I was looking at alibaba and noticed that the factory sells GA cells direct. And for a lot less. Anyone gone to alibaba to get cells? As an example, GA cells are 3.45 and the same cells bought here from US supplier, is 6.90.
Sus
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Iām sure youāll get what you pay for
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I would not trust this at all
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Can you show us the listing?
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one batch might be good, the next who knows?
I think that is the REAL mfg of them, or at least the same factory.
I have never purchased from alibaba, but I buy a lot and had great luck, with aliexpress. Which I think are the same mfgs, but with more up to date purchasing costs etc. And ready to hit buy.
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Itās definitely possible. They have very good feedback: https://imr18650.en.alibaba.com/company_profile/feedback.html?spm=a2700.shop_index.88.49.4d2a51ecCg1zty
You should ask for samples. Though, itās not a perfect guarantee that your MOQ would be the same thing. I think it would be quite hard to maintain the kind of feedback they have if they were selling counterfeit cells. We should do more group buys here on the forum so that we can get the lowest prices that places like BulkBattery.com have. Shenzhen is probably the largest supplier city in the world of counterfeit cells, so Iām not so sure itās the kind of risk Iād be willing to take but who knows!
Last time i purchased cells from alibaba they wer efor sure fakes
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The thing that makes it so sketchy, at least imo, is how many high drain cells China now makes.
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mooch rating ftw, fuck whatever oem says on the datasheet 
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No big name manufacturer sell directly to end users. Only in huge quantities to pack assemblers and, quietly under the table, to resellers.
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Imren?
They donāt manufacture anything. They buy cells and either sell them as is or rewrap them for their Imren branded cells. They might have contracts with some factories for certain China cells but thatās it.
If they are selling actual Panasonic/Sanyo NCR18650GAās then it might be worth trying them. But you will have no idea when they were made and the conditions those cells were stored in.
Otherwise, those could be āGAā cells only in name and could be anything they decided to call GAās.
Price is the worst way to shop for cells IMO. Itās so much more important to buy only from a known, trusted supplier.
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Their privately branded cells are often spectacularly overrated but they might be selling ābrand nameā cells with decent manufacture dates that were stored wellā¦or not. We donāt know but they have gotten some good feedback, if that can actually be trusted.
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AFAIK Sanyo GAs are sorta discontinued, anything you buy at this point, even if legit, could be ones that were stored for years by now.
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Feedback is a tricky thing. Buyers do things like check how many amp hours they deliver, and then call them āauthenticā if they get what they expected, which just isnāt good enough. Their MOQ is 200 cells. Definitely not something Iād risk with that kind of cash.
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Absolutely, when the mfg says they are 10000mah they are fake. But as the poster said, if they pulled any scams, theyre gonna suffer on reports. Plus, they have return policy. Nowadays, this globalism keeps many honest.
Where do you guys prefer to buy 18650 and 21700 cells from?