Yes, DHgate is a legitimate online marketplace based in China. It connects buyers worldwide with Chinese wholesalers and manufacturers who offer a wide range of products at generally lower prices.
However, as with any large online marketplace, there are both reputable and less-reputable sellers. The quality of products and the customer service experience can vary greatly. Some customers have reported issues with counterfeit items, long shipping times, or problems with returns and refunds.
Here are some tips if you decide to purchase from DHgate:
- Check Seller Ratings and Reviews: Just like on other marketplace sites, sellers on DHgate are rated by the buyers. It is recommended to buy from sellers with high ratings and positive reviews.
- Understand the Risks of Counterfeit Goods: DHgate has been known to host sellers who offer counterfeit versions of name-brand goods. If a deal looks too good to be true, it likely is.
- Consider Shipping Times: Since many sellers on DHgate are based in China, shipping times can be lengthy. It’s important to keep this in mind when making purchases.
- Read Product Descriptions Carefully: Make sure you understand exactly what you’re purchasing by reading the product description thoroughly.
- Understand Return Policies: Each seller may have different return policies. Make sure to understand these policies before you purchase.
- Use Secure Payment Methods: DHgate offers a secure payment platform, and using a credit card can provide additional protections.
As always, be aware of potential risks when purchasing online and take steps to protect yourself.
DHGate will be thoroughly examined in this review, in order to know if they offer quality materials or not. The customers’ complaints and feedback from popular scam watch platforms online will also be evaluated.
What is DHGate?
DHgate.com is one of the online wholesale platforms for products that are made in China. It connects international buyers with the Chinese wholesale sellers that offer the exact quality products that are found elsewhere at a cheaper price.
DHgate has more than 30 million products in a wide range of categories which includes products like Computers & Networking, Apparel & Accessories, Consumer Electronics, Health & Beauty, Toys & Hobbies, Home, Bags & Jewelry, Auto, and many more.
Get cheap prices on top-selling products which includes but not limited to Tablet, PC, Cell Phones and Wedding Dresses etc. The company offers a buyer protection plan, express delivery, secure refund policy and also shipment tracking. And they claim to be committed to offering a fast, easy, and safe buying experience to businesses as well as consumers all over the world.
DHGate is an online marketplace. In an open online marketplace, any seller from any part of the world should be able to list his/ her goods, and any buyer from any part of the world should be welcome to buy. However, true to their “linking China to the rest of the world” goal, at the moment DHGate does not provide seller services for users who are not in China.
Thus, all the sellers on the website are Chinese. DHGate says that they might consider extending their seller service to include other countries in the future; but at the time of writing, DHGate’s sellers are exclusively China-based. However, having sellers from only one country does not mean you’ll be hard-pressed to find a suitable seller or merchandise.At the time of writing, DH Gate had over a million sellers and over 20 million product listings at any one time. The seller’s restriction does not extend to buyers; the buyer service of DH Gate is worldwide, so they are able to serve many more customers, which is estimated at over 10 million.
The website (www.dhgate.com) is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and Spanish. The website can be used by anyone who’s 18 years and above; those not up to 18 but above 13 may also use the site, but with the supervision of a parent or legal guardian. The good news is there are no signup charges or membership fees.
This DHGate review will examine the fashion to know if they actually deliver quality products or not. Customer complaints and feedback will also be evaluated
DHGate claims to be the world’s leading B2B e-commerce wholesale marketplace. Does the platform offer the products and the services to be the world’s leading B2B e-commerce marketplace, or is their claim just a marketing blurb? In the first place, is DHGate products genuine?Yes, DHGate a legit. It is not a scam because they will never steal your money or credit card information. In a few investigations we made, we discovered that they have legitimate activities.
This review also evaluates DHGate in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.
DHGate review at a glance
- The website is www.dhgate.com
- An online marketplace founded in 2004
- It’s basically a marketplace of Chinese wholesalers and drop-shippers serving worldwide buyers
- DH gate holds over 1 million sellers
- Supports a variety of consumer goods, with over 10 million products listed at any one time
- Offers relatively low prices, and a lot of cost-saving offers
- Offers a “buyer protection” which enables successful returns for refunds or replacement
- Customer support is available via email and live chat
Is DHGate legit?
DHGate is a legitimate online store. It does not take part in scam activities because customers do get their products when ordered. We have also seen lots of customers with positive feedback about DHGgate. But there are also a few DHGgate complaints which are normal for popular stores such as this.
