Ok experience but Trade Assurance means nothing
I have been using Alibaba for a long time. Overall, it's not bad, but you do not have any protection. The sellers or freight forwarders can commit the most obvious violations, and Alibaba wouldn't have your back in the case of a trade assurance. For example, recently, a forwarder shipped the product to the US, and claimed they cleared customs before the tariff war was paused by the US and China on May 14th. I shared with Alibaba absolute evidence that the agent on May 10th, telling me the shipment was gonna arrive on May 14th, which means the customs clearance obviously happened on 14th or beyond, where the rates were lower. I asked the forwarder either to provide proof of customs clearance date or issue a refund for the extra duty they charged me. They didn't do either. Alibaba got involved and basically said there is nothing they can do about this, and they can't force the forwarder to issue a refund, and that I should just trust what the seller says lol I have had cases like this a few times, 4 times to be exact. In all cases, it was 100% clear that the seller was in the wrong, and Alibaba sided with the seller every single time.