Taobao Forwarding Agent - DEX-I 递壹时 (Missing Parcel)

For some reason, this is a belated post. I am reviewing one of Taobao's forwarding agent, DEX-I, which I used during the 2015 double-11 Taobao sale. It was my fourth time buying from Taobao using their forwarding agent, and my second time using DEX-I. The first two times I had used 4PX which was the cheapest at that time.

The first time I used DEX-I, it was non-peak season and there were no issues with them. They got my stuff delivered to me in good condition and relatively fast. However, maybe this time round it was the busiest day in the entire year, so one of my item actually went missing! This particular item also happened to be the most expensive of all my purchase (about S$40).

After placing my order, I will check on the status of the items I bought almost every day. This item was one of the first few to arrive at DEX-I warehouse. The item's status was updated to 'arrived at the warehouse' on 14 Nov. When the status showed that, it usually means you can start to cart your item to be delivered to you i.e. international shipping. However, I waited for a few days but the option to cart did not appear and it still show 'pending arrival at the warehouse' on the 'items I bought' page.

I went to message DEX-I and they told me they will inform their warehouse team to search for it. I waited for a few days, no reply from them and my item still showed up as 'pending arrival'. I decided to cart the rest of my purchases and have it delivered to me first since they have a policy of having to pay for items storage at their warehouse after 20 days.

I decided to message them a second time. They told me they did not receive the item and asked me to obtain a proof of receipt from the courier. I asked the seller of the item for help and she wanted to call me but I said I am using a forwarding agent so I am unable to answer any queries regarding the receipt of the item. Instead, I asked her to help me with getting the information from the courier. She did so, but the image quality of the receipt was bad. DEX-I said the image is too blur to make out anything. I told DEX-I to get whatever information they need from the courier themselves and they said ok. Having heard no news from them for a few days, I asked about the progress and they showed me the conversation they had with the courier and courier said they will check.

A few weeks had passed and I had already given up hope of getting my item. I went to Taobao to do my usual surfing and happened to go to the 'items I bought' page and to my surprise, the missing item had the 'ready for international shipping' status. Wow! They actually found my parcel and secretly change the status. They did not inform me that they have found my parcel and if I had not went in, I won't even know my parcel's there. Luckily there was still 4 days left before the end of the 20 days free storage if not I might have to pay more to have the item sent to me.

Moral of the story, if they say your item is missing;
1) Check with them on the discrepancy between the statuses on the item page and the 'items i bought' page
2) Identify the local courier used and the tracking code. Go to the courier website, key in the tracking code, and they usually will have a copy of the proof of receipt. If you are not sure how to do this, ask the seller to provide you with the receipt.
3) Show DEX-I the proof of receipt and ask them to check with their warehouse
4) Check back on the 'items i bought' page every now and then.

2015 Taobao Double11 (双11) Bargains!

Come midnight, more than half of China's population will be stalking out at Taobao for their annual big sale. The Double11 (11 Nov) sale. This is the time where things on Taobao are sold at remarkably low prices. Let's examine some of the bargains, and see if it is really worth the effort and the shipping cost.

1. Etude House Eyebrow Pencil + 2 pc Mask set (RMB 19 = S$4.30 before shipping)
Etude house has several set offers but this seemed to be the star item of the year. The offer was being prominently placed on Etude House's Taobao site. I compared with the prices on Qoo10 as well as Etude House official SG site, this set is definitely cheaper. However, as much as I like the eyebrow pencil, I don't really fancy the mask... so it's like buying something which I don't need just because it is cheaper. It is still worth buying if you needed the mask, because the cheapest I have seen on local sites is $4.90 for the pencil only (including shipping).

2. Uniqlo Unisex Sneakers (RMB 149 = S$33 before shipping)
I included this item because it is great for pairing with various outfits and not available in local uniqlo stores. Although it is just a dollar cheaper than if you buy it in Japan, but for those who won't be traveling to Japan any time soon, this is a deal. The only other consideration is the shipping, because shoes aren't the lightest of items, but Taobao's shipping deal to Singapore will probably only cost you an additional S$5.

3. Kate Trap Impact Eyes Eyeshadow (RMB 74 = S$16.50)
I was looking to get a simple eyeshadow palette this Double11 and chanced upon this Japanese brand with good reviews. It is about the same price as you would buy in Japan. The brand has some lovely tutorials on how to apply this eyeshadow here.

4. Staccato Shoes
This is a Chinese brand so for sure it will be cheaper than any where else unless you are from Chian, Hong Kong or Macao. They have a wide variety of ankle boots (cos it's the winter season now) priced at around S$130 during this sale period. Heels and stilettos are in the S$90 range. Good deal considering the quality and comfort of their products.

You will notice that I mainly lists down Asian brands. Reason being they are more likely to be significantly cheaper in China than anywhere else because of the geographical proximity. There are some good deals, especially for clothings, for American and European brands, but you will need to surf through it yourself to see if it suits you.

Get rebates for positive reviews on Taobao!

Following my guide on shopping on Taobao, I have another tip to share!
Yes! You can actually get a rebate/refund of RMB 2 to RMB 5 from leaving a positive review of the item you purchased on Taobao! I know that isn't a lot. Averages about S$1 for a review, but it gets credited to your Alipay account and after a few reviews, you can actually have enough to buy a small item.