Is DHGate safe?
DHGate is also safe to use. Another important consideration is whether DH Gate is safe. You don’t want to be ripped off; that is why you check for a legit store/ platform in the first place. But if the legit store is not safe, you could end up still being ripped off. Thus, the ideal retailing platform should not only be legit but also safe.
Safety, in this case, is ensuring that the sensitive information that you share with the platform is protected and prevented from falling into the wrong hands. For example, you’ll submit your credit card details when you pay with credit cards; and you definitely don’t want such information in the hands of cyber fraudsters for obvious reasons.
DH Gate says all the right things, like that they respect your privacy, and that they are committed to protecting it. Without providing details, they say that they utilize sophisticated technology to ensure customers’ information is protected online; and that other measures are taken to ensure offline security.While we like the details to boast our confidence in the effectiveness of the measures, it’s safe to say that DH Gate is safe. For one, DH Gate has consistently passed the strictest global data security payment standard; and most importantly, DH Gate has not suffered a data breach.
DH Gate Background
DHGate was founded in 2004 by Diane Wang who still serves as the CEO. DHGate is owned by the Dunhuang Group. The DH in the name (DH Gate) actually refers to Dunhuang, which is a Chinese city that is storied to link China to the rest of the world in ancient times. That tells you what DH Gate aims to achieve; to be the online version of Dunhuang, and link China to the rest of the world in modern times.
How it works
DHGate is an online marketplace that connects Chinese sellers (manufacturers, wholesalers, drop shippers) and buyers from around the world. Thus, when you buy any item on the DH Gate website, you’re not actually buying from DH Gate, but from one of the third-party sellers listing items for sale on the website.
DH Gate does not maintain any inventory, and as such has no warehouse/fulfilment centre. The sellers list merchandise on the website owner and maintain the inventory; they
[the sellers]set the price, and determine the service package. What DH Gate simply does is link you with these sellers.
Apart from its linking role, one of the other active roles that DHGate plays is in payment. When you make payment for merchandise, you’ll be paying to DHGate, who will then release the payment to the seller at a later time. [More on this later] You’ll receive a notification when your order has been received, and when it has been shipped. Communications will be direct with the seller; it is only when things go south, and you escalate to DH Gate, that they’ll step in to mediate.
The DHGate website is mobile optimized, so you can shop on the go. Being mobile-optimized is more than just mobile compatible; optimizing means the web pages resize to fit the screen of your mobile device for an optimal viewing experience.
The website is also pretty intuitive, and using it is straightforward. You can find items by clicking through the product categories on the main page or in the product channel until you find what you want. Alternatively, you may simply type the product keyword into the search panel, and you’ll get the relevant results.
Features
DHGate Buyer Protection
Buyer protection is simply what it sounds like – a mechanism to protect the buyer (you). As documented, you’re not actually buying the merchandise from DHGate when you buy from the site. However, the payment is made through DHGate Gateway. In simple terms, you pay to DH Gate. And that is where you are protected; because DH Gate will only release the payment to the seller only when you confirm that you have received delivery of your package and that you are satisfied with the item(s).If it turns out that the seller does not deliver your order, or that the items delivered to you are not what you expected; DHGate can help you with getting a replacement or a refund.
Thus, DHGate even advises that no buyer should entertain proposals from sellers to complete transactions directly with them instead of via DH Gate; and that any seller on the website who drops that suggestion should be reported immediately.
Resources for Selecting Good Suppliers
Just as in your typical marketplace, there are all kinds of sellers, ranging from those with legit functional products to those you’ll rather avoid. The good news is that DHGate offers resources to help you avoid sellers you’ll rather avoid, and select the good sellers. One such resource is the “Seller’s review profile” which is a page where you can view the reviews left by other buyers about the seller.
The good thing is that this is not a page put together by the individual sellers, so a seller cannot filter reviews to only feature positive reviews. We’ve found that on most websites owned and operated by retailers; the store will accept and post raving reviews written by customers but will reject and not post scathing reviews written by customers.For that reason, we usually recommend that the reviews found on the website of stores should be taken with a pinch of salt; and that for balanced reviews, the independent customers’ review platforms should be the go-to place.
This “Seller’s Review Profile” in DH Gate qualifies as an independent customers’ review platform because the particular seller has no say in the reviews that are posted there. This review will go a long way in helping you in determining good sellers.
