Subject: What is the DHGate and is it Reliable and safe or scam?
In this DHGate review, I’m going to talk about what DHGate is, how I used it to buy stuff for myself at 80% less than the store price and how I then set up an eBay store selling socks that I bought cheaply on DHGate at a 320% ROI.
DHgate is a major online platform for buying goods from Chinese suppliers. Primarily a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce site, it specializes in connecting overseas buyers with sellers who are located in China.
Products are sold and shipped directly from China, often in bulk to bring down the cost per item. But, is DHgate a safe site?
While there appear, at first glance, to be significant advantages to buying from the site – namely, factory-direct shipping and very low prices – there are some important issues to consider.
Buying goods from sellers on this site can be risky as there is little quality oversight, and DHgate, like other Chinese e-commerce sites, is well known for facilitating the sale of counterfeits.
A recent report released by the United States Trade Representative cited not only the widespread presence of counterfeits, but also mentioned the availability of consumer products that were deemed unsafe on DHgate.
So, is DHgate.com safe for American consumers? It depends. Whether DHgate is safe may vary according to whether you are buying items for personal use or for resale.
Although DHgate has made progress in buyer protection, there are few, if any, quality controls at the product level. Extreme caution must be exercised, especially if you intend to resell the products.
👉👉👉 Click here to see the latest DHGate coupon code & offers
What is the DHGate?
👉👉👉 Website: https://www.dhgate.com
DH Gate is a marketplace of independent Chinese wholesalers and drop shippers.
When you buy through DH Gate, you are buying from one of these sellers, although DH Gate handles the transaction. It’s a lot like when you buy something on eBay, but DH Gate offers a refund guarantee on all purchases.
As of April 2018 there are over 10 million products available to buy on DHGate and there are around 1 million registered sellers.
Like on eBay, sellers on DHGate.com have ratings from their customers, like this:
These ratings are how you can tell if a seller is trustworthy, and they include a lot of detail – such as the item quality, shipping times and seller’s communication ratings.
Ratings for each seller are compared to the average for DH Gate, so you can easily see if a seller is relatively good or bad.
DHGate also offers protection for buyers – for example, if your order never arrives or it’s not as described they will offer a refund.
Many of the people who buy on DHGate are eBay, Amazon or other e-commerce businesses – but there are a number of individuals who buy through it as well.
Some of the top selling items are wedding dresses and electronics – and there are no minimum orders for over 90% of the items on DHGate, which makes it a good place to buy for yourself, or to source goods to drop ship to your customers.
Like when buying on eBay or Amazon, when you buy on DHGate.com you pay through the DH Gate website – your payment card details are never shared with any individual seller. DH Gate accepts all major cards.
DHGate offers lower prices than you are likely to see on other sites – even AliExpress.com – and as it’s less well known you get more unique products on DHGate.
DHG also has a lot of coupons and discounts. There’s an automatic $3 off any new purchase through this link, as well as $5 off purchases of $50 or more and $30 off $1,500 or more.
There’s a full list of the latest DHGate coupons here.
DHgate, They offer a huge variety of different items:
- Toys, Hobbies & Baby, Kids
- Electronics
- Cell Phones & Accessories
- Health & Beauty
- Computers & Cameras
- Jewelry & Watches
- Weddings & Formal Events
- Automobile & Motorcycle
- Apparel
- Sports & Outdoors
- Home & Garden
- Lights & Lighting
- Hair & Styling
- Bags, Shoes & Accessories
- More Categories
See Also: How to buy from dhgate and use the coupon code
Is DHGate.com Legit and safe or scam?
There seem to be a lot of people asking questions like “is DHGate a scam?” and “is DHGate safe to buy from?”.
DHGate is a legitimate site with millions of members that’s been trading since 2004 – it’s certainly not a scam and while the quality of sellers on any wholesale marketplace can vary, with DHGate you can check their customer ratings before risking any money.
This is a key advantage DHGate.com has over my original way of finding a supplier – when I was just searching on Google.
With my original supplier, I had to place a small test order before I trusted them to buy in bulk – and as I had to wait weeks for the first shipment to arrive, this was a really slow way of checking their reliability.
However, with DHGate you can see the reviews that previous customers have left for each seller.
This is a very accurate indicator of how trustworthy the seller is and much faster and cheaper than doing test orders.
The reason is that DHGate only pays the seller once you (the customer) have confirmed that your purchase is acceptable. A seller will not get paid if they supply poor quality goods and their ratings will be obviously bad.
A potential alternative to DH Gate, but an expensive one at up to $299 for membership, is to join a directory of certified suppliers like Worldwide Brands or Salehoo and buy through them.
