Personally I
buy from China but also locally (Israel) and US.
Many Chinese retailers offer free worldwide shipping even for a 1$ item, so for me when ordering a small order that's a bonus (shipping from US is somewhere in the region of 16$ at min, so I avoid for small orders).
If I were from the US, I guess I would
buy most items locally
As for Chinese suppliers, I did order from Priceangels some CE4s clearomizers (the kind one could open and clean and change the heads), they were fine especially when they sell for $2.60 free shipping.
Another site I ordered many times from is Tinydeal.com, also fine.