DHGate is probably the best known AliExpress alternative alongside eBay and Wish when it comes to products imported directly from China. Although the page is quite well known in the United States and China, the truth is that the name of the platform is quite unknown in Spain, Mexico and the rest of Latin American countries. For this reason, there are precisely few users who wonder if DHGate is reliable. Do the shipments arrive? What opinions do your users have? It is safe? Let's see what DHGate is and what are its advantages and disadvantages.
Three reasons why DHGate is safe
Are you looking to give away cheap clothes for Christmas? Maybe a complement for your mobile? Or a soccer horse riding for your favorite team? It is not for nothing that DHGate is the largest Chinese import portal alongside AliExpress. Let's look at some of the reasons why DHGate is safe .
Has 15 years of experience
Created in 2005, it did not arrive in Spain until a few years later. Together with the Alibaba group, currently responsible for AliExpress, it is one of the most important import platforms for Chinese products today.
To rate the quality of a product, always check the comments of other users.
The website also operates in wholesale purchases, being one of the distributors with the highest volume of sales throughout the world .
Returns and complaints system works quite well
Although the customer service is not as efficient as the page promises (we will talk about this later), the truth is that the returns and complaints system is usually quite effective.
If we file a complaint about an order or item that we have placed within the page, it usually dictates a positive response in case the seller does not respond to our request . If we are going to make a return, the process is quite simple and comparable even to the Amazon service.
Payment methods are safe
While it is true that the web does not have PayPal as a payment method, the truth is that the native DHGate payment gateway is totally secure. In addition to being encrypted, the credit card data is not shared with any other server that is not owned by the company.
Four reasons why DHGate is unreliable
Not all the bush is oregano, and less if we talk about a trading platform whose experience does not depend on a professional service, but on vendors external to DHGate. Let's look at some of the reasons why DHGate is not safe .
PayPal is not supported as a payment method
We have said it many times: PayPal is the safest method of payment on the Internet. The reason for this is because the PayPal service itself has insurance that allows us to claim the amount owed in case the company does not respond to our claims.
Shipping errors, broken items, packages not reaching their destination… Unfortunately, DHGate does not support this payment method . Neither is AliExpress nor other import platforms.
The shopping experience depends on the seller
Like eBay and AliExpress, the shopping experience within the platform is entirely up to the seller. DHGate is limited to acting as an intermediary when carrying out transactions between the buying party and the selling party.
Always take a look at the seller's rating before buying a product.
For this reason, from the tuexperto.com team we strongly recommend consulting the average valuation of the sellers before making a purchase on the Chinese website.
Shipments do not meet the established deadlines
Again another of the factors why DHGate is not reliable depends entirely on third parties. In the absence of a single courier service, the experience when shipping items to their destination may vary from one seller to another . Also from one product to another: the higher the value of the product, the more likely it will be retained at customs.
The general trend of the opinions of DHGate confirms, however, that the delivery time is usually much longer than that indicated on the platform itself. From four weeks to three months and even four and five in some cases.
Customer service leaves to be desired
The options for submitting a complaint or claim to DHGate customer service are varied. The first option that the platform offers is based precisely on contacting the buyer directly . In the event of no response from the latter, the DHGate service will act as a mediator to act as a judge when passing a sentence.
The problem is that most of the time the system leaves a lot to be desired. Automated responses, emails that do not get a response and contradictory indications , sentence the majority of users who have had a problem with external vendors to the web and who have raised the complaint to the DHGate service.
Conclusion: is DHGate reliable?
If we limit ourselves to talking only about DHGate, we can affirm that the platform is totally secure. It is because of the security of your payments and the options it offers to process a complaint. It is true that customer service is quite limited , although in general we will not have to resort to it unless the seller does not respond to us or we want to raise the complaint to the company itself to obtain an objective mediation.
Another major drawback of the web is that the delivery time is quite long . It also does not support PayPal as a payment method, like AliExpress and the rest of the import pages. Roughly speaking, we can safely conclude that DHGate is safe, although from tuexperto.com we recommend analyzing the products to buy and the valuation of the sellers .
If we are going to acquire products with a cost that exceeds 100 euros, the best option is to resort to stores based in Europe that offer a series of guarantees . Nothing that we do not recommend with other platforms of this type.