How can I find an AliExpress product's real complaints before I order or dropship it?
Short answer: read the reviews — but read them by complaint type, not by star rating. A 5-star review can still mention a charging base that runs down fast. AliExpress Reviews Scraper pulls a product's reviews with AliExpress' English translation, then labels each one with complaint types, sentiment and purchase motive, so you can count why buyers are unhappy instead of scrolling. It costs $1.50 per 1,000 reviews, plus $0.50 per 1,000 if you turn on the labels.
Why star ratings aren't enough
Two things hide the problems you care about as a sourcer:
- Mixed reviews get high stars. Buyers often give 5 stars and then mention a defect in passing.
- Reviews are in many languages. A listing shipped worldwide collects reviews in Spanish, Ukrainian and many other languages. AliExpress translates them, but you still have to read them one by one.
What you get
Real rows from a run on 2026-10-05 (1,000 reviews of one earbuds listing, labels on). Text is shortened here:
| stars | country | AliExpress English translation | complaint type (probability) | sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US | "It arrived completely scratched and as if it had already been used." | quality/defect (0.98) | negative |
| 5 | MX | "…not made of the best quality material, but for their price they are quite good. … their charging base discharges very quickly." | quality/defect (0.86), other (0.56) | positive |
| 5 | US | "Everything has arrived. The gift was won on Aliexpress." | none (0.98) | positive |
The second row is the point: 5 stars, positive overall, and still a quality complaint you'd want to know about before ordering 500 units.
Each row also keeps the original text, date, the option bought (color/size), photos, AliExpress' aspect ratings (e.g. "Quality of sound: Poor") and helpful votes. Complaint types are: quality/defect, size/fit, delivery, packaging, price/value, customer service, no effect, skin/body reaction, other.
Each run also saves a per-product summary at no extra charge: the product's total review count, average rating and star distribution, plus — for the reviews you collected — the complaint rate and mix, sentiment shares, purchase motives and the 3 strongest complaint reviews.
How to do it (5 minutes)
- Open the tool on Apify: AliExpress Reviews Scraper.
- Paste product URLs or IDs — any AliExpress site works (aliexpress.com, aliexpress.us, ko.aliexpress.com…):
That first run is about $0.04 and 10 seconds, with labels on by default.{ "productUrls": ["https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008549911526.html"], "reviewsPerProduct": 20 } - Go bigger for a sourcing decision — 200 reviews from each of a few competing listings. 10 products × 200 labelled reviews is about $4.
- Open the per-product summary (Output tab → Summary by product) and compare complaint rates across listings. Read the 3 strongest complaints for each.
- Optional: schedule it weekly on your own listings to catch new complaints early.
Don't have product URLs yet? AliExpress Search Scraper returns search results per keyword with rank, price, sold count and rating; pass its productUrl values to the review tool.
How accurate are the labels?
On 30 hand-labelled AliExpress reviews the tool hadn't seen before (earbuds, phone cases, dresses, kitchen tools, LED strips, car holders; about half with 1–3 stars), complaint type matched 93% and sentiment 87%. That's a small test and automated labels can be wrong — check a sample of rows before a big order.
Other ways, and their limits
- Read reviews on the product page. Works for one listing. AliExpress doesn't let you sort reviews by date or stars, so finding the bad ones in 1,000 reviews takes a while.
- Export reviews and paste them into a chatbot. Possible for a few dozen; long lists get cut off, and the answer can change each time you ask.
- Filter by 1–2 stars only. Faster, but you miss complaints inside 4–5 star reviews — like the charging base above.
Independent tool — not affiliated with AliExpress or Alibaba Group. More Naver, AliExpress and K-beauty data tools: leoworks.kr/tools.