As a bonus, if it's on Alibaba, you can either A: order a sample direct cheap or B: find the product on Aliexpress and order that way for cheap, too. I love catching scams and flipping the tables to buy it myself at their own price if I think it's nifty.

I built a homemade hot tub system around one of those "ice plunge" bath tubs that seem to be a thing going around these days. They're a rigid inflatable tub, but anyone selling them alongside a chiller sells the tub alone for $500-1000. I found the direct source (Shenzhen Gateo Sports - https://gateo.en.alibaba.com/) and bought one for $200 direct from the factory and love my unbranded tub. ;)

Read the terms and conditions, privacy policy and other more "obscure" information like that. Dropshipping items always ship from China and returns are received to a warehouse in China.

In their Terms of Sale, Sonic Brush mentions that it is rebranding the following product "We are selling the following brand mark : W-White.". So this would be the dropshipping product they buy from AliExpress.

Do note that dropshipping is a very specific term, which does not mean "importing things from another country and then selling them locally", but rather "taking orders from customers and then just ordering a shipment from someone else directly to the customer". For example it would be dropshipping if I made an eBay listing for some product and, whenever someone bought the eBay listing, just ordered the product from Amazon to their address. I never touched or shipped the product; I just made another order posing as the customer.

In dropshipping the business won't have any foreign made inventory and neither will they have any in their country. Instead they will hook you up with a Chinese outlet without telling you.

The Chinese outlet will handle shipping, returns, etc with the dropshipping business just taking a cut for essentially spending money on Facebook Ads. This is the part where you'll deal with a Chinese outlet regardless of your preferences, because the dropshipping company basically did this to you without your knowledge.

They don't have a local stock to replace items under warranty. They don't have a local warehouse to return your item to if you're unsatisfied. They might've never even seen the product themselves and thus cannot even provide support regarding it's use.

So that's why I think it's important to point out dropshipping. It's a completely different thing than keeping a foreign-made inventory. There isn't really any good reason to buy from a dropshipper, because you'll deal with the Chinese outlet behind it regardless.