Here's how it works:

1. Leave a positive review (denoted by a red flower) with at least 10-20 characters
2. Screenshot your submitted review
3. Send a private message to the seller with your screenshot
4. Send the seller your Alipay (China version of Paypal) account user ID
5. Most seller will send you a screenshot of the refund transaction

Things to note:

a) Not all seller will give you a rebate for positive review. Most sellers that have such benefit will enclose a slip packaged together with your purchase. Looks something like below:

b) The general requirement for receiving the rebate is to leave a positive rating, give them 5 stars rating for all categories, and to write a minimum of 10-20 characters review. I noticed that most of the time, the seller won't/can't check whether you did give them 5 stars for all categories. As long as you screenshot the positive rating you gave and the review write-up, they will give you the rebate (at least that's my experience thus far). The screenshot that I paste to the seller to claim my rebate:

Notice the red flower at the side, that's the indication for a positive review. You can view the reviews you gave by going to 我的淘宝 > 已买到的宝贝 > 评价管理 > 给他人的评价 (copy and use Ctl+F to search for the link to each page).

c) If you can understand Chinese, you can just go to the seller's Taobao page and look for '客服' (customer service). It looks like a blue water droplet. Just ask (if you are unsure) if they allow for positive review rebates '请问好评有返现吗?'

If you can't understand Chinese, I suggest you just paste the screenshot straight and says '给了好评，请返现' followed by your Alipay user ID 'xxx@gmail.com' 

Usually the seller will say ok and inform you that they will process it shortly. Depending on the seller, the refund may be immediate or the next working day.

d) Here's some sample general positive reviews in Chinese for the non-Chinese users:

- 宝贝实在太棒了! 选了这个保证没错，质量也相当的好！喜欢！

- 对这次购买的宝贝非常满意。以后还是会光顾这家

- 宝贝质量好得没话说！物流也非常的快，喜欢！

Please only do it when you are really satisfied with the product. If the product sucks, do not give it a positive review so that others won't be similarly cheated!

A Guide to Shopping on Taobao

Just recently I took advantage of Taobao Single's Day (aka 11 Nov or 1111) sale to buy some stuff. It is a day when most Taobao minishop will offer discounts and the volume of transaction can get really big. I don't use any buying agent for my purchases. Taobao SEA has it's own forwarding agent to help deliver whatever I buy to me (currently it only applies to certain destinations like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia etc.).

This guide here is meant to teach you how to shop like a pro on Taobao and what are the things to look out for. Whether you are using a buying/forwarding agent or not, most importantly it is to navigate to the product you like and have that bit of assurance that it is not a scam shop.

#1 Taobao vs Tmall
At the Taobao main page, you will see a link to Tmall (天猫) just below the Taobao logo. Tmall is part of Taobao and most buying agent can help you purchase from both.While Taobao minishops can be set up by individual, selling/re-selling anything, Tmall shops can only be set up by companies. You will definitely get more consistent quality/service over at Tmall than at Taobao because Tmall has stricter guidelines to follow e.g. 7 days refund policy, delivery time no later than x days. Tmall shops are usually of the company's own brand, hence the authenticity of the product. Major international brands like Reebok, Nike, Prada are listed on Tmall together with domestic brands like Li Ning and 361degrees.

#2 Seller Reputation
Taobao has a seller reputation rating as denoted by the number of hearts/diamonds/crowns, with the crowns indicating more reputable. The seller reputation is usually indicated just below the name of the minishop. For each transaction, the buyer is allowed to give a rating of Good, Average or Poor to the seller. A 'Good' rating will earn the buyer 1 reputation point, a 'Average' rating earns no points, and a 'Poor' rating will cause a deduction of 1 point. Clicking on the rating will bring you to a page whereby they give you more in-depth statistics on the seller's performance, even comparing the seller to other sellers selling similar products. Personally I don't recommend looking into such in-depth statistics because it might confuse you more, and unless you can read Chinese, it will take up some time.

 

#3 Product Review Quickview

If you can't understand Chinese, one quick way to get a sense of what others say about a product, is to look at the 'People's Opinion' (大家印象). It is located in the 2nd tab when you scroll down to see the product description. It is a system-generated cloud of words that are frequently said by reviewers of the product. An orange box is a positive comment, while a grey box is a negative one. You can use google translate to help you with these key words, rather than translating the reviews which can be colloquial at times. Using the screenshot below as an example, the orange boxes are 'overall good', 'thick material', 'pretty design', 'looks beautiful wearing it', 'true to size', 'very comfortable', 'good attitude', 'nice packaging', 'decent delivery'. The grey one says 'weird smell'. 

Note: Only products with a significant number of reviews will have this 'People's Opinion' function.

#4 Taobao Gold Coins

This is only applicable for those who can add items to cart and check out the purchases. For those who uses a buying agent, you will not be able to make use of this benefit.

It is basically a loyalty system whereby you login each day to collect your daily gold coins, with more gold coins given if you login on consecutive days (http://taojinbi.taobao.com). The gold coins can then be used to offset the cost of certain purchases when you check out your items. 100 gold coins = ¥1. 

Tip: You can earn double gold coins daily by downloading the Taobao mobile app and clocking in your attendance there. There are also other ways to earn more gold coins (doing mission, lucky draw etc.) which I don't recommend you wasting your time to do so.

#5 Check for Discount Voucher

Always check for any discount voucher that the minishop might provide before making payment. At the cart view, if there are any discount vouchers, it will be indicated as 优惠券 right next to the shop name. Click on it and you can then collect a voucher by clicking on '领取'. At this point, you have only downloaded the voucher but have not applied it to the product you are going to buy. Proceed to make the payment. At the payment page, the system would have automatically included the discount under '店铺优惠'. In the event that you have several vouchers, you can click on the drop down to select the most beneficial to you.

Note: Some vouchers will have a minimum amount spent requirement hence you might be able to download the voucher but not able to use it.