Needed some electronic parts. Domestic prices were insane. Haven't ordered from AliExpress since all the tariff nonsense, but went back to them anyway. Shipping prices have gone up but they claim they handle the import fees for these parts. Shipping ended up almost as much as the parts, but since the parts from them cost less than 15% of the lowest domestic price I could find (including shipping or free shipping -- domestic prices from some vendors for the same parts were drastically higher, like 10x 20x or 30x!) I still came out way ahead. From order to delivery here in L.A. from China was one week. Delivered on a Sunday by one of these strange last-mile delivery services that I've usually never heard of (usually from private vehicles) that seem to change all the time. Tracking had a comment that my shipment cleared customs faster than 99% of shipments. Huh.
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One aspect of living in L.A. that really helps with shipments from China is of course that LAX and the Port of L.A./Long Beach handle some massive percentage of imports from the China, etc. for the U.S., and there are innumerable gigantic warehouses that virtually ring L.A. (Vernon, City of Industry, etc.), areas that have virtually no human live-in populations and are really entirely industrial, that make last-mile deliveries directly from those warehouses that feed from LAX, etc. generally very fast, especially when they are using these specialized last mile delivery services.
@lauren
I had it saying "import customs clearance started" then four days later "import customs clearance completed" along with a statement that it cleared customs in one day (just a very long day I guess).