AliExpress

AliExpress is probably the clearest example, among all the stores audited in this series, of why one reputation source alone isn’t enough: depending on where you measure, the experience looks completely different.

The shopping experience: search, filters and product pages

At the digital-product level, AliExpress is far from an improvised store. The search engine lets you filter by price, seller rating, free shipping and country of origin, and includes image-based search to find products similar to a photo. Product pages are dense with information: multiple photos, technical specifications and, above all, reviews from real buyers with photos of the received product, a system that helps considerably in filtering out unreliable sellers before buying.

Checkout and purchase protection

The payment process supports multiple methods and currencies, and the platform offers a purchase-protection system that, in theory, covers the buyer if the product doesn’t arrive or doesn’t match what was advertised. In practice, several reviews describe granted refunds that don’t always cover the original shipping cost, which reduces the real scope of that protection for low-value orders.

An app very well rated… on the app stores

On the App Store, the AliExpress app has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 with more than 640,000 ratings; on Google Play, 4.3 out of 5 with more than 16 million. These are very solid figures for an app of this size, and reflect that the experience of browsing, searching and buying within the app works well for most users.

…and a much harsher reputation on Trustpilot

The contrast comes with Trustpilot: a TrustScore of 1.9 out of 5 across almost 188,000 reviews, rated “Bad.” Complaints concentrate on refund handling, delivery times and customer service, with recurring mentions of responses users describe as generic templates without real problem resolution. It’s not a contradiction: these are two different samples measuring different things. App ratings mainly reflect the standard buying experience (which works for most orders), while Trustpilot disproportionately concentrates users who’ve had a problem and are seeking to voice it on a platform built for that purpose.

What this means in practice

For low-value purchases, where an occasional problem isn’t a significant loss, AliExpress remains a reasonable option thanks to its catalog and prices. For higher-value purchases, it’s worth being more selective: choose sellers with many ratings and a good specific reputation, read reviews with photos before buying, and be willing to actively use the dispute system if something doesn’t arrive as promised.

Notable 2026 development: a record European Commission fine

On July 20, 2026, the European Commission imposed a €550 million fine on AliExpress for violating the Digital Services Act (DSA), following a formal investigation opened in March 2024. Brussels’ conclusion was that the platform’s product-detection systems “weren’t working properly”: numerous illegal or unsafe items went undetected, and others remained on sale even weeks after being flagged as problematic. It’s the highest penalty imposed to date under the DSA framework for merchandise control, exceeding the €200 million notified to Temu months earlier, and gives AliExpress until October 20, 2026 to submit a corrective action plan to the Commission. For this audit, the finding is relevant because it doesn’t speak only to user perception (Trustpilot) but to a formal, independent regulatory investigation that confirms, from another angle, that seller and product filtering on the platform has real structural flaws, not just anecdotal ones.

Specific patterns detected in refund complaints

Broadening our review of 2026 feedback, we’ve identified recurring tactics described by buyers during the dispute process: requests for professional inspection certificates (at the buyer’s expense) as a condition for accepting a refund on a defective product, case closures citing that the order shows as “delivered” even though the buyer maintains they never received it, and account suspensions under the generic label of “abnormal returns” that block new claims. We can’t independently verify each individual case, but the repetition of the same pattern across seemingly unrelated user reviews suggests this is systematic behavior in the dispute process rather than isolated incidents.

Affiliate disclosure

Product Auditors participates in AliExpress’s affiliate program through the Awin network. If you buy through the links on this page, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This commercial relationship does not influence the editorial assessment: the score reflects both the positive figures (app) and the negative ones (Trustpilot) with the same honesty.

Methodology for this audit

This analysis is based on AliExpress’s official website’s public documentation, on verified reviews published on Trustpilot, and on the public ratings of its app on the App Store and Google Play, checked in September 2026. It does not replace a first-hand purchase. You can read more in our editorial methodology.