Yunnan Craft

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LeoFox
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Tue Feb 07, 2023 9:10 am

LeoFox wrote:
Wed Dec 28, 2022 9:07 am
Enjoying some more of this Buddha blend
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LeoFox
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Fri Feb 10, 2023 7:11 am

2011 autumn yiwu - was told this one is a little special

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LeoFox
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Thu Apr 13, 2023 10:41 am

2019 white pu erh from wuliang shan. Amazing stuff!

https://www.yunnancraft.com/en/sheng-pu ... hu-dan-zhu

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Thundercleese
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Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2023 2:20 pm

Sat Apr 15, 2023 3:15 am

If I'm reading the proverbial room correctly, it would seem that the consensus is that Yunnan Craft is generally superior to Yunnan Sourcing. Is that accurate? If so, why?
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Bok
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Location: Taiwan

Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:28 am

Better tea for fairer price. No vendor bs whatsoever.
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Thundercleese
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Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2023 2:20 pm

Sun Apr 16, 2023 2:16 am

Thanks Bok! I just placed an order from YC for a Zitao teapot (my first from Jianshui) and a few of their less expensive teas so I'm excited to try them out.
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Thundercleese
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Tue Apr 18, 2023 10:37 pm

I've gotta say, this is one of the most disappointing tea purchases that I've made. I was looking forward to doing a side by side comparison of Yunnan Sourcing and Yunnan Craft orders, even down to their value teas. Instead, I have one completed, shipped Yunnan Sourcing order on the way and one cancelled Yunnan Craft order. :|

It doesn't matter how great the pricing and tea are if the experience of buying it and the service are unpleasant.

Placing the order was fine. No issues until I got to the payment, when I saw that the only method of payment they'd send is a Paypal invoice after the purchase is done. Paypal is a company that's stolen from me via account freezes multiple times, so I both won't and can't create an account with them. With every other tea seller that I've used that's not a problem.

There are plenty of sites that use Paypal as a payment processor, but what seems to differentiate YC is that they seem to insist on you having a Paypal account to pay them. YC sent me an invoice over email that requires signing up for Paypal. When I asked for an invoice that could just be paid without signing up for Paypal, they told me to contact Paypal to figure it out instead of sending one.

This is where I take issue with the service. It's not the customer's responsibility to talk to a company's payment processor to find out a payment solution, it's the vendor's. They're the ones that are choosing to keep paying Paypal to fulfill their transactions instead of less distrustworthy companies like Stripe or Amazon Pay.

Wuyi Origins can run a transaction through Paypal without making the customer sign up for a Paypal account (just placed an order with them and paid for it), so the option to do so should be there for YC. They just don't seem inclined to figure it out. Nor did they offer any other payment options like bank transfer or any other solution than "Should you wish to cancel the order and keep buying from your hassle free vendor , I completly understand that." It just doesn't seem like they want my business.

It's tough to justify not just cancelling the order at this point. There are dozens of companies that do a better job than Paypal (Stripe, Amazon Pay, etc), but more than that it seems like YC genuinely couldn't care less about the hassle that I've gone through and the time that I've spent trying to pay for the order while also being disinclined to contact Paypal and figure things out on their end.
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Bok
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Tue Apr 18, 2023 11:32 pm

Gotta say from my point of view, whoever needs to pay, needs to figure out how to do so... unless I have special insight. PP can be a pain to use also from a vendors side, not sure how things would stand if there'd be an argument over faulty goods when it involves a payment without account?

Also consider that you never know how many people are actually behind any given company. Some are literally one man operations with often very small margins. A larger one which already screws you over with a lot larger margins can afford to spend some more times with other issues.

China based businesses face their own challenges in terms of payment which might not always be clear from the outside (that can difffer regionally and depending on the individual companies setup).

Anyways, my two cents.
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Thundercleese
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Wed Apr 19, 2023 12:09 am

Bok wrote:
Tue Apr 18, 2023 11:32 pm
Gotta say from my point of view, whoever needs to pay, needs to figure out how to do so... unless I have special insight. PP can be a pain to use also from a vendors side, not sure how things would stand if there'd be an argument over faulty goods when it involves a payment without account?

