New Chinese Amazon rival that sells every part, guarantees to be even CHEAPER and quicker, and ships from the UK. TOBY WALNE places Joybuy, Amazon and AliExpress to the final word take a look at – you will by no means guess the winner

Most of us have relied on ‘next-day delivery’ at some point or another when shopping online – whether it was for a last-minute gift to arrive on Christmas Eve or an emergency replacement for an important appliance in your home.

The promise of speedy delivery has been the key to success for retail behemoth Amazon, winning over nine in ten UK shoppers. The American giant has become known for its fast arrivals, competitive prices and reliable products (for the most part).

But there’s a new rival in town. Joybuy, a Chinese online retailer, launched in the UK last month. It aims to break Amazon’s stranglehold on the British market.

Joybuy said that it will offer same-day delivery to more than 17 million people in the UK, and next-day delivery elsewhere. The company sells a large range of products, including technology, home appliances, beauty products and groceries.

It is part of a major push by large Asian retailers to attract more British shoppers. The Joybuy launch comes hot on the heels of other bids to grab customers – with Chinese giant AliExpress launching a premium Brand+ arm last October to broaden its appeal.

But unlike other Chinese online shopping platforms such as AliExpress, Temu and Shein, Joybuy does not host third-party sellers. Instead, it buys items directly from brands and stores them in its own distribution centres in Luton and Milton Keynes, in a similar structure to Amazon.

Keen to put these competitors through their paces, Money Mail has been on an online shopping spree with Joybuy, Amazon and AliExpress. We wanted to find out how quickly items would really arrive and see how prices compared. And, importantly, which platform offers the best products?

How competition shapes up

Joybuy has set itself the task of becoming one of the biggest retailers in Britain and going up against Amazon.

But this is no David and Goliath battle – Joybuy is owned by the £35billion Chinese giant Jingdong, which is branded JD.com (no relation to JD Sports), which is already one of the biggest online shops in Asia.

The Beijing-based retailer was founded by multi-billionaire Liu Qiangdong (who calls himself Richard Liu). He and his wife Zhang Zetian attended the wedding of Princess Eugenie at Windsor in 2018.

Yet retail experts fear that, even with deep pockets, taking on Amazon with a same-day or next-day delivery pledge is a tall order.

To turn around orders so quickly, Joybuy has been forced to hoard a mountain of stocks in distribution hub warehouses in Milton Keynes and Luton – with a combined floorspace of more than 90,000 square metres (some 22 acres).

Amazon has more than 30 such ‘fulfilment centres’ crammed with merchandise spread over some 1.4 million square metres (around 346 acres).

Richard Hyman, an independent retail strategic adviser, says: ‘An eye-watering amount of initial investment will be required – and it is a high-risk approach to try to compete against Amazon on service quality and speed of delivery, which it took several decades to develop and build.

‘It might have to focus on a smaller range of products just to survive and offer aggressive pricing to get a foothold in the market.’

The £155billion Chinese shopping giant AliExpress, owned by the Alibaba Group, is already established in the British market as a provider of cheaper goods – often selling copycat brands of favourites, such as Apple, but at a fraction of the cost of the originals. It hopes to broaden its appeal by offering more well-known branded products by promoting its Brand+ offers. The majority of distribution centres are based in China, though some of the popular items are kept in UK ‘Local+’ hubs.

Verdict: Amazon is still king for now, as nine out of ten shoppers use it, according to research from Mintel. It is unlikely Joybuy will knock Amazon off its throne anytime soon, but underestimate it at your peril. AliExpress is gaining fans, but it may take time to convince some that its determination to offer rock-bottom prices does not come at the expense of quality.

Website ease of use

To put these shopping platforms to the test, I went on the Joybuy, Amazon and AliExpress websites with an identical shopping list to compare prices, quality and how long I’d have to wait for the items to arrive.

On my shopping list, I opted for everyday branded bestsellers: Duracell batteries, Marigold kitchen gloves, Andrex loo roll – and, looking for shopping guidance, Chinese fortune cookies.

Key to success for the Amazon model is ease of use – and it even offers a slick one-click purchase option for those already signed up to its service. I put all the items in my basket within a couple of minutes, entered my credit card details and paid.

Joybuy also offered a similarly smooth website experience. But while batteries, gloves and loo roll were easy to order, the fortune cookies could not be found – they were only listed on a ‘ghost’ page where items had been put up for sale but were unavailable. Newly launched in the UK, it appears Joybuy stock is still limited. At the checkout a pop-up window appeared, showing a total discount on items of £7.50 if I downloaded the Joybuy app and continued to shop using my phone instead. After downloading this app, I struggled to log in and had to reset my password. It took 15 minutes to sort it all out.

The AliExpress website was an attack on the senses – it’s packed full of cheap and often gaudy ‘free gift’ and ‘welcome’ deals. The Brand+ option, which shows you are supposedly getting an ‘authenticity guarantee’, is lost in a sea of what can kindly be called tat. There is a small blue box just above the price listing with the Brand+ logo inside – which indicates you are purchasing a genuine brand and not a copycat item. Brand+ goods also come with a ‘best price guarantee’. If a lower price can be found on these items within seven days of purchase on another shopping platform, such as Amazon, AliExpress will refund the price difference, up to £40.

It was also a struggle to register myself as a customer on AliExpress, as the website would not accept my postcode as genuine when I tried to find my address for delivery. Thinking I was being clever, I also claimed a pair of rubber gloves as a ‘free gift’ that magically popped up. But at the checkout this order mysteriously disappeared. This freebie was not offered for my address.

Verdict: Amazon sets the gold standard, but Joybuy is slick at encouraging you to use its phone app by offering generous discounts. Aggressively priced goodies and discounts promoted on the app could prove a success. In contrast, freebies from AliExpress turn out to be totally worthless.

