Originally Posted by danevans

You probably already looked into problem of quality control, there are gold suppliers and verified companies, and the safer but a bit more expensive route of getting a local agent who will visit the company and make sure you get what you pay for before they ship it.
We ordered some electronics before, stuff like clappers (clap on clap off, as seen on tv, not the electric bug killers), and literally 15% worked, rest was crap. Similar deal with a small batch of android usb-mini PCs, some burned as soon as they were plugged in, sometimes chargers were faulty etc. (this was via made-in-china, but alibaba is the same). If you're ordering shirts/clothes, actual measures in cm/in are a must, do not rely on their S/M/L/XXL tags. hope this helps a bit