Also consider that you never know how many people are actually behind any given company. Some are literally one man operations with often very small margins. A larger one which already screws you over with a lot larger margins can afford to spend some more times with other issues.

China based businesses face their own challenges in terms of payment which might not always be clear from the outside (that can difffer regionally and depending on the individual companies setup).

Anyways, my two cents.
Appreciate the insight. The vendors that I've paid through PP without an account still have things like my address and name, so it's not like the payment is anonymous. I wouldn't trust Paypal to resolve any kind of disagreement impartially anyway, they'd probably just freeze both accounts and steal the money in there. :lol:

Being in the service industry, my general sense is that it's a vendor's responsibility to compete for business. If I'm selling something and someone says they want to buy it, my response is to find a way to make that happen. Whether that's a new payment processor, cryptocurrency (I know it's illegal in China), a bank transfer, a friend stateside with Cashapp or Venmo, carrier pigeon, an envelope with cash in it, or whatever else, I'd figure it out because I know there are (in my industry's case) thousands of others locally that provide a similar service.

I'd never tell a potential customer to get in touch with the payment processor that I pay to process my transactions. I'd call the payment processor and find a way to run a transaction without an account and then get the solution to the customer. Maybe that's a cultural difference, but that's the thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth about this.
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Bok
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Wed Apr 19, 2023 12:58 am

@Thundercleese that’s a very US-American way to view things :lol:

Rest of the world has sometimes different perspectives.
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Bok
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Wed Apr 19, 2023 1:08 am

Also, if buying experience is the only factor, Hojo would probably take the crown of worst offender – yet, still in business due to excellent teas and not otherwise accessible specialty teaware.
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aet
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Wed Apr 19, 2023 1:12 am

Thundercleese wrote:
Tue Apr 18, 2023 10:37 pm
I've gotta say, this is one of the most disappointing tea purchases that I've made. I was looking forward to doing a side by side comparison of Yunnan Sourcing and Yunnan Craft orders, even down to their value teas. Instead, I have one completed, shipped Yunnan Sourcing order on the way and one cancelled Yunnan Craft order. :|

It doesn't matter how great the pricing and tea are if the experience of buying it and the service are unpleasant.

Placing the order was fine. No issues until I got to the payment, when I saw that the only method of payment they'd send is a Paypal invoice after the purchase is done. Paypal is a company that's stolen from me via account freezes multiple times, so I both won't and can't create an account with them. With every other tea seller that I've used that's not a problem.

There are plenty of sites that use Paypal as a payment processor, but what seems to differentiate YC is that they seem to insist on you having a Paypal account to pay them. YC sent me an invoice over email that requires signing up for Paypal. When I asked for an invoice that could just be paid without signing up for Paypal, they told me to contact Paypal to figure it out instead of sending one.

This is where I take issue with the service. It's not the customer's responsibility to talk to a company's payment processor to find out a payment solution, it's the vendor's. They're the ones that are choosing to keep paying Paypal to fulfill their transactions instead of less distrustworthy companies like Stripe or Amazon Pay.

Wuyi Origins can run a transaction through Paypal without making the customer sign up for a Paypal account (just placed an order with them and paid for it), so the option to do so should be there for YC. They just don't seem inclined to figure it out. Nor did they offer any other payment options like bank transfer or any other solution than "Should you wish to cancel the order and keep buying from your hassle free vendor , I completly understand that." It just doesn't seem like they want my business.

It's tough to justify not just cancelling the order at this point. There are dozens of companies that do a better job than Paypal (Stripe, Amazon Pay, etc), but more than that it seems like YC genuinely couldn't care less about the hassle that I've gone through and the time that I've spent trying to pay for the order while also being disinclined to contact Paypal and figure things out on their end.
Stripe doesn't operate in China not sure the Amazon pay but never seen any Chinese vendor using it as a 3rd party module payment ( like on different website than Amazon it self ) .
There is another way how to send the invoice to customer ( we have never tried it before ) which requires to fill up all details about the customer and shopping cart into the paypal platform and then can send it as a invoice.
As you clearly don't trust Paypal ,I wouldn't dare to put all your details in their website on your behalf, let alone the fact that I can not confirm that you still will be able to pay without having an account with them. ( as I wrote, we've never done that before )

The other issue with Paypal payment without having registered account with them is the refund.
If parcels lost and vendor has to send you a refund, since you don't have the paypal account , he has to send money different way ( because your credit card is not bounded with the paypal so they can't send you refund directly ) , and believe me , from China it is not easy.

