Do we like them?

Do we like AliExpress?

Online shopping marketplace linking mostly Chinese sellers with overseas buyers; part of Alibaba, based in Hangzhou, China.

Our score: 3 out of 10. Cheap and huge, but we wouldn't back it yet. The EU fined it a record sum over illegal and unsafe goods, and Korea penalised it over deceptive discounts.

AliExpress is Alibaba's marketplace for overseas shoppers. Third-party sellers, mostly in China, list the goods. Alibaba Group owns it. Jiang Fan runs the international commerce division that includes it, according to a 2023 filing. That filing is old, so his current title is worth checking.

The EU opened a Digital Services Act investigation in March 2024. In June 2025 the Commission made AliExpress's commitments binding. It also said preliminarily that the company had failed to assess and mitigate the risks from illegal products, and hadn't properly enforced penalties on repeat offenders.

In July 2026 the Commission fined AliExpress €550 million, reported as the largest DSA fine so far. Reports say regulators found weak oversight of counterfeit, unsafe and illegal goods. They also said the company leaned too heavily on automated systems. AliExpress called the fine disproportionate.

South Korea's antitrust regulator also penalised AliExpress in 2025 over deceptive discount practices on thousands of items, according to a report. We score it low until the fix actually works.