Taobao Shopping with 65daigou (Starter)

{Advertorial} Taobao Shopping Spree with 65daigou

 I

n my previous blog post, I did mention that I would be getting some (in fact most) of my household items from Taobao and IKEA. You might want to read the previous blog post HERE if you have missed it out earlier 😀

Why Shop Taobao?

 Quality

During our shopping with IKEA for household items, we realised that most of their furniture are not of very good quality (mostly made of chip boards) and it simply doesn’t makes sense for us to pay for inferior goods and hence it would be good to order from Taobao.

If you read the reviews provided by buyers, you can actually buy pretty decent quality products at affordable prices!

Variety

My taste is very “special”. Conventional designs offered by IKEA or furniture shops in IMM do not suit my taste and hence I actually shopped at Taobao for my items. For instance, Singapore does not have a designated place which sells fanciful hand soap dispenser and hence I resorted to shop at Taobao and was glad they have many designs available on their portal.

Nobody would’ve imagined that I bought this classy hand soap dispenser from Taobao I guess…

I doubt you can find this carousel remote control holder in Singapore…

 Ease of Shopping

If you are good in Chinese, you can simply do a search on Taobao‘s portal and you can start shopping there instantaneously! You do not even need to step out of the house and you can see a plethora of items on your computer screen. This is the thing that I enjoy about online shopping!

Pricing

Oh yes, if you want cost savings, you definitely have to buy from Taobao as China is the biggest wholesale market in the world!

For instance, the below striped dress from Pomelo Fashion retailing at SGD49 can actually be purchased on Taobao at a MUCH LOWER PRICING!

Mayfair Striped Dress selling at SGD49 on Pomelo Fashion – they have it in light blue as well but apparently its sold out

Taobao is selling it at only SGD11.31; approx SGD14 inclusive of Shipping and Agent’s Fee!!

DO YOU FEEL DUPED NOW?

From the typical example above, it certainly does not make sense to pay like 4 times more for the same dress that you will wear for at most a year?

FYI, many clothing sold by retailers such as Pomelo Fashion can be easily found on Taobao (sorry for exposing the trade secret *Oops*). You just need to put in some effort in your searching but it is definitely worth it as you can save the money to buy more dresses 🙂

Imported Goods

Do you enjoy the moment when you unwrap a parcel of goodies like its a gift for yourself? I certainly do indulge myself in the thrill of online shopping. And it feels cool that I actually “imported” my stuff from overseas – China in this case.

How to Buy from Taobao

Unfortunately, Taobao is a portal where all the wholesalers gather to sell their wares domestically.

China is a big country and it is highly sustainable for the wholesalers to ship their wares just within their country itself i.e. domestically.

This is a main disadvantage for us who are buying from the wholesalers as “foreigners”.

Direct

If your Chinese standard is good, you can actually liaise with each individual seller to place your order which I did initially when I bought my lighting and chandelier during my house renovation because I thought it would be better.

I can chat with the sellers via the messenger and try to bargain with them on the pricing but I realised I did not get much savings as the sellers only threw in like a few light bulbs extra for my chandelier?

Also, as mentioned earlier – the sellers normally ship domestically and hence I need to get them to ship directly to the freight forwarder’s warehouse and get the freight forwarder to ship to Singapore.

This method is definitely NOT recommended because it is a nightmare for me to communicate with both sides – the sellers and freight forwarders. I need to ensure that the sellers send the correct items to the freight forwarder’s warehouse and I even need to prepare the shipping invoice for the freight forwarder to declare to the Singapore customs. Oh yes, I get taxed for shipping my high valued items over as well 🙁

And once the items reach the freight forwarder’s warehouse in Singapore, I need to pay for courier service for them to deliver the items from the warehouse to my house! Oh yes, and it gets super frustrating when you realised that your item is BROKEN.

Through an Agent

Yes, this process is made sweeter with agents who will help you from the purchasing step to the delivery to your doorstep.

However, you need to be very prudent in selecting an agent to perform the tasks for you especially when you are going to order high-valued items such as furniture. You do not want the agent to collect the monies from you and disappear from the surface of the earth the next day right?

Selecting a Trustworthy Agent

I used to use agents which I found on google who offer much lower agent fees. I thought I was smart to buy my items through them but I realised that they started to become very slow to reply my requests and update me on my order status.

