The way I see it, the premium you pay is for the convenience brought about by Amazon having your product sitting in a warehouse waiting for you to buy it.
vs. waiting two to four weeks to ship from China.
However at least in Canada, AliExpress has fulfillment centres locally, so AliExpress can often get their items in customers' hands within a week.
So where's the advantage? Most times I can wait a week.
Amazon Prime is quite good, tbh. There’s a whole layer of complexity your life loses when you know you can get life essentials within a few hours with no planning.
> vs. waiting two to four weeks to ship from China.
In UK, the average for my AliExpress orders is now 1 week.