I am a beginner Arduino user and I want to find a good website to buy electronics. I found a website called "gearbest," but I did some research and found that it was relatively unreliable (according to Gearbest Reviews - 10,755 Reviews of Gearbest.com | Sitejabber).
Question 1: Is gearbest truly as bad as people say?
Question 2: What other good websites that are reliable, relatively cheap and good quality?
Edit: Cheap as in at least 5% below average (possible by going directly to a manufacturer not distributor)
Good quality as in the product was well constructed and does what the description says it will do correctly.
I prefer using digikey.com for any thing electronic components. They customer service is top notch and everything is two day shipped to most continental US.
Amazon is decent if you know what you're looking for, same for newegg
I start with Digikey, I think their filtering for parts is easier to use than Mouser's.
If I'm buying a lot, I'll check prices between them. Mouser seems to have AVRs for a little less than Digikey for example.
dipmicro.com is good
taydaelectronics is good phoenixent.com is good for connectors, headers, wirewrap supplies.
never heard of bgmicro. they don't seem to have any filtering at all, just big list of parts they carry. mpja.com can be good, but they seem to sell surplus so repeatability can be hit or miss. surplussales.com can have interesting stuff allelectronics.com can have interesting stuff jameco.com also.
Best thing is to know what you're looking for and where to find, and to remember where you found something when you want to pick something up for a project.
I would also add Banggood because of free shipping which can be important if you're ordering small quantities. But Banggood is slow (3 or 4 weeks from China). Tayda is my other choice because of great selection and very low shipping costs ($1 plus small change). Tayda is also very fast in U.S.A. as usually it is shipped from Colorado. For harder to find parts I use DigiKey.
Paul__B:
Mind you, so far I have had no trouble with "Alice".
Has anyone?
That is my main supply for modules. Very few problems. For components, I've had to use various other Chinese Ebay stores like gc_supermarket. I've never had a complaint that wasn't handled with a new part or a refund.
Sometimes you will see sloppy hand soldering on the cheap things. I figure I can fix that. As far as being made in China, if you think the stuff you buy here isn't, you're kidding yourself.
The U.S. warehouses would cost me literally 10 times the amount by the time shipping to Canada is added. One big problem is, they won't ship by regular mail. It has to be tracked and insured at courier rates.
On Ebay, you can't quickly compare and download specs the way you can at the warehouse supplier websites.
Edit - I'm in Canada. Postage from China for most items is either free, or less than about 20% of the cost of the item. I've never been hit with import duty.
It would be helpful if you stated in which country you lived, as postage charges and import taxes from an overseas supplier could more than outstrip your 5% criteria.
For many of the components there is good How-To and example code HERE:
Small company of me and my wife and our friend we met when we lived in Shenzhen, China.
I collaborated with a guy on an Arduino Derivative design. Third version of that has 3-pin connectors on every I/O, 4-pin connectors for I2C and Serial, and a 2 Amp switching regulator and 350 Ma 3.3v regulator. See it HERE:
We have worked with many schools and universities and make over 1000 kits a year. See some HERE:
Shipping is either fast or cheap, not both. Stateside we can not beat dx.com or goodluckbuy.com if you know exactly what you want, don't need tracking and know you will get zero technical support. I do end up answering questions from people who buy there
I stock the kits and some popular components in Vermont USA; other things in the catalog are shipped from Shenzhen, China. We will replace anything that is defective. Usually my friend Peng has a good eye and has good relationships with known suppliers. But we did get burned with some flakey USB cables last month. I tested last 200 of them but the latest batch from known supplier has been 100%.
Best thing is I get to play with (um, evaluate) new stuff and meet lots of Arduino lovers...
but the latest batch from known supplier has been 100%.