The downside to a directory is the membership fee – World Wide Brands costs $299 to join while DHGate is free to join and use.
There are some other Worldwide Brands reviews (and discounts) online, so if you have the money to spend and you’re looking to buy in large quantities, it may be worth looking into, but I’m not going to review any paid directories here.
However, for most people, the ratings and guarantees offered by DHGate will be more than enough to buy wholesale products safely.
Is dhgate reliable?
The website DHGate does not sell any products itself. As earlier mentioned it consists of many shops selling products through DHGate.com. But yes the portal DHGate.com is very reliable. Can DHGate controle thousands of different shops entirely? NO, it is not possible for a portal like DHGate nor Amzon and Aliexpress to do so. There will always be people around looking for some easy money.
Nonetheless, DHGate has done a huge effort to stop shops in practising scams. With a little common sense you can completely avoid scams. Buy from shops who have a “reliable feedback” and that have existed for some time and you will be safe.
Online Reviews of DHgate
Overall, online DHgate reviews are overwhelmingly negative. These generally have to do with the customer service experience or the quality and authenticity of items received, rather than with the safety or credibility of DHGgate’s website.
On the online review site Trustpilot, for example, DHgate has a “Bad” overall rating. On a scale from 0-10, the site has a score of only 3.4. The majority of users – 73% – give DHgate 1 star out of 5.
Trustpilot does have some very positive reviews, like these two:
“Shipping and delivery times have been very good despite the fact we’re on opposite ends of the earth. I appreciate that, and the quality of the product has met my expectations, with a very few small exceptions that aren’t worth bothering about.”
“This is my go-to company for a wide variety of items. The customer service is impressive, the prices great, and the merchandise unique and good quality for the price.”
But the vast majority look more like this:
“Definitely my last choice, I only use DHGate if I cannot find a product anywhere else. It’s amazing to me how many times that happens and I am forced to buy something through DHGate.”
“Dishonest Sellers are the norm here; authentic products are hard to find.
One time I had to spend $125 to mail back VERIFIED FAKE merchandise to get back $275 of my $400 purchase, and my refund?… received approx 4 months after purchase.”
DHgate fares only slightly better on SiteJabber, another online review site. SiteJabber users have given DHgate an overall average of 2 stars out of 5. Out of 1923 reviews, 974 users gave the site the lowest possible rating of 1 star.
Remember earlier when we asked, “Is DHgate safe to buy dresses from?” One reviewer on SiteJabber said this,
“I purchased a ‘Royal blue’ evening gown from this company mid April. By the beginning of May, the dress still hadn’t arrived so I requested a refund. They denied the refund and sent the dress about a week later. When the dress arrived it was HORRIBLE. It was just a regular blue color and was cheap material and overall just not what I had expected.”
Buyers on both of these review sites reported a range of issues, such as being charged twice, not receiving refunds, being unable to contact customer service, and receiving fakes or poor quality items. Another common problem appears to be invalid tracking numbers provided by sellers, making it impossible to track packages.
So, is DHgate a safe website? Overall, it seems that DHgate is safe from monetary fraud, so in that way it is safe. But is DHgate safe overall, in terms of quality and physical safety with the items? Reviews are mixed.
How Does DHGate Work?
Buying through DHGate is about as straight forward as buying through eBay. You buy on the DHGate site, but you’re actually buying from a 3rd party seller who’s listed goods for sale there.
DHGate handles the transaction and you will be notified when your order has been received, and later when it’s been shipped. Many suppliers offer tracked and ‘ePacket’ shipping, so you’ll receive a notification when it arrives if you select this.
After payment, you will deal with the seller rather than DHGate, unless you escalate a complaint. The staff at DHGate are good, but it’s often best to contact a seller directly if you are unhappy – they will be helpful as they want to protect their ratings on the site.
- DHGate is easy to use and has a lot of products to buy
- Buying in bulk on DHGate will get you significant unit cost savings
- However, most sellers will supply single units to individuals too
- com is a legitimate site, trusted by resellers on eBay, Amazon, etc.
- If you buy on DHGate, shipping by China Post is slower than DHL or FedEx.
- Look at the seller ratings before you buy – make sure they are good
- There are coupons available for both first and repeat orders
Buying on DHGate is very cheap and it’s easy to find good quality sellers. There are many DHGate coupons available as well, especially for larger orders.
It’s also useful to have so many sellers in one place. When I started my sock business on eBay, I had only one supplier that I found manually.
But when I moved to buying wholesale goods through DHGate I had access to hundreds just in my small niche.
Be aware though that shipping via China Post can be slow, often taking 1-3 weeks for the goods to arrive, although tracking will be available.