Value for money

I set a budget of £20 for each online retailer. Amazon met this – just. I paid £3.40 for the Marigold gloves, £5 for nine rolls of Andrex Ultimate Quilts three-ply, £5.00 for four Duracell Plus AA batteries, and £6.59 (6pc off) for 40 Silk Road Fortune Cookies – total price £19.99. All these items were promoted with a ‘free delivery’ offer.

Yet Joybuy offered much lower prices using the app – the same gloves cost £3.10, batteries £4.39 (reduced from £5), and I got 16 rolls of loo paper for the same price as nine, at £4.99 (a special offer, as 16 rolls usually cost £8.50). It also automatically offered a free delivery service. The shopping total, without fortune cookies, came to £12.48.

My order for ‘free’ gloves from AliExpress failed, but a non-Marigold pair was a steal at 77p. The batteries came to £5.28 and I found three-ply Freedom Quilted loo roll – as Andrex was not available – for £10.25. The fortune cookies cost £9.09, meaning I exceeded my budget at AliExpress, paying £25.39.

Verdict: Joybuy was the clear winner. Desperate to break into the Amazon-dominated market, it offered enticing discounts on select items. Incredibly, although AliExpress has a reputation for selling bargains, it was more expensive. I also struggled to find quality Brand+ versions of the items on my shopping list.

Speed of delivery

An Evri white van arrived at 12.35pm the day after I put in my three orders – with Amazon delivering the Silk Road fortune cookies within 25 hours. I ripped one open immediately. ‘Someone is thinking of you.’ I assume it is the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who is worth around £175billion (yes, that’s billion).

While Amazon uses a pool of self-employed drivers, Joybuy has couriers in branded uniforms and vehicles. At 1.10pm Ahmed turned up in a red JoyExpress van wearing the distinctive red cap and outfit. He phoned me a minute earlier as he was lost and unable to find the house – a common problem in my rural location.

Friendly and polite, he admitted he drove 35 miles from Luton – and also had other deliveries to make in the area. He proudly boasted that his service was the fastest, and then handed me a parcel containing gloves, loo roll and batteries.

Joybuy is making a ‘Double 11’ delivery pledge – which means orders made by 11am should arrive on your doorstep by 11pm the same day in the cities of London, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Oxford and Cambridge. The rest of the country, including my home in rural Hertfordshire, can still expect next-day deliveries.

A flat delivery charge of £3.99 is advertised by Joybuy for orders under £29 – it’s free if spending more. But you get free unlimited deliveries if you sign up to a JoyPlus membership scheme at £3.99 a month. To lure me in as a new customer I automatically received free delivery. 

Amazon offers free delivery on orders of £35 or more, but I have free delivery as standard an Amazon Prime member, as many do. We pay £8.99 a month for this, as well as access to its TV streaming service. At 4:45pm, a white van rolled up with a couple of packages from Amazon – one containing the batteries, the other loo paper and gloves.

AliExpress offers free deliveries on many items, including those I chose – otherwise it’s typically £1.50 to £8 depending on the item. Orders over £135 may incur a 20pc VAT levy.

AliExpress says standard shipping from China can take from seven to 30 days – while local UK-based deliveries arrive in one to three days. One week after ordering, only one of the items that had been ordered had arrived – the Duracell AA batteries, which came three days after ordering.

Verdict: The Chinese fortune cookies from Amazon arrived first. But Joybuy won the race by getting all items delivered 35 minutes later. The gloves, fortune cookies and loo roll from AliExpress appear to be still travelling from China.

Returns policy

Joybuy offers a 30-day return policy if goods are in an undamaged and unused condition. For ‘most cases the return label are [sic] created and prepaid by Joybuy without extra fees needed from customer’. You just click ‘return item’ on the order page, then choose a local shop accepting returns (I was shown 20 nearby stores or drop-off points) or select a pick-up (the earliest offered to me was 9am to 5pm six days later). Refunds should be in your bank account within five business days of an accepted return.

Items bought on Amazon can also be returned within 30 days of receipt with free postage. Click on the item, answer the ‘Why are you returning this?’ question with one of the options, such as ‘accidental order’ or ‘defective’, and then select whether you want money back on your card or as credit to an Amazon account. You can drop the item off at a select location, where they will organise the return for you. 

Alternatively, you can print out a return address or write it on the return parcel, making sure to include the original packaging and the invoice inside. Using Royal Mail, you can even have a postman pick it up from your home. Refunds should land in your bank account within 14 days.

AliExpress also allows returns within 30 days of delivery if the item is unused. You contact the seller via its website, and they should get back to you within 48 hours. Free returns are available within 15 days of receiving an item using a pre-paid label – but it is not automatically offered. When making a purchase, check with AliExpress hat the item has a free returns option, as mine did. Otherwise, you could end up paying shipping to China that costs more than the initial purchase.

Verdict: Joybuy wins by a whisker thanks to the handy ‘return item’ button on the order page, beside the item bought. Although Amazon offers a similar service on its phone app, it was keener for me to ‘buy [the item] again’ and I had to delve deeper to organise my return. Beware of buying items from AliExpress that don’t offer ‘free returns’.

A Joybuy spokesman says: ‘A significant proportion of orders are fulfilled through our self-operated model, which means products are shipped from our own warehouses and delivered by our own last-mile JoyExpress team where possible. We build long-term, trusted partnerships with well-known brands and partners. This full range is carefully curated and tailored.’

An AliExpress spokesman says: ‘British shoppers are turning to our platform as they seek premium items with better deals. Brand+ guarantees verified sellers, reliable product quality and competitive prices.’