Grey market and unclear conditions

You may have heard about it: tomorrow, November 11, is "Single's Day" on a famous Chinese online retailer. Single's Day, or "Singles' Day", is a Chinese holiday that has become a huge commercial event, so celebrated on November 11. It has thus become one of the most important online shopping days in the world, with massive promotions and sales on numerous sites, notably Alibaba and its Tmall platform. These global online shopping platforms offer a vast range of products at competitive prices, mainly from China, and connecting consumers to sellers from all over the world.

Regularly - and despite being among the cheapest on the French and European market - we have requests to match Aliexpress or Tmall prices. We work directly with official European distributors, such as Inmotion France or Kingsong France. AliExpress and similar sites are not supplied by the same network. For these sites, the warranty is of course not handled by the local (European) distributor, but by the seller on the platform (often based in China). The French distributor for Inmotion and Kingsong therefore does not intervene on products that do not come from its network whether under warranty, on quotation or even in an advisory capacity.

To save on manufacturing costs, these chains have them assembled using lower-quality components. These appliances may therefore not be compliant for the French or European market and perhaps have certain defects. In some cases, the product may also be locked to the Chinese market and therefore not usable on French/European soil. Keep in mind that the after-sales service (and the legal warranty) will be carried out by the platform seller. If you have any queries, you must contact the retailer who sold it to you, and (if necessary) return the product at your own expense.

If you wish to buy on AliExpress, you will also need to comply with French tax regulations and declare your purchase, paying VAT 20% as well as customs duties ( 6% ) on receipt of the product. In some cases, your bank will also charge you bank conversion fees if payment is made in US dollars, which can be in the region of 2 to 4% depending on the bank.

And if not, you can always ask Oscar for his last word - sorry, his last prize!