Hesitant if I should buy off alibaba or aliexpress. I need 50 label holder pulls for a cabinet I am building, I would greatly appreciate being able to see color samples/quality of the pulls before, but I'm unsure if it would actually be better to go trough alibaba (cont. in description)

I have never ordered trough alibaba, but I know the gist of how it works, and I also know people who did that could help me a little. I have been told it's often okay to order samples before deciding on a product/seller, but I've also seen people say you are charged a lot for the samples, while others told it was sometimes free to do so...

I'm also wondering if I can trust the sellers to be honest when asking questions about having lead in the production process, or being open about their manufacturing conditions. I do wish to order from alibaba because it is more economical than ordering from a foundry locally, but I also don't want to cheap out too much and support bad practices. But it's also not like I can afford to go see the facility myself.

With aliexpress, I could order 50 pulls for 50$ but I would know nothing of the manufacturing process, would have to guess the color, and could end up with something more flimsy/toxic than expected.

Thank you in advance for your insight!