Other resources that’ll help include review scores and service scores. The review scores are a derivative of the reviews; the percentage of positive reviews that a seller has is used to rate the seller. For example, you’ll find a seller with 98% positive reviews rated as a “Superior Supplier”; and that tells you that the seller is trustworthy. Another good thing about the reviews is that they come with dates; so you won’t be seeing all historical reviews clumped together. You can view recent reviews (last month, last 2 months, last 6 months, etc), and determine not just the performance of the seller, but the current performance of the seller.
The “service score” is even a superior metric for judging a seller’s performance because it includes a lot of detail. The ratings include: whether the items received are as described; delivery time; shipping cost; seller’s communication level, and more. You’ll also find a comparison of these ratings with the average for DH Gate, and that gives you an idea of the performance of the particular seller.
Wholesale and Retail
Seeing DHGate advertising as “the world’s leading B2B e-commerce wholesale marketplace”, will have you thinking that all sellers in the platform trade only in bulk. However, sellers in DH Gate actually trade both in bulk and in single units. So you can actually use DH Gate for both wholesale and retail shopping.
You’ll even find that many of the stores in platforms such as eBay sells items originally obtained from DHGate. Thus, you can use DH Gate to get single units for your own use; as well as to get inventory for your own store (whether online or offline).
Negotiable
In most online retail stores, the listed prices are the final prices. You either “take it or leave it” – order the item at the price or move to another item.
However, since DHGate is a marketplace, there are lots of options. Granted there are sellers whose listed prices are final prices, but you’ll also find certain sellers listing items that are negotiable. DH Gate provides the negotiation platform, via a “Request For Quotation” (RFQ) button. Clicking the button will enable you to view the seller’s offer, decide to join, discuss fresh terms, etc.
Product
Product Range
There can be no shop without products. Thus, the items that can be gotten in a place are an important consideration. One of such product considerations is the product range, which has to do with the variety of products that can be gotten in the place.
In this regard, DH Gate comes out strong. A platform is a marketplace for consumer goods; and since consumer goods cover different niches, DH Gate comes out as a hold-it-all store. The product categories you’ll find in the platform are:
- Apparel – women wear, me wear, kids, wear
- Automobiles and motorcycles
- Baby, Kids and Maternity
- Bags, Luggage and Accessories
- Business and Industrial goods
- Cell Phones and Accessories
- Computers and Networking Accessories
- Electronics and Cameras
- Fashion Accessories
- Food and Beverage
- Games and Accessories
- Hair and Styling items, and accessories
- Health and Beauty products
- Home, Gardening items
- Home Appliances
- Jewelry and Watches
- Light and Lighting
- Musical Instruments
- Security and Surveillance
- Shoes and Accessories
- Sports and Outdoor items, including active gear
- Toys and Gift
- Weddings and Events
The above categories show that you’ll find every consumer good in DHGate.
Inventory Size
When making your purchase, you’ll definitely choose a place with a good number of items over a place with just a few items. This is because with many items, you have a bigger pool to choose from, and you’re more likely to find something that matches your taste and budget. Thus, the ideal shopping place should have a large inventory of each product type.
How does DH Gate fare in this regard? Suffice it to say that DH Gate has about 1.4 million sellers, and these are not just small-time retailers, but mainly manufacturers and wholesalers. QED. You’ll find thousands of particular merchandise, and your selection needs will be adequately served.
Product Quality
One of the most important constitutions when looking at the products in a shopping place is quality. Even when looking to buy low and affordable items, no one will want to get low-quality items that’ll be gone tomorrow.
In a marketplace, one of the first guarantees of quality is that every seller on the platform is a certified supplier. Being certified, amongst other things, means that their products must meet minimum quality requirements. However, in DHGate suppliers are not certified. We also couldn’t find any stringent requirements that sellers have to meet to be admitted.
However, that is not mean that items in DHGate are of poor quality. It only means that you are as likely to get poor-quality items as you are to get good-quality items. But this is what should be expected from a marketplace; especially one that is not for certified sellers only. The reviews of DHGate also reveal this.There are many reviews reporting that items gotten from the site had decent quality (as described in the advert note, properly made, durable, etc); on the other hand, you’ll also find scathing reviews of customers wholly dissatisfied with items delivered, such as where items significantly different from what is described or pictured.
