It’s been a while so I’ve forgotten about intro deal stuff so found this on Reddit
“The welcome deal is only on one item, and only on your first order. You can't use other discounts or promos or codes with it. Also note that if you try to buy multiple items, it will pick one item random and charge the others at regular price. So it is best to buy only one thing for your first order.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/18uoozp/welcome_deals/
I have been on AE for about a year, it was a bit of a mind melt to start with and I’ve got the hang of it now. I log in every day and get the free coins to give me a few pennies discount on things. I always shop on the app as it seems less head-melting than the site.
They do events every 3 months or thereabouts and at any time there is something like the World Cup, Olympics, Chinese new year is one too I think. Big sales on some things. The Choice stuff is a bit like Prime on Amazon. Quicker and free postage with 3 “Choice Items”
I stick mainly to sellers that are over a year old, are 90+% feedback and have a decent amount of sales and it’s been a pretty safe bet.
I found it’s best to buy small orders until you get the hang of things and then branch out. I’ve had to deal with a couple of bad orders and the system has been 100% fair, I got an order missing a shock so we agreed on an appropriate discount.
That’s about all I can think of just now to help ya with traversing the site.