One of my orders – an antique phone (yes I started buying some of my household items like 1 year before I got my house!) was lost in midair as the agent stopped updating me.

Despite sending many email chasers, the agent remained silent till I managed to dig out the agent’s mailing address and real name via WHOIS and threatened her that I will report her to the police if she still does not revert.

It was a pain dealing with such agents and hence I was glad when my colleague introduced me to 65daigou then.

65daigou

I would say my experience with 65daigou during the past 2 years have been really good as they have enough manpower to update my order statuses.

My journey with 65daigou and still counting.. I’m now proudly a SVIP member! Awww so blessed!

Confirming receipt of my payment took shorter than 1 working day (I did midnight shopping and wired my payment during the midnight and the payment was confirmed the next morning!).

Also, after placing my order and making my payment in a day – 65daigou would actually process my order almost immediately and they will be purchased from the individual Taobao sellers the next day! Sometimes I start to wonder if they work during weekends and public holidays because their response rate is so prompt that I’m amazed myself!

“Buy For Me”

I think most of us Singaporeans would use the “Buy For Me” function on 65daigou as it essentially takes care of our nightmares of liaising with the individual Taobao sellers in Chinese.

All you need to do is to shop on Taobao to find your items and paste the URL on 65daigou‘s portal.

For the example below, I simply searched for the items I want in Chinese on Taobao as searching in Chinese yields more results. For the same item, you will see many different sellers selling it and it would be good that you take some time to screen each individual sellers’ profile.

If you see an item you fancy on Taobao, do NOT purchase it immediately. 

Instead, copy the item’s description and paste on Taobao’s search bar to get similar results

Searching in Chinese always yield the most results, then please filter your search by “Bestselling first” (i.e. 销量）

One tip would be sorting your search results by bestselling items first (i.e. 销量) as it would reflect on whether there will be real people buying from the seller.

Do not be surprised if you see so many sellers selling the same item. Just select a few credible ones for comparison.

Next, it will be good for you to read the reviews provided by the buyers. The higher ratings provided to the seller by the buyers, the more credible the seller will be.

Be wary of sellers with ZERO reviews / sales record

A better risk would be this – above a rating of 4.5/5 and many user reviews. Would be great if the buyer is kind enough to post a photo of the products received though 🙂

Once decided on which seller to purchase your items from, simply copy the URL and paste it on 65daigou‘s portal, select your choices and add them to cart.

Too easy for you? Then I will simply do a tutorial on making a CUSTOM ORDER via 65daigou then.

As mentioned earlier, I bought an antique telephone from Taobao via a lousy agent earlier and the receiver was broken when I received it (the speaker was glued back on and I think it is not functional)  but I was too lazy to send the item back to the agent for an exchange. Hence I would be trying my luck to ask the Taobao seller if they sell just the receiver as it would not be economically efficient if I were to repurchase the entire telephone set right?

Everything is functioning besides the receiver you see.. And yes, I’m super in love with the rotary dial!

So I simply went back to the seller and copied the Taobao URL

My seller’s rating is damn good you know?

Good to the extent that buyers actually submit photo reviews!

So head over to 65daigou and paste the URL in the “Buy For Me” bar

Before adding item to cart, leave down your “Special Instruction” so that the staff of 65daigou will know exactly what you want them to do for you

I amended the price to ZERO so that I do not need to make any payment for this enquiry

Simply submit the special request as a normal order like you normally would

Once the request is submitted, the staff at 65daigou will personally look into it and revert ASAP

Unfortunately, the Taobao seller does not sell just the receiver – so this means I need to spend on a brand new telephone set 🙁

By the way, this buying process is further improved with their EZ Buy function whereby you can literally shop on 65daigou‘s portal without the need to go onto Taobao’s portal. Also, the deal is that the shipping fee is already pre-determined with the participating Taobao sellers and hence that will reduce your chance of suffering from heart attacks if the items are too bulky and you need to pay more than expected for shipping the items over.

EZ Buy Campaign on 65daigou’s portal 🙂

All items are sorted out in categories and you can browse via the categories

This function would be really helpful for those who cannot read Chinese. However, there is still much room for improvement as I realised that the item’s options are sometimes still in Chinese like for a dress – in comes in different colours / designs and you still need to know how to read Chinese in order to make a correct choice. So, please just brush up your Chinese if you want to shop on Taobao – it is definitely worthwhile!