It should be said that it appears to us that the approach of DHGate in ensuring the delivery of quality items is not seller-centred but customer-centred. That is, instead of policing the quality of items on its seller’s list, they rather ensure that the buyer is happy with what is received [through buyer protection]. That way, the seller will not receive payment when the buyer complains of receiving poor-quality materials. Thus, the sellers are forced to deliver decent quality.
Price, Promotions, and Payment Methods
Price
The price of items is one of the first things buyers check when checking out items in a store, and for good reasons. No one will be willing to pay what is unreasonable for any item. As a result, the ideal selling platform should feature reasonable (read as, low and affordable) prices.
DH Gate ticks the box in this regard. DHGate is cheap. In many review platforms, DH Gate is described as a marketplace for discounted consumer goods. Note that “discounted” is almost always used as a modifier.
The best way to gauge the reasonableness of the prices of a platform is to do a comparison with similar platforms. In this regard, DHGate easily beats other consumer goods marketplaces, even those known for low prices themselves such as Ali Express. You’ll find items in DHGate up to 30% – 80% lower than you’ll find them in retail outlets; and about 5% – 50% lower than you’ll find them on incomparable discount products platforms.
Promotions
Everybody wants cost-saving offers, and that is what promotions represent. Promotions give buyers the opportunity to buy items for less than their full prices. There are even some promotions that give extra products if a certain number of the product is purchased. Thus, buyers typically want to sell platforms or stores with a lot of promotional offers.
DH Gate also ticks the box in this regard. You’ll find a lot of offers and coupons on the site. For example, when we first visited the site, we were greeted with a “New Buyers’ Coupon Pack” with a $88 value. The offer promised: $2 off orders of $10+, $6 off orders of $60+, $10 off orders of $99+, $20 off orders of $199+, and $50 off orders of $499+.
Not only new buyers get treats. Apart from these new buyer coupons, you’ll find a host of others. Whether you’re a low-budget shopper or a high-budget shopper, you’ll find tantalizing coupons. For example, you’ll find coupons for orders as low as $5+ (get $2 for orders of $5+), as well as for orders of $1000+ (get $150 for orders of $1000+). These amazing cost-saving offers of DH Gate further push down their already low prices, and serve to make the platform even more attractive.
Payment Methods
You don’t want to have a headache when paying for your order. First, you’ll want the platform to support a wide range of payment options so that you can easily find one to use no matter where you are resident. Secondly, you’ll want any of the payment methods you grab to be hassle-free and convenient.
DHGate ticks the box on both counts. First, there is support for a wide range of payment methods. Some of the worldwide options that you may use in paying for items on the platform are Visa, Master Card, American Express, Skrill (Moneybookers), Bank Transfer, Diners Club, Discover Card, Union Pay, Maestro card, Masterpass (E-wallet).There is support for other country-specific payment methods. For example, residents of Australia may use the bank transfer options Poli (online) and Bpay (offline), as well as Apple Pay. Sofort Banking is also available in Countries such as Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, etc.There’s GiroPay in Germany, Nordea in Finland, iDeal in the Netherlands, Przelewy 24 in Poland, Yandex Money and Qiwi in Russia, OXXO in Mexico, Boleto in Brazil, and so on.
With so many options, you’ll definitely have no issues with finding one to use for paying for your order. The only bump here is that PayPal is not supported as a payment option, and there are many customers who’ll want the option.In fact, DH Gate used to be one of the biggest partners of PayPal and they supported PayPal for many years until recently when the partnership agreement was terminated.
Shipping
One way online purchase differs from traditional purchases (from brick and mortar stores) is that you can simply walk out of an online store with the purchased item(s). The item(s) has to be shipped from the seller’s fulfilment centre to where you’ll receive delivery of it.As a result, shipping is an important consideration in online purchases. Some of the most important shipping elements include shipping destinations, shipping times, and shipping costs.
Shipping Destination
DH Gate buyer service is worldwide which means anybody from any part of the world can make purchases using DHGate.
You’ll be unable to buy from many online stores because they do not ship to your location; however, in DHGate, you’ll most likely find a seller that ships to where you are resident.
Shipping Times
This is how much time will elapse from when you place the order to when it will be delivered to you. You don’t want to wait forever to receive your package; thus, you’ll want a store that features fast delivery.
Because the individual sellers handle their services, it’s difficult to quote any particular times as generic. You’ll find the expected shipping times for any item displayed before you complete your order. You’ll have a choice of different shipping services, which include regular post, UPS, FedEx, DHL, EMS, and more. The regular post is the Standard delivery service and generally takes the longest to deliver.
