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Ask HN: Buying farm machinery from Alibaba

11 points by jelliclesfarm ↗ HN
This is pretty far out but having never bought anything from Alibaba, I was wondering if anyone has any experience buying large equipment from Alibaba?

I am intrigued by some of their equipment and would like to use it for my farm project...but does this involve straight forward customs/delivery etc? Would I have to pick it up from the port? Do I have to clear customs or would that be included in the freight paid?

If anyone has had any Alibaba machinery shopping experience, I could probably be guided by it.

8 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 25.4 ms ] thread
probably_wrong
Someone I know bought a rather specific piece of machinery for steel work. They ran into the problem that the item got stuck in customs, and sorting who was supposed to send which piece of paper to whom was a nightmare. Some of the paperwork being written in Chinese didn't help either.

Unfortunately I never asked how the whole thing ended. I know that, that customs not been an issue, the item was supposed to arrive to their address. At the end, it comes down to how much experience your seller has.

jelliclesfarm
Thank you. That’s my concern too. The language issue makes things not so straightforward.

I was wondering if there was an alibaba specific service to facilitate logistics. I was considering hiring a translator to help me navigate.

rfc
Have no idea if you've looked at these folks but I hear great things about https://www.flexport.com/

May be worth your time in reaching out.

Jb611
I used to sell stuff on Amazon and used Flexport as my freight forwarder. You definitely do NOT want to be driving to the port and trying to pick stuff up. Between the logistics and the paperwork, you'll want to just pay someone to do it for you. Start out by contacting them.
dhruvkar
We (a stone importer) use flexport.

They definitely have great customer service, albeit not always the best rates.

mitgraduate
This is also what i wonder why Alibaba doesn't take care of customs/logistics and ask us to just pay for it.

They leave it to local authorities who a many times screw up

matt_the_bass
Be sure to get familiar with Incoterms and specify which category of shipping you are agreeing to.