Best Taobao Agent

maitre_tea
Posts: 59
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:54 am
Location: Washington, DC

Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:15 pm

It's been five years since I last ordered from Tao Bao, so I don't know how the landscape of Tao Bao agents has changed - I have ordered from Tao Bao Focus and it went well, but I'm wondering if there are better options out there.
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Balthazar
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:04 am
Location: Oslo, Norway

Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:22 pm

I've been wondering the same. I have a package on the way with an order I made through "Superbuy", am satisfied with the service. But if there are other trustworthy agents out there that take a smaller cut I'd love to know. Particularly if there are agents with better bulk shipping prices.
maitre_tea
Posts: 59
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:54 am
Location: Washington, DC

Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:46 pm

Balthazar wrote:
Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:22 pm
I've been wondering the same. I have a package on the way with an order I made through "Superbuy", am satisfied with the service. But if there are other trustworthy agents out there that take a smaller cut I'd love to know. Particularly if there are agents with better bulk shipping prices.
From what I've seen Superbuy is pretty well-recommended. I looked over their website (https://www.superbuy.com/en/) and I didn't any information about any fees they charge - they don't seem to charge fees, but I kinda find that hard to believe, ha ha. Were the shipping rates and their response times seem reasonable?
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Balthazar
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Sun Sep 13, 2020 3:05 pm

My impression is that the fees are baked into the USD-prices of the products and shipping (Superbuy obviously pays in CNY, the customer is charged in USD). Not as unreasonable as I had feared though. But my next planned order will probably weigh a couple kilos, so shipping charges suddenly matter a lot more.

Response time to my one query was good (<24h) and the standard service included fairly detailed photos of the ordered item. The dashboard and navigation doesn't take too long to get used to.
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Darbotek
Posts: 203
Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2020 5:25 pm
Location: East Texas

Sun Sep 13, 2020 11:21 pm

I’m 100% Japanese tea now a days, but in my Chinese tea days I too used Superbuy. I was always very pleased with the service and how quickly they replied to questions. Quite a few orders and I only had one broken item show up. Didn’t take pictures of the box so I couldn’t make an insurance claim(box wasn’t really damaged anyway). Luckily it was a $15 tea boat so I didn’t lose much. I have it set aside for when I eventually take up kintsugi, it will be a great practice piece.
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Balthazar
Posts: 706
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Mon Sep 14, 2020 12:50 pm

Just placed a relatively big order with Taobao Focus (some heicha for me and some Tong Ren Tang cold medicine, that we usually buy in China but won't be able to this year, for my wife...). Would've gone with Superbuy, but the page had a problem with some of the links (couldn't read them), and two items actually showed up as sold out although they were not.

So trying my luck with Taobao Focus. Also like that they charge a transparent rate of 10%, no magic currency conversions or anything like that. Will report back when the order is (hopefully) received.

Edit: On the flip side, Taobao Focus charges a flat rate domestic shipping fee of CNY 15 per shop you order from. Individually, that's not a lot of money of course. But it adds up when you buy from different sources. It's not like it would be hard for them to just charge whatever the shop(s) are charging (which is what Superbuy does). Which 99% of the time is CNY 0...
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Balthazar
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:33 pm

My impression of Taobao Focus has cooled a bit...

The customer service is less practical than Superbuy's, where all of your correspondence is stored in a message center and it's very easy to keep track of the history. With TBF you're limited to a live chat or e-mailing, and communicating though the latter is a bit of a mess as it seems they don't have a good system to keep track of earlier sent/received e-mails.

The above is relatively minor. What bugs me more is what appears to be a less than completely honest shipping practices. For items that weigh a total of 2 kg they're claiming a total shipping weight of 4.5 kg. I asked for a breakdown of the item weight, and they basically responded by saying that "if we make it lighter - chance of damage during delivery increases" - which is of course true, but 2.5 kilos of packaging for tea that basically only needs a box that won't break? Seems excessive to me. They also tagged on a shipping insurance fee of $25, which shouldn't be necessary with China EMS (correct me if I'm wrong) as items will be insured for their declared value unless we're talking really valuable stuff. In any case, they've agreed to remove this so long as I am aware that it's at my risk and if the parcel is lost "we will have to [rely on] delivery services and their solutions."

