I might be old fashioned, but if your contribution to a product is so little that you just take it from a factory in China, stamp your company's name and hand it to an Amazon warehouse, giving yourself a healthy cut in the process, then I really don't mind if Amazon steps in and pass a portion of those savings to me.
Yes! I tinker a lot (3D printing, home automation, drones, etc...) and AliExpress is such an amazing place to buy components for 10% of the price I'd see in hobby shops or Amazon.
Shipping is often 1-2 months out, though, and you often don't get refunds without a return shipping cost (as in, FBA has free returns). It's useful to think that the cost of shipping is built into the price on Amazon.com and not on AliExpress.
True but even then for $2 shipped I get an ESP8266. On top of that most sellers are really accommodating if the package is lost and will send you another (sure that means in total it takes 5 months for the chip to get to you).
