I tried the service “Ship Forwarder” (
shipforwarder.com/) recently, which I highly recommend for orders from China if you’re able to pay for your good yourself and only need a shipping forwarder (i.e. someone to receive your order on a domestic address before helping you to ship it abroad).
The benefit of not having to rely on an agent to pay on your behalf is that you can circumvent the often quite bad conversion rates you get. It’s my impression that most agent services have solid margins built into the conversion rates (compared to paying directly in CNY through Wechat Pay or Alipay, or even a service such as wise.com).
The downside is that it’s often not an option (you don’t have access to Wechat Pay or Alipay, and the vendor/person you’re buying from don’t want to bother with an alternative payment method). It might also be more safe to pay through an agent with PayPal's purchase protection (although I’ve never needed to use this and don’t know what it covers, maybe you're covered equally well through regular credit card protection).
In my case I was buying not from a webpage but directly from an individual, and Ship Forwarder seemed like the best option.
After setting up an account you get an address to ship to, with a unique identifier. The user interface is very lean compared to the agent sites I've used (Superbuy and TBFocus).
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The statistics aren't all that interesting. "Ownerless Waybill" refers to items received that did not contain enough information to identify the owner (e.g. the unique identifier was omitted from the address), you can see these in the "Ownerless" section at the top and claim item(s) that are yours (after proving ownership). Unsurprisingly there are some disturbing items there.
Once one your packages has been received, it appears under the "Warehouse" section. Here you can view images, split up or combine orders and specify customs declaration, shipping method and other relevant information. There's also options to export order related data if for some reason you need to do this. You can store orders for free for up to 30 days.
In my case, the order was available under "Warehouse" with photos and information very quickly (< 1 hour) after it had been signed for according to the local 快递 tracking.
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Shipping rates from China are not cheap these days, and the USD 46 I paid were around what I had expected. (According to
the latest official reference list, 3 kg SAL to Norway should cost around CNY 227 (~USD 35), but these rates are from July 1, i.e. before the most recent covid outbreak, and might not be up to date.)
One you've added all the information and chosen and paid for shipping, the order(s) move to the "Pending" section where they remain until being shipped.
I paid for shipping 6:30 PM Chinese time, and the package was shipped 8:30 AM the next day.
Three minuses I'd give:
1) They changed the customs declaration from what I had specified (and put the value _lower_ than what I had stated). From “Tea” to “Fiber filler” (of all things…). It's a trivial matter for me in this case, but it might not be for you depending on what you are buying and how strict customs in your country is. To be fair, I’ve experienced the same with Superbuy too, where "tea" became “plastic flowers”.
2) No option to pay exactly the amount you owe (shipping + service fee). You have to "top up" your balance (on the positive side: a bunch of options, including, obviously, PayPal) before paying, which increases the likelihood that you'll have a couple dollars left over and thus that you'll use their service again next time around (to make use of that leftover balance).
3) Prices only in USD, not CNY. If you're paying them through either Wechat Pay or Alipay this is annoying, as you'll have to gamble on their conversion rate.
That being said, satisfied with the ease of use, prices and speed.