As I wrote in email ,I'm sorry for this inconvenience and if we find better payment solution I will let you know.
It is not that we do not care , it is that we have a limited options here in China and we want to do biz honest way ( not overcharging for shipping or transferring the shipping expenses into the product price ).

Thanks for the understanding and your hones review here.

Kind regards
Alex
Yunnan Craft
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Thundercleese
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Wed Apr 19, 2023 1:41 am

That's fair and I understand @aet. I'm mostly bummed about the order not working out and I wish we could have found a solution. Hopefully sometime in the future. I respect the integrity of the goods on your site and your desire to keep shipping costs separate (though in my admittedly American view it's not intrinsically more dishonest than incorporating them into the price of goods, especially with an order minimum). I'm sure not having a Paypal account isn't an issue for 99% of your buyers.

If we're really being honest here I'm more sensitive because up until the end of last year I had a sibling who would just use Paypal for me. She died unexpectedly a few months ago and this reminded me of how much I miss her.

You're totally right @Bok that it's an American way to look at things. Competitive capitalism is bred deeply into us, for better or for worse. :lol: The first rule of business that I was ever taught was "when someone puts money in your hand, close your hand."

I've only been to mainland China a few times and was surprised at how difficult it was to pay for things so I can only imagine the hassle of trying to pull off overseas transactions. Most of my experience in China was in HK pre-2019, which I know had its own financial deal with the rest of the world and even that's likely changed since then. Too bad crypto is illegal there or I would have just fired off some Ethereum to settle up. I don't remember if it was Sazen or another vendor that had "amazon pay" as an option, but looking into that might be feasible since I know amazon operates in China to some degree.
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teatray
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Location: Sofia, Bulgaria

Wed Apr 19, 2023 2:12 am

Might be worth checking what exactly happened. As far as I know, there are several ways to request money on PayPal:
  1. classic money request with just a simple message -- a lazy way to request for businesses, but acceptable say for domestic shipments from one-man operations
  2. paypal invoice (with space for items, prices, shipping, company details, etc.) -- the professional way to send, also serves as proof of actual purchase prices in case the customer faces an invasive customs inspection
  3. newer ways to request money, incl. PayPal.me links, often coming from the mobile app, and actually requiring the sender to have a PayPal account
The first two support paying with card without having to register a PayPal account, after you click the Pay Now (or View & Pay Invoice) button. PayPal might nag you to register, but just persist and get to the card entry form. BONUS: Since you don't have an account, PayPal will not convert money for you, in case the money requested is in a foreign currency--your card will be charged in the foreign currency. (The money conversion thing is a scam that PayPal runs that overcharges you. They say it's so you can see the amount in your familiar card currency with "no hidden bank fees" that would be taken if they were to charge your card directly in the foreign currency--failing to mention that said hidden fees are a fraction of what PayPal's astonishingly bad exchange rates will add to your final cost. In fact, if you are paying a request in foreign currency and don't live in the EU or another area that forces PayPal to provide an opt-out at payment time, you *have* to pay without logging into your account to avoid paying PayPal several percent on top of your order amount.)

If seller requested using (1) or (2), you misinterpreted PayPal's request for account creation as a requirement for payment (which, in fairness, was probably a design goal for their site). IMHO a seller needs to know these things and assist you accordingly to get the payment through.

If seller requested using (3), they are causing their customers headaches & potentially additional expenses (unless card currency matches order currency) -- it's lazy & they should switch to (1) or (2), preferably (2).
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Thundercleese
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Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2023 2:20 pm

Wed Apr 19, 2023 2:30 am

Thanks for weighing in @teatray. Trust me, if there were an option to get to the payment screen without registering, I would have found it. I opened that email no less than a dozen times. The options were to sign in or create an account, there wasn't a "continue to payment" button unless it was in white font against a white background. :lol:

I was expecting an invoice like you mentioned in option 2. That's how I've generally paid for international transactions through Paypal, tea and otherwise. I assumed it was an option for YC, but it's entirely possible that it's not because, well, China.
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