However, it should be noted that shipping time when you buy from DH Gate is generally longer than when you buy from domestic stores (that is online stores based in your country). This is because the sellers that DH Gate features are all based in China, so the merchandise will be shipping from China.
Shipping Cost
Shipping costs add to the purchase cost for the total expenditure on items. Thus, high shipping charges can take the overall spend to an unacceptable range even if the items themselves were perceived as acceptably priced. As a result, you’ll want places that offer shipping costs that are as low as possible.
Because DHGate is a marketplace, there’s no quoting a particular figure as shipping costs. What you’ll pay for shipping will depend on the particular seller of the item(s), the shipping service you choose, and where the merchandise is shipping to (your location). Generally, the Standard delivery (regular post) is the cheapest option; and you’ll be a little premium to get a faster delivery option.
The good news is that many sellers in DHGate offer free shipping, even for single-unit purchases. However, free shipping will almost always go via the regular post.
Returns
Especially with online purchases where you did not have the opportunity to physically assess an item before ordering it, you’ll want to be able to return the item to the store (for a refund or a replacement) if you are not totally satisfied with what is delivered to you. Thus, it’s really a no-brainer that you should deal only with stores that allow returns.
In DH Gate returns are allowed; but since the platform is just a marketplace, returns are subject to the individual seller’s service terms. Thus, before buying any item, it will be good to review the seller’s offers, such as how much will be refunded, etc.
If you are not totally satisfied with an item that you got from the DH Gate website, you’ll have to open a “dispute request” with the seller. The time you’ll have for doing this will depend on the delivery option of your package. You’ll have within 5 – 90 days if your order shipped via UPS, FedEx, TNT or DHL; within 7 – 90 days if your package shipped via EMS, E-packet or E-quick; and within 10 – 90 days if your package shipped via regular post. The seller can then respond to your dispute request, and you two will work out a solution.
However, DHGate will not leave you at the mercy of the particular seller. If the seller does not respond to the dispute request or you are not satisfied with the solution of the seller, you can escalate a return/ refund dispute to DHGate, and they’ll step in for mediation. Also, the process is fairly easy; you only have to click “request DHGate mediation” from your account.
After an agreement is reached (whether directly with the seller or through DH Gate’s mediation), you’ll have to execute the agreement. It usually involves returning the item back to the seller. At this stage, you’ll find a link to the seller’s shipping address, and you can use that to mail the return package appropriately.
Return Cost
There is no hard and dry figure to report as you’ll be dealing with particular sellers. Usually, who will be responsible for the return shipping cost will be spelt out when finalizing the agreement to close the dispute request.
There’s no free and prepaid returns label that you can attach to the return package and be freed from paying any fees when you mail the package. You’ll have to pay the relevant shipping charges when posting the returns package and show your invoice (if the seller is to bear the return shipping cost).If the agreement has it that you’ll bear the shipping charges, there’ll be no refunds; but if the agreement has it that the seller will bear the return shipping costs, DHGate will deduct the relevant amount from the payment before crediting the seller, and will credit you with it.
Exchanges
Most times, customers return items in order to get another in its place. Usually, such product exchanges are sought after because it allows you to get the replacement product in less time. This is because you’ll not have to wait to be refunded before placing the new order. Also, product exchanges offer cost savings; because most often than not, the seller is responsible for the shipping of the replacement. However, if you had simply obtained a refund and placed a new order, you might have to pay for its shipping.Given that original shipping costs are largely non-refundable, when you return the first item and buy another item in its place, it’ll translate to double charges for shipping to get an item.
Thankfully, exchanges are allowed by a host of sellers in DG Gate. When you’re not totally satisfied with an item delivered to you, you can return it and request a replacement. However, that’ll all be in the dispute request that you raise after receiving the delivery of the original package.When it’s agreed that a seller will send the replacement, the agreement will cover every detail such as who’ll be responsible for shipping the replacement item, and the time frame it’ll take.
DH Gate gives you 90 days to confirm that you have received the replacement item and are pleased with it. If no confirmation is received from you after 90 days, your payment will be released to the seller, and there’ll be nothing else DH Gate can do to help.
Does DHGate Offer Genuine Products?
They have been delivering quality product since inception. And its customers also have very positive feedback about the products and
Thus, when it comes to buying merchandise online; you want to make sure that you use only legit platforms. That brings us to the question of whether DHGate is legit or a scam platform. There are people that cheaply throw the word “scam” at any platform they are dissatisfied with, and conversely throw “legit” at platforms they are pleased with.