If you buy in large quantities, it makes sense to upgrade to DHL or FedEx shipping, and DHGate offers these alternatives at usually between $5 and $25.
Dhgate positive and nagative
The Positive of the dhgate
There are some good reasons to buy through DHGate:
- Prices on DHGate are very low – and even lower if you buy in bulk. There are coupons for bigger orders too
- Over 10 million products listed by active sellers – their range is unmatched
- Suppliers ship to addresses around the world
- DHGate offers lower prices than similar sites (like Ali Express) as it’s not as well known and not as ‘saturated’
- Many suppliers offer free delivery, even on single units. Be aware this will be standard delivery though – which is slow, but you can often track it or upgrade to faster shipping for about $5-25 (with FEdEx, DHL, etc.)
- There’s no joining fee or memberships costs for DH Gate
- If a product is not as described or does not arrive then DH Gate offers a refund, as they do not pay sellers until the item has been received
- Every seller is rated in detail based on their product quality, shipping time, delivery options and customer service – so you can see if they are reliable before buying
- Sellers trade both in bulk and single units – with individuals and businesses. For example, DHGate is one of the largest retailers of wedding dresses in the world
- Reliability is better on DH Gate than similar sites. Most sellers offer good quality products – because they would not earn any money otherwise and have a bad rating
- Lots of trend products are available at really low prices – like the socks I sell. It’s easy to find ‘on trend’ stuff to sell cheaply
- Integrates with apps for Shopify – like Dropified
- Used by many eBay and Amazon sellers – you’ll often see stuff on DH Gate being resold on these sites at a large profit margin
- DH Gate has high ratings on review sites – like TrustPilot and SiteJabber.com
- DH Gate has an app that’s available on Google and Apple
The Negatives of dh gate
Nearly all sellers are based in China, so shipping is slow to the USA, Canada, Europe, etc.
Suppliers are not certified like in paid directories, but you can make an informed decision based on their ratings
DHGate is a great place to find low priced wholesale goods, but shipping is often slow unless you pay extra (about $5-25) for DHL or FedEx.
If you buy in medium to large quantities, because of the low prices on DHGate and coupons available, the extra cost of speedy delivery per unit is small.
What are the Alternatives to DH Gate?
The top alternatives to DHGate are AliExpress (Part of alibaba.com), Salehoo and Worldwide Brands – both the former are paid wholesaler directories, and are quite similar to DHGate , while AliExpress is the most similar.
There are also Doba and Oberlo (a tool for buying from drop shippers on Ali Express), but thee are only for drop shipping, whereas DHGate offers wholesalers also. DHGate is a directory of wholesalers and drop shippers, not just a drop shipping service like Doba is.
AliExpress.com is the main alternative to DH Gate
Some wholesale perfume might actually be a bit pricier than others (on DH Gate or elsewhere) but it doesn’t matter as you will need to make certain that the rates are decent but most importantly that it’s an upstanding wholesaler.
According to him, there are several affected companies, including big corporations. It’s well worth making a perfume business solely for the ease that includes getting the goods. Most business is now able to be accomplished by world wide web. The insurance companies don’t cover the price of these expensive devices.
Conclusion
DH Gate a good site to find low priced goods from China. Despite the low prices, it’s a legitimate site and a great source of both wholesale goods and really cheap one off purchases.
There are millions of products in a range of niches and there are tools that are there to help you filter the good suppliers from the bad.
You can easily see how reliable a seller is, how good their products are and how fast their shipping is from reviews on the DH Gate site – like on eBay but much more detailed.
DH Gate has the lowest priced goods, especially if you buy in bulk – for which there are also larger discount coupons available.
Most importantly, there are no minimum orders – so you can buy just single units if you want to.
Slow delivery is the only problem with DH Gate – and when I’ve bought in bulk I’ve paid extra (about $5-25) for fast shipping, which does more economical when you place a large order (you can also get extra coupons for large orders).
But if I was drop-shipping to my customers from China that extra shipping fee would be too expensive, and without it shipping takes 1-3 weeks to the USA.
So if you are building an online store and need fast delivery from a drop shipper, finding a US based supplier through Worldwide Brands may be better.
All of WWB’s suppliers are certified and are based mostly in North America and Europe – which means fast shipping. However, prices can be higher than DH Gate, so there is a trade-off.
Ultimately, DH Gate is great for anyone who wants to buy a one off item cheaply (e.g. a wedding dress) or a business that’s looking to buy goods to re-sell, as it’s probably the cheapest source of good quality stuff online.
Worldwide Brands and Salehoo are more niche – it’s probably best for a business that’s looking for a list of US based drop-shippers with fast shipping that can afford fees of up to $249 just to join.