Another thing:
Balthazar wrote:
Mon Sep 14, 2020 12:50 pm
Would've gone with Superbuy, but the page had a problem with some of the links (couldn't read them), and two items actually showed up as sold out although they were not.
The two items that showed up as sold out on Superbuy (but not TBF, and not when visiting the Taobao-page before placing the item in the shopping cart), were actually sold out. Superbuy somehow finds out about this automatically (I wonder if they have a script place the items in the shopping cart and check for messages about stock status, or something like that). TBF found out when they actually tried to make the order. So this is actually a plus for Superbuy.

The items were available from JD.com, though. Too bad TBF can't read JD.com-links (Superbuy can). To order from JD.com through TBF you need to ask through e-mail, which shouldn't be that much of a hassle but has been less than straightforward due to their previously mentioned lack of an overview of earlier sent/received e-mails. I corresponded with one customer service personnel yesterday, the one I communicated with today seems to know nothing about what I thought me and his colleague were in agreement about yesterday.

So long story short, based on this anecdotal experience, I'd rather go with Superbuy again next time around.
Rmt
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2020 11:53 am
Location: Northern Norway

Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:19 am

I've only used tbfocus, and have used it twice. Ended up using it because I couldn't find the objects/browse the stores effectively in the other agesnts I tried. Quite happy both times, but it has taken a while to get my packages. Agree that it's a bit hard to estimate shipping though. Then again, I've only ordered ceramics from tb, so I didn't object.
maitre_tea
Posts: 59
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:54 am
Location: Washington, DC

Wed Sep 30, 2020 8:59 am

Finally got my order from Taobao via Superbuy, which I highly recommend. I like the photos that they take of the items, and communication and shipping speed once stuff got in their hands was very quick. Would use them again in the future.
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Balthazar
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:04 am
Location: Oslo, Norway

Sat Aug 07, 2021 10:02 am

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.
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chadao
Posts: 32
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Location: Vancouver, Canada

Tue Aug 10, 2021 5:28 pm

Shipforwarder changes "Tea" to something else because they don't have a food export license and anything labelled tea would likely be returned from customs and not be allowed to be exported. Their pricing and service is spectacular, just be aware of that wrinkle.
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Balthazar
Posts: 706
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:55 am

Ah, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. I wonder if it's the same reason why Superbuy also does this. Although I could have swore I received at least one package from them where it had not been changed.
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chadao
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Location: Vancouver, Canada

Wed Aug 11, 2021 11:16 am

Balthazar wrote:
Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:55 am
Ah, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. I wonder if it's the same reason why Superbuy also does this. Although I could have swore I received at least one package from them where it had not been changed.
Superbuy has an export license, it seems, or at the very least I had sent many packages of tea declared as tea from them.

What happens, I suspect, is that there's sort of a default declaration assigned to a parcel and when you submit it for shipping you have to manually change it to tea yourself. I have never had them change "tea" to something else on my behalf, only get the automatic declaration of "plastic flowers" or "fiber filler."
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chadao
Posts: 32
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Location: Vancouver, Canada

Wed Aug 11, 2021 11:43 am

To sort of get back to the question of "best Taobao agent" I have a couple of thoughts:

For quite some time, I used Superbuy as I find their system painless and effective. However, I have recently switched to making Taobao/TMall/JDMall/etc purchases on my own, when I can, and using Shipforwarder to receive deliveries and send them to me, overseas.

Reasons why this works well for me:

- To recharge a Superbuy wallet in order to make purchases, if you don't have Alibaba or WeChat pay, you have to use PayPal. You have to load your wallet in Chinese Yuan (RMB) using US dollars; Superbuy sets their own RMB/USD exchange rate that is typically different from market rates (ie, they give you less RMB for the USD, and pocket the difference). Additionally, as I am Canadian, Paypal takes a cut of the transaction. At times, I found that the RMB/USD was near 20%-25% different from market rates.

- The same exchange rate applies to shipping purchases.

- For anything involving tea, Superbuy will only permit EMS shipping (not always a problem, but sometimes you don't want to pay so much and are okay with writing)

Reasons why this may not work well for others:

- If you can't get a Taobao account or an Alipay account, you can't do the purchasing on your own.

- If you don't understand any Chinese, Taobao may be complicated to use.
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Balthazar
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:04 am
Location: Oslo, Norway

Wed Aug 11, 2021 1:54 pm

chadao wrote:
Wed Aug 11, 2021 11:43 am
- For anything involving tea, Superbuy will only permit EMS shipping (not always a problem, but sometimes you don't want to pay so much and are okay with writing)
Is this a recent or location specific thing? I've had two packages from Superbuy shipped with SAL and one with EUB/Youbao earlier this year (last one shipped in May). One contained only tea, the other two a mixture of tea and other goods.
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