Here’s some great news for all you hobby electronics enthusiasts who drool at the sight of cheap stuff on Banggood and AliExpress, but upon rethinking about the time it takes them to ship something, give up on the prospect of buying it. I’m not a hobby electronics person, but after shopping some three-four times in the past year through sites like AliExpress and Banggood, I was convinced that the wait is definitely not worth the discount that you get, because the shipping time is usually around 40-50 days. Yes, nearly two months it took for my speaker amplifier to reach me. And then some others that never reached.

But it seems like those are the days of the past because two weeks ago when I reluctantly surfed Banggood for a LCD controller board that I couldn’t find on Ebay or other Indian sites, I saw a new method of shipping called ‘India Direct Mail’ (not really new, it has been around since the last quarter of 2017), and it promised to ship in 8-16 days at almost no additional cost.

I really found it hard to believe but decided to take risk and order as I didn’t have much to lose (except for some 1200 rupees). It turned out to be true. Today, I received my LCD controller board, just 12 days after ordering. I feel this is reasonable, especially given that you won’t get it for at least double that here in India, if at all you do get it. This is great stuff and I’ll definitely be using this more in the future.