebay.......I've bought hundreds if not thousands of dollars of Chinese stuff on Ebay with uniformly good results.


What really is needed is a foreign exchange located in THIS country that aggressively ensures satisfaction. You want to sell your products to the EUS community (Europe / USA), you post a bond. Customer and seller disputes aggressively mediated to keep it clean and honest. As a seller you post a surety bond, as a buyer you post a surety bond. The service could negotiate good shipping rates to facilitate transactions. Feedback from both buyer and seller would NOT be optional, and negative feedback would be mediated up to resolution, or until the mediators concluded it had no merit. In other words a safe and friendly environment for HONEST buyers and sellers, and an aggressively hostile one for flakes and crooks. It would operate an Amazon.com style fulfillment warehouse system in China to make it easy and painless for small buyers to deal with large sellers. Everything about it would be focused on HONEST commerce. Connecting honest buyers with honest sellers, and weeding the trash out. It would operate a PayPal type payment system with an escrow feature.

It would go far beyond Alibaba.... It would not be a cheap service, but It would not have to be expensive..........you wouldn't last long ..... one or perhaps 2 transactions if you were a jerk, and ultimately you would only hurt yourself.

In many years of dealing over Ebay, I have bought close to 30K in products, and only been cheated about twice, and for small amounts of money. It's a good model and it works.


H.W.

Has anyone taken a flyer on the beer guns?

@augiedoggy has one

iijakii said:

@augiedoggy has one

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I purchased mine through the retail division of alibaba (Ali express) meant for actual end user customers and not resellers and businesses like Alibaba is geared for...

As far as the beergun? I havent used it yet but from the looks , feel and the directions I am VERY happy with my purchase so far.

Come'on man, inquiring minds want to know!

I have a similar question. I really like shopping at alibaba and aliexpress, last time I ordered an umbrella there. It's cool, but not really cheap unfortunately. Soo.. Do you think all discount coupons actually work? What do you think about these http://aliexpress-coupons.com/ coupons? Have anybody used such things already? I would really apreciate an advice. Thanks.

mbbransc said:

Come'on man, inquiring minds want to know!

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I used my beer gun recently and it works great! no issues at all. even the $20 regulator I bought on ebay to use with it works well without leaking.