How I recently received my Aliexpress order in Nigeria

I recently received my order from ALiexpress and it was for 10 sets of earpiece which I bought online from China's international shopping site.

Aliexpress makes it easier and affordable for many Nigerians to buy things from China without the need for having huge capital.

For a while, I had been looking for an earpiece that looked a bit similar to one I already had but had malfunctioned and so I sought for a replacement online from several online stores but the only place I was able to find it for cheap was on Aliexpress.

The earpiece I purchased was sold at $1.5 but since I figured that I may also be charged an additional N500 by NIPOST, I thought it would be wise to reduce the handling cost to N50 per item by simply buying up to 10 units and they all fitted into 1 package. Lucky enough, I wasn't even charged a handling fee by NIPOST as I collected my item for free.

One of the ways I save money when shopping on Aliexpress from Nigeria is by purchasing items that come with free shipping and that means they would send it by postal mail till it reached the NIPOST office closest to my local government area from where I will be notified to go and collect it.

Well, about a week after I had placed the order, I tried to check my order status on Aliexpress by going to My Aliexpress > My orders to see if the seller has sent it and noticed that he has since he also provided a tracking number with it. However, when I used the tracking number 2 weeks later on the Postal mail tracking website, it was not trackable and I contacted seller later on informing him that the tracking number is not working. He replied by increasing my buyer protection period probably to ensure tha I received it in time so that I don't file a dispute before my buyer protection period ends.

When shopping on Aliexpress, the only protection I think buyers have is their protection period and it's during that period that they could raise a dispute if they have not received their goods in order to protect their funds from being stolen by the seller. But it's always recommended to only complain or raise a dispute a few days to the day it ends rather than the first few days after your order.

While I was patiently waiting for my Aliexpress package to arrive Nigeria and despite the fact that it was still untrackable, I had it in mind to protect myself by filing a dispute so that I don't lose my money before that protection period ends. Fortunately, however, I received an SMS notification from my local NIPOST office later on that I had a parcel to collect.

I later went to NIPOST to collect my parcel using a photocopy of my National ID and the lady gave me my parcel. I was also a bit surprised that I wasn't asked to pay any handling charge. It could be either because the lady forgot to ask me or that my parcel was not too light to handle. Anyway, I received my parcel and thanked the lady.

After I had collected my Aliexpress package despite the fact that I was unable to track it online and even got an SMS notification from NIPOST, I had to do a noble thing by confirming that I've received it so that the seller can be paid faster. I did that by logging into my Aliexpress account and went to orders to confirm that package has been received. You should only do that after you've received your items and ensured that they are no problems with it.

I don't know if this is a new notification system by NIPOST to send SMS rather than a physical note to people who have packages to collect. I think they should carry on with the SMS notification because it's so easy to lose those little notes they use for notifications.

Shopping on Aliexpress saves money and it's not just for the big buyers but also for the little buyers.