About a year ago (2016) Aliexpress decided to cripple simplify their search engine. They’ve removed really useful search options and added (at least in my eyes) unnecessary ones.
These useful search options were removed from the search panel but they are still available as URL parameters. I’ve mainly written this post to document these missing options for my everyday searches — but I’m pretty sure others may find them useful as well.
| Option | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| isUnitPrice | y | Show Price per Piece |
| minQuantity | number | Minimal Quantity in Lot |
| maxQuantity | number | Maximal Quantity in Lot |
| isFreeShip | y | Free Shipping only |
| sortType | price_asc/price_desc | Ascending/Descending Prices |
Especially the option isUnitPrice is helpful when searching for the best price per piece and not price per lot.
So when I’m searching for the lowest price per piece within a certain quantity range (here: 10 – 50 pieces) with free shipping I would add to the URL (Example Search):
&minQuantity=10&maxQuantity=50&isUnitPrice=y&sortType=price_asc&isFreeShip=y
Side Note: It also makes a difference which keywords you are using when searching. The following three searches will (at least the last time I’ve checked) give different results:
- “stm32f103c8t6 lqfp“
- “stm32f103c8t6 lqfp48“
- “stm32f103c8t6 lqfp-48“
So even slight variations can make a big difference. Unlike the search on eBay, the search on Alibaba and Aliexpress does not split up keywords into smaller ‘chunks’ which are used for searching.
Very interesting!