However, we’ll provide you with information that’ll help with objective analysis. We’ll look at the legit from different perspectives – legality, fulfilling orders, items fit for purpose. In the first angle, there’s no doubt that DHGate is a 100% legal company.
The ownership of the company can be traced to the Dunhuang Group, which is a legally registered company with a bunch of other legally registered companies under its wing. Suffice it to say that scam stores do not seek legal recognition via company registrations.
The second angle of legitimacy (fulfilling orders) is even more important if you ask many customers. It wouldn’t matter to a customer that a company is 100% legal if the customer does not receive his/ her package after placing an order; in his/ her eyes, the company that does not fulfil orders is a scam. In this regard, DH Gate “fulfils” orders. Granted, the company does not maintain any physical inventory; it only host sellers who has the actual inventory and whose responsibility it is to fulfil the orders, but DH Gate has a system that ensures that the sellers in their website fulfil orders.
Once again, the sceptic may argue that having a system that ensures orders are fulfilled doesn’t necessarily translate to fulfilling orders. While the argument is right; there are many things that show that in the case of DHGate, orders are actually fulfilled.
First is the test of time; since launching, DHGate has operated for almost 15 years. Suffice it to say that a platform that does not deliver orders will be called out and will naturally die off. Interestingly, DHGate has become more popular and now boasts over 10 million customers.
Also, DHGate has received notable nominations and awards from industry watchers which include Deloitte Technology, and Business Review. For example, in 2009, DHGate ranked second in “China Trade Future Stars” by Business Review, and also ranked in the Deloitte Technology “China’s Top 50 Fast Growing Enterprise”; while in 2011, the platform was named by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce as one of China’s Top four e-Commerce platforms for international trade.
Suffice it to say that a scam which does not deliver orders cannot earn such reviews and endorsements from industry watchers.
SitesJabber-DHGate-Review:
According to Sitejabber, 6230 customers reviewed DHGate. Out of this number, 3412 customers said the DHGate is an excellent store to buy from by giving the store 5 STARS out of 5. 675 customers also said that DHGate is a great store by rating the store 4 out of 5 STARS. 282 customers said that DHGate is an average store through their 3 out of 5 STARS rating. 168 customers said that DHGate is poor rating the store 2 out of 5 STARS. And finally, 1693 customers rated DHGate Bad by giving them 1 out of 5 STARS.
Here the positive reviews are higher than negative ones. So, with this, we can say that DHGate is a genuine and a great platform
TrustPilot DHGate customer reviews:
At Trustpilot, we discovered that 19296 customers reviewed DHGate. And out of this, 74% rated DHGate 5 out of 5 STARS (Excellent). And 12% rated the platform 4 out of 5 STARS(Great). Also, 14% rated DHGate 3 out of 5 STARS (Average). While 2% of customers rated DHGate 2 out of 5 STARS (Poor). And finally, 9% rated Customers DHGate 1 out of 5 STARS (Bad).
Here, a great number of customer said their experience with DHGate is excellent. Only a very few the platform is bad. So, we can confidently say the DHGate is highly reliable and legitimate.
Review.io DHGate Reviews:
At review.io, there are 6777 customers reviews, and 7.59% rated DHGaate 5 out of 5 STARS (excellent). 1.58% rated DHGate 4 out of 5 STARS (Great). 1.90% of the customers rated DHGate 3 out of 5 STARS (Average). 3.16% rated the platform 2 out of 5 STARS (Poor). And 85.76% rated DHGate 1 out of 5 STARS (Bad).
We find it very strange that this the only customer review site that has the highest number of negative reviews in all the scam watch websites we investigated online.
Customer Support
Murphy’s Law states: that everything that will go wrong will go wrong. Even where a retailer is closely managing everything in its online store, things will still go wrong. Talk more of bringing together over a million sellers in a platform to serve the whole world; then you would have simply multiplied everything that will go wrong by over one million. Thus, the ideal platform will provide for addressing issues when they occur – be it routine questions, or issues with an order.
DHGate provides for addressing customers’ questions and complaints. The first stop is an FAQ page in their website. The page is very detailed and addresses many of the questions that customers have asked in the past. The topics treated include registration, products, ordering, tracking orders, returns, and more.
