yiinged

hello!

i've been wanting to buy stuff from www.taobao.com but i have no idea how to.
someone please help?

xoxo,dawn.

toothburs

What do you mean by how to buy from taobao? Its just like ebay...

You bid the items... or you contact the seller directly and ask them if they ship to Singapore or not... But... payment would be a problem for Singaporean.

You probably have to ask someone to help you pay for the item...

guy_edwin

Payment is not the only problem. Because you are located in Singapore, sellers may choose to screw up your order just because you are located in a distant faraway land and have no direct means of getting back at them.

Not saying there are no honest Chinese, but that there are countless scammers not only in China, but everywhere in the world.

May i know which product are you looking at? I may be able to give some suggestions.

yiinged

well,i fell in love with this jacket.but i'm not sure how to go along getting it.
http://auction1.taobao.com/auction/i...dcf.jhtml?pm=5

thanks for your help!

perimbean

After visiting the site, i found it's quite simple to buy from Taobao.

It's best to have a china bank account but since you're physically in Singapore, it'd be hard to make that.

The cost of item is RM 188 (about S$40), shipping to Singapore is RM 25 (using EMS, which takes about 5-7 working days.)

It's best to get intouch with the seller and advise them you'd like to buy the item and can only transfer $$ to their account.

For transferring $$ into their account, one has to pay the transfer "people" [located at Chinatown, about S$20 handling fee, in the even you sent to wrong people, you still can try to recover back the money but less the handling fees.]

All in all, you'd be looking at spending about S$65 ($40+$5+$20) to get 1 jacket.

中国农业银行接受汇款追快.

yiinged

hmm,which part of chinatown?

perimbean

珍珠大夏有满多汇款公司,你可以去那询问谁有做汇款至中国农业银行户口.
一般上星期六和星期天都有很多人汇款.

Oh yeah, be careful with online purchase.

guy_edwin

It's possible for you to 'remit' money to a foreign bank account using your local personal account, although there may be some problems with personal to corporate account transfer. You have to check with your bank.

The "transfer people" mentioned by perimbean can be considered local branches of China banks, at least to my knowledge. Remittance in this way is considered fastest, as mentioned.

Alternatively, you can ask if the seller if they accept 3rd party transfers such as paypal, which i doubt so.

EMS cost reflected should not be international shipping cost. I don't think it'll cost u only 5bucks to fly a jacket from China over. It should be courier service within China only.

You could use a website like this, but then you'll have to incur even more costs.

haha..

3 ways, DIY through banks, DIY through 3rd party sites like paypal or ask the abovementioned forum to do everything for u.

Pretty troublesome isn't it..

Ｐerimbean, 您是大陆来的吗？

fathernature

y all chinese sia

Fathernature is a lady

Faeyre

I had organized some sprees for taobao before since I have connections in China...
But there are certainly truck loads of scammers in tabao...

There was once when I ordered a batch of leather bags only to find them having awful chemical smell of fake plastic.. After asking around and confirming with some friends of mine in the chemical field... It was verifed that the plastic they used to make those bags can cause damage to the body if inhaled for too long... I had to throw all the bags away suffering losts... but still glad I didnt transfer it to any of my "friends/customer"

Then there's this other case for clothes...
They looked extremely pretty like those in the taiwan sprees.. yet much cheaper.. so without hesitation.. I ordered some from them...
The batch of "blouse" that I ordered came and was entirely out of shape... When I called to ask why would the goods be in this state.. They simply threw a few questions at me...
"Are the goods the same as the one you've seen on the net?"
[ though they look the same but they're still of really bad quality materials and out of shape ]
"Are the goods of the colour that you want?"
[ They are the colour if you define red as red and that there's no difference between dark red, light red, pinkish red etc.... ]
"Since they are what you've seen on the net then we are at no fault at all. You assumed it to be of a certain material because of the way it looked in the picture, thats not our problem. We stated clearly that colours vary due to the lightings. blablablablabla..."

So.. I kinda gave up on taobao.. and started to go for online shopping on tw sprees instead....

My advice.... don't order unless you trust the supplier 100%.. or that youre mentally prepared for a loss... though it's all a 50-50 chance

Once you burn away the flesh;
Past the muscles and organs;
There lies a pile of bones.

Everything else is disintegrated.
Only the bones remain.

So these bones are laid to rest
Beneath the deep green grass.
Remember that they'll be still be there
As relics of the past.

And the memory still remains,
Like a stain;
A spot on the mind;

That's wearing away like over washed cotton.

Beneath the deep green grass
Lies bones forgotten.

fathernature

taobao is china da ah

Fathernature is a lady

chair123

the sellers will cheat shipping.sent spoilt goods.& especially give u fake ones &claimed to be authentic
:x
just thot it isnt so easy to buy from there.hmmm cannot find in yahoo tw?

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greenlimez

yaya, i agree..
when i saw the clothes @ taobao, i was so happy to think that i found a source to cheap cheap clothes than tw yahoo. but only when i started reading their feedback, many commented as what u said, super poor quality... i guess their good feedback must be self made one...

there's a website aliyo from china also.. anyone ordered before? is the quality just as bad..?

yiinged

yah china de.okay i think i just decided not to get anything from taobao after all your comments.LOL.

SGFB

Taobao is a sales/auction site just like ebay/yahoo etc.. but it is targetted to wards their local market.

Taobao has its own way of payment system call 支付宝. It is actually a better system than Paypal. The buyer pays for the item to 支付宝，the seller sent the item. After the buyer received the item, and is satisfied with his/her purchase, he will then release the payments to the seller. If not, the buyer can send the item back for a refund or part refund. It has been working like that and it prevents frauds within Taobao itself.However, this is not very useful to oversea buyers as the items are usually much cheaper than the frieght or courier charges in the first place (like SGD40).

Warning about payment: You should never pay a chinese seller with western union/bank draft or any direct payment methods. Even though you might know a seller well, you will never know when he will be desperate enuff or decide to runaway with your money - it might be 5 years after you have known him

SGFB

Then you are missing out a lot....

Check out www.china-bargains.com (I am running the forum). Singaporeans are buying from Taobao.. Safely and conveniently

SGFB

SGFB

Well... you pay peanuts, you get monkeys...You obviously cannot expect a full leather LV bag when you pay like SGD5 for a "leather" bag, right? Chinese stuffs are cheap... but not free, products still requires raw material and labour. If you are a careful shopper, be more careful when you are shopping online... and be very careful when you are shopping on chinese online website. Ask and ask a lot of questions .... before you buy, not after you have paid

If you choose to return the items for a refund, 99% of the seller will gladly oblige - especially if you have paid for it using 支付宝 and you are willing to pay for the frieight or courier charges.

Dun give up on Taobao, give up on your seller or China Agent. There are people buying safely and conveniently from Taobao at www.china-bargains.com - a forum that is run by me to help purchase things from Taobao or other chinese webby for a nominal charge. You can even choose to join the Mass Postage Order (currently held twice a month) to share the shipping cost with the rest of the members. Take a look (registration required) to believe.

Easily 90% of the items that you get from Taiwan are manufactured in China and available in TaoBao... you just did not find them

SGFB

SGFB