Taobao Agent Review: Taobao Ring Part 2

Holy crap, that's all I have to say. They've already confirmed my order so I sent my first payment. Here are a few more screenshots of their process with some commentary. Basically, I LOVE their system. You can view each item in your cart, and it will show you a "yes" or "no" that the item is in stock and then when it ships. Each item also has an estimated shipping time. So far, so good.

They do charge paypal fees, which I don't recall Taobao Trends doing, but to me this is like when you send money for a group order- they're doing you a favor, a service, and making very little in the way of actual profit in my opinion, so I'm not bothered by it.


Taobao Agent Review: Taobao Ring Part 1 here .

So first up, here's an example of the email they send with a status update. This one was letting me know the boots won't ship until next week to them. 

Taobao Agent Review: Taobao Ring

With Taobao Trends now asking for Western Union and having repeated issues with their shopping cart system, I decided to be brave and try a new company. I placed an order for about $122 worth of stuff. Unlike Taobao Trends, they do not calculate their commission, nor domestic shipping in the total.

Their process is pretty much the same.

You input the items you want in the cart, select any options, confirm your address, choose your shipping option, and then submit your order.

They will confirm if the items are in stock, allow you to make any substitutions if not, and then ask you to send the payment for the items plus domestic shipping.

Once everything arrives, you'll receive a second charge for overseas shipping to you.

A Latiyellow-Sized Taobao Order!!

My latest Taobao order arrived. I thinned out my collection some more and used the funds to spoil my favorite dolls. :3 As always I like to share the wealth, so here's the info! (The first part is all stuff from the same shop. The second half will show where I got the other things in my order.) I also ordered a few lati-sized things off etsy. I'll add those to this post when they get here instead of doing an entirely different post. XD Enjoy!

Most of this stuff can be found on these three sites (links to specific items will follow below):

Taobao store: http://shop34137741.taobao.com
Etsy store (waaaaaay overpriced): (Can't find it of course, now that I'm looking so link is forthcoming)
English Site (more expensive than taobao): http://www.clear-lan.com/

Shipping time: A little over a month. Everything in the shop is made to order. They don't keep things in stock. Add a few extra days to the expected wait time if you're using the Taobao site and an agent. Taobao Trends declared the full value on my package as requested.

Quality: 5/5 everything is sewn amazingly well, velcro is thin and doesn't look cheesy. The fit is spot on and everything exactly like the pictures.

Style: Cutesy, Mori girl type stuff (not much for boys)

Size Range: lati yellow, pukifee, blythe

Ease of payment: 5/5, easy, used paypal with Taobao Trends like usual.

Communication: Communication with Taobao Trends went perfect as usual, so 5/5 for that.

A Visual Guide to Taobao

Originally, this was meant to be posted on the Haven site, but with the situation as it is I'm not sure what's happening with it so it'll be posted here. (Hopefully that doesn't cause drama or offend anyone. Oi.)

There is an excellent set of documents floating around various places on the internet to find terms and such to search for. Some people are still having difficulty, even with the Haven's helpful materials, so I thought I'd pitch in and make a tutorial using screen shots of one of my taobao orders. 

Brief overview: Taobao uses Chinese yuan, not yen. I usually use google or paypal's currency converter while I'm browsing.$1 USD is about 6.25 yuan (or 1 yuan is .16 $). As you're shopping, taobao trends will provide the CNY cost, their agent fees, and the USD value of what you're buying, all at the bottom of your cart.

I don't use a browser that automatically translates, as things just start to seem weird. If I need to know what the text says on a particular listing, I copy that text into google translate to get the gist of what's going on. Options are often weird. Some are intuitive: "coffee" usually refers to light brown color, but others make zero sense. There are lots of amusing taobao translations out there. XD

On this blog, under the reviews tab, you will find lots of my favorite taobao stores, so I'm not going to do a separate post just for those.

Alright, onto the tutorial!