To directly contact DH Gate, they provide an email service and a live chat service. Live chat remains one of the best ways of contacting the platform. The average response time is relatively fast, so you won’t be kept waiting for an agent. However, the live chat is not available round the clock (24/ 7); it is only active between 9 am – 5 pm EST, Mondays to Fridays. This disappointed us because we like that a world-facing platform offers 24/ 7 support. This is because of the difference in time zone, where the uptime in the one-time zone is the downtime in another time zone.It is not fair to make a customer who needs help stay awake simply because the active times of the platform’s help centre correspond to the downtime of the customer’s time zone. It also does not help that DH Gate does not offer a telephone support service; because many customers will rather pick up the phone when they need assistance.
It should be said that you’ll find many reviews calling out the helpfulness of support given by DH Gate. It should be noted that for a platform that draws over one million sellers and serves over 10 million buyers, there’ll definitely be some who cannot be “saved”. However, we’ll give the support service a passing grade.
Pros:
- Signing up to use DHGate is free
- There are many sellers in DH Gate (over 1 million) with even more listed products (over 10 million), which means you’ll not be lacking options when choosing products
- There are no “minimum order requirements”; thus you can use DH Gate for both bulk purchases and for purchasing single units
- Prices in DH Gate are relatively cheap
- DH Gate also gives lots of cost-saving offers (coupons)
- DH Gate buyer’s service is worldwide; thus no matter where you are in the world, you’ll find sellers in DH Gate that will ship to you
- With support for a host of payment methods, you’re guaranteed hassle-free buying
- Customers’ reviews in the “Sellers review profile”, the reviews score, as well as the service score are important resources which DH Gate provides that can help in the selection of good suppliers to buy from
- DH Gate buyer protection (not releasing payment to the seller until the buyer is satisfied) ensures customer satisfaction
- Provides “returns dispute mediation” to ensure that customers effectively return any items they are not satisfied with, and get a replacement or a refund
- Live chat is supported for customer support
Cons:
- Being a marketplace, there is no direct control over the quality of items listed on the website
- Only China-based sellers are admitted
- Delivery will take longer than when buying from a domestic retailer because the items will ship from China
- PayPal is no longer supported
- Customer support is not available 24/ 7, and telephone support service is not available.
Conclusion
DHGate is a legitimate site that links China sellers to the rest of the world. It’s simply an e-commerce platform where China-based manufacturers, wholesalers and drop-shippers sell consumer goods to customers worldwide.
You’ll find a variety of consumer goods being sold on the platform. There are over one million sellers and over 10 million products listed at any time, so you’ll find whatever you need. Prices are also some of the best you’ll find anywhere.
Being simply a marketplace, DH Gate has no direct control over its seller’s list; thus, you’ll find that quality varies from seller to seller. However, DH Gate combats the associated problems by providing resources (such as independent reviews, review scores, and service scores) which you can use to identify a reliable and trustworthy seller in the platform.They also have buyer protection which will not release your payment to the seller, until you’ve confirmed that you are satisfied with your purchase.
Their service is also on point. With many payment methods, the buying process will be a breeze; shipping is relatively fast (although will be slower than when buying from a domestic online store), and you’ll even find free shipping being offered even on single units. If you’re not happy with an item, getting a replacement or a refund is very possible. Lastly, the customer support of DH Gate is largely supportive.
If you want to get discounted consumer goods from an online marketplace, there’s really no reason why you should not use DH Gate.
Have you made any purchases on DHGate before? Was it good as advertised or bad? Kindly use the review section below to give us your DHGate review.
Are all these claims true? Continue reading to find out…
Thus, we say without a doubt that DHGate is a legit platform. However, it should be said that you’ll find in some reviews that DHGate is called out scam. These reviews may even cite cases of undelivered orders or poor quality (not fit for purpose) products being delivered; they may even highlight how the DHGate buyer protection didn’t save the day. As mentioned, this will be a case of cheaply throwing the word “scam” because of not being satisfied with the service on a particular instance. The generic truth can be summed up in three bullet points:
- DHGate itself is legal and has a record of fulfilling orders meeting customers satisfaction; hence the platform is legit
- the platform does not directly have control over what its sellers list and deliver, hence you may get delivered what does not meet your expectations
- the DHGate buyer protection is a feature that puts sellers on their toes; and through it, DH Gate has successfully mediated a lot of cases to customers’ satisfaction
Kindly give us your feedback about DHGate below using CREATE YOUR OWN REVIEW, if you have had an experience with the platform.
