"Art Todesco" wrote in message
...

stuff snipped

I've always hesitated from ordering direct from Europe or Asia. Anyone
have any
experiences with ALI? I know they were just in the news, I think
something about going
public or some other financial thing (I'm an engineering nerd, so excuse
my lack of financial knowledge).

I order from China all the time, sometimes through eBay and Amazon,
sometimes directly. Never had a really serious problem. One thing to be
aware of is that it's a lot cheaper for them to ship to us than us to ship
to them, and that can be a factor if you have to return something. For
items in the $20 to $50 range, you can end up spending as much to return a
defective item (with tracking) in postage.

--
Bobby G.