Pre-known shipping fee via EZbuy function

 

Once your shopping cart is fully loaded with your goodies, simply “Check Out” and make your initial  payment!

The subsequent payment would be more on international shipping (from China to Singapore), agent’s fees (different % for different membership levels) and delivery.

If you are still unclear, you may refer to 65daigou’s website for a detailed tutorial on how to purchase your items via their portal.

Shipping and Delivery

One thing good about the “Buy For Me” service is that 65daigou will help you check your items to ensure that they are in good condition and the item choices / quantities are correct.

International shipping would be very much dependant on the item’s weight as well as the volumetric weight (i.e. how big is the item). A very light item such as a golf bag can cost you more as it occupies a larger volume. Hence the value-added service provided by 65daigou is that they will consolidate your items and repack them for international shipping in order to help you save on the shipping fees. For instance, they might throw in your smaller items that you have ordered into the huge golf bag to save the volumetric space.

Once the items are shipped to Singapore, you can arrange to pick up the items either from 65daigou‘s warehouses, collection from designated MRT stations or Home Delivery (this option cost SGD5 for parcels less than 8kg and flat SGD8 for heavier items) whereas the other channels are free.

I enjoy to arrange for home delivery for bulky items as I know it would be impossible for me to carry them home by myself. It is just an additional SGD8 for the home delivery service and I think it is totally worthwhile especially I’m talking about bulky items like my chest of drawers and dining bench! Local courier services like DHL can even cost a lot more than that!

Damaged Items

Although items have been checked and repacked at 65daigou‘s warehouse in China, damages to the items in the course of shipping is not uncommon. In fact, almost all of my items are received in good condition throughout my shipping experience with 65daigou.

One example would be a broken base of my clothing hanger (oops, I used it to hang my hubby’s bags).

My classical bag hanger

65daigou actually helped me to arrange with the Taobao seller to get the replacement base shipped over after I took a photo of the broken base and reported it to them.

I had the replacement base shipped and delivered to my doorstep within a month’s time and I finally have a perfect bags hanger that is serving us really well till now 🙂

“Ship For Me”

Thinking that you are a Taobao guru and want to try buying directly from the Taobao sellers to skip the agent fees?

65daigou can be your Freight Forwarder too under their “Ship For Me” function. Shipping with 65daigou is definitely a better choice as the shipping rate is cheaper than the normal freight forwarders and there is a home delivery option available as well!

I shipped my bar lamp from another freight forwarder earlier and realised that one of the lamp shade was broken in the process. As it would be a pain to go back to that freight forwarder because I cannot determine whether is it due to shipping or my contractor that the shade was broken, I simply put 65daigou‘s “Ship For Me” service to a good test.

The bar counter lamps purchased from Taobao

I simply went back to the Taobao seller to request for a new lamp shade and had it sent to 65daigou’s designated warehouse in China.

Then to your own discretion, you might want to pay an additional fee to 65daigou to help you open and inspect your items – I paid an additional SGD1 for them to open the box and take a picture of the lamp shade to ensure that it is the correct model. Then the item was repacked and shipped over to Singapore and I did a self-collection at 65daigou‘s Tanjong Pagar warehouse which is located conveniently at International Plaza near my workplace 🙂

Payment to 65daigou: International Shipping + Inspection Fee (S$1) = SGD4.40 in total

For the replacement lamp shade, I paid less than SGD15 in total which is great as it might cost me hundreds to replace the entire lamp.

Moreover, our search for the replacement lamp shade from the lighting shops along Balestier Road had not been fruitful as the sellers advised that they do not carry that particular model and tried to convince us to buy a new lamp instead 🙁 Not to mention the new lamp will cost at least SGD150 for a similar design and I actually bought it from Taobao at only SGD50++?

Join in the FUN!

I still have so so soooo many items that I have bought from Taobao via 65daigou earlier that are not shared in this post as it is getting too lengthy – will be posting them in the next blog post I promise!

Tempted to join in the shopping fun? Click on the links below!

65daigou
Membership Registration
Facebook | Instagram

Up next — Shopping on-the-go with 65Daigou’s Mobile App and Taobao’s greatest Annual Event (Double 11s) 

 

 

 

x♥x♥

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