How many here have used Alibaba or AliExpress ?

[N2DFire]

Well it's been 3/4 of a year and I still want a flail mower (and I still haven't added my rear remotes yet either LOL) - but I did notice that Titan Attachments has added one series of Flail mowers to their product line (unfortunately just not the one I wanted).

Flail Mowers - 3 Point Attachments

So I used their page to submit a product request for the EFDL (Light Duty) and AGL (Medium Duty) series of offset / tilt flail mowers. I also asked if they would be interested in getting me an AGL-165 with their next shipment even if they weren't interested in adding it to their product line.

Now if we got a bunch of folks together and filled a container so we could split the shipping ... :laughing:

I also suggested that with their existing Foreign & Domestic shipping contacts that maybe they would be interested in offering an online only product catalog of things they could get & could then order when they had a container full - would work great for them as well as us that have time to wait.

I used to do something like this with bulk ammunition with a FFL buddy of mine. I'd give him a list of what I wanted and he would add it to his regular orders (as needed) to make up weight to get to the free shipping mark and he let me have stuff at very little over his cost in return since I was helping him save shipping (It was a nice deal till he ran off and got a "real" job lol).

Not really any new questions or good info to add, just bumping this thread mostly for giggles and maybe some new discussion on interest in overseas stuff you can't get thru alliexpress.

I'll post back when I hear from Titan.

 

[LarJea]

Ordering your flail mower from Titan will take all the fun out of ordering it direct from China....Not.
You say you are ordering the series of "offset / tilt flail mowers". Is that with the side swing arm? That's what I have.
When you order your control valve, you may want to go with float for the tilt function. After using mine all last summer without float, I decided to replace the aftermarket control valve with one that had a float function and this time went with OEM. Haven't tried it out with float but should be a whole lot easier to keep up with the changing contours of the ditches.

 

[N2DFire]

Ordering your flail mower from Titan will take all the fun out of ordering it direct from China....Not.
You say you are ordering the series of "offset / tilt flail mowers". Is that with the side swing arm? That's what I have.
When you order your control valve, you may want to go with float for the tilt function. After using mine all last summer without float, I decided to replace the aftermarket control valve with one that had a float function and this time went with OEM. Haven't tried it out with float but should be a whole lot easier to keep up with the changing contours of the ditches.

Hey LarJea,

I just figured I would get all the fun of using it so I'd let someone else have the fun of ordering it - share the wealth so to speak. :laughing:

Yes those are the swing arm design like the one you have.

In my research since we discussed them last year, I learned a couple things (about alibaba and about the mowers). As far as the mowers, there are 3 basic series - EDFL is "Light Duty", the AGL is "Medium Duty" and there is also an AGFK series that is "Heavy Duty" but I have never been able to find them on Alibaba - I found it looking at RIMA Machine's web site directly. While I would love to have one of those, alas I am under Horsepowered for the cutting width I need.

 

[N2DFire]

As promised I said I would share the response I got back from Titan.

Here it is below. I will say that (having a business background) I fully understand the part about the legwork of combining shipments from various suppliers into a single shipment, however if some more of you folks that are interested in things direct from China contacted Titan as well, they may decide it's worth the extra staff.

Meanwhile I shall wait and see if they expand their current offerings.

Stephen,

Thanks for sending in your product idea. I do think this is a line we might explore. We started with the regular flail mowers to see what kind of demand was out there, but I think we can take that next step and look at some of those hydraulic offset flails. I'll pass this along to one of my engineers to look at and if we make some progress here in the near future I'll let you know.

I also like your other idea about helping people source items, but I'm not sure we have the manpower just yet. A lot of factories are not set up to do small qty orders, especially singles. Most of those suppliers you see on Alibaba are trading companies that buy in bulk from actual factories. We work directly with factories to keep our costs down for customers, so combining those shipments may take a little bit of legwork that we aren't staffed for.

That said, we love getting feedback on what people are looking for and are often able to bring it on as a new product line for us!

Thanks,
Cabell

--
Cabell Brown
Director of New Product Development
Titan Manufacturing and Distributing, Inc.

 

[LarJea]

Titan is probably the same mower that Bestco sells (FH-AGL165) 65" with hammer blades. On EBAY for $2402.00 shipped or make offer. Also if looking for flail mowers on Alibaba check out LEFA mowers.

 

[N2DFire]

Titan is probably the same mower that Bestco sells (FH-AGL165) 65" with hammer blades. On EBAY for $2402.00 shipped or make offer. Also if looking for flail mowers on Alibaba check out LEFA mowers.

Well say that is interesting. By my very rough estimates that's about what it was going to cost me to buy & ship myself (never got actual quotes on the mower just freight. Used the High end price on Alibaba)

Even more interesting is on e-bay it shows they took a price of $2,045.99 in Nov last year and (apparently) haven't sold one since. Plus they are showing "More than 10 available" and only 6 total sold. Might be time to invoke the "law of supply vs demand" and make an offer on one. LOL

Thanks for pointing that out, I had stopped looking on e-bay a while back.

 

[LarJea]

Also Bestco has their own website, they also go by the name Value leader and Farmer helper machinery.
Good luck on your bid.