buying directly from taobao.com by yourself or through me

[langzixinxin]

* most mainstream 3P TFs (fanstoys, maketoys etc etc ) you can't buy direct like that anymore as recent changes on Taobao means most of those are auto flagged as not allowed for international destination. So you can add to cart but that's where it ends .

I just ordered 4 from a taobao seller last month. They already arrived in Melbourne and now sell them on ebay as Aussie stock.

You mean it just happened in May?

[aching878]

I just ordered 4 from a taobao seller last month. They already arrived in Melbourne and now sell them on ebay as Aussie stock.

You mean it just happened in May?

Been like that since a few months back, what brand did u buy tho?

Also r u using tao's build in forwarder like 4Px etc?

[Initial_G]

Interesting, thanks for posting the details. Very helpful

I've always been interested and heard ppl buying from Taobao, but always confused n worried due to language. I might try a small purchase first and test the waters.

[langzixinxin]

Interesting, thanks for posting the details. Very helpful

I've always been interested and heard ppl buying from Taobao, but always confused n worried due to language. I might try a small purchase first and test the waters.

the forwarder is not cheap for small items though. ordering more is better but not to exceed 1000 AUD (including shipping cost). However, you will have to wait 2 or 3 days to know your shipping cost AFTER you buy from the seller. For example, you ordered 4700 RMB items, after 3 days you are informed with 300 RMB for shipping cost, so you reach totally 5000 RMB. It is slightly below 1000 AUD these days but you never know if the exchange rate fluctrating up and down so you might see it became slightly over 1000 AUD, then another 100 AUD GST will apply.

Another potential issue is, if the forwarder, for whatever reason cannot ship the item, it will be hard to return back to the seller because from seller's point of view, they already made a sale to a local destination, unless the box, after all around domestic transportation, still 9c in condition. If that happened to me, I will just tell seller send to my beijing home and worry about it next time I go back.

[langzixinxin]

Been like that since a few months back, what brand did u buy tho?

Also r u using tao's build in forwarder like 4Px etc?

x-transbots cyclonous and yes, in my op, i meant 4Px.

[aching878]

x-transbots cyclonous and yes, in my op, i meant 4Px.

Ok makes sense why it works, x-trans items are not flagged

If you try fanstoys, maketoys , KFC, UT and few others you'll notice they are no longer allowed item for intl

The other brands are still ok

[langzixinxin]

Ok makes sense why it works, x-trans items are not flagged

If you try fanstoys, maketoys , KFC, UT and few others you'll notice they are no longer allowed item for intl

The other brands are still ok

Did you experience this yourself? I just asked the UT owner, he said "never heard". He doesn't send to BigBad Toy via taobao though.

It doesn't really matter, you still can somehow add their wechat and pay them in wechat and ask them work out how to send to Australia. Wechat will include AUD soon.

[aching878]

Did you experience this yourself? I just asked the UT owner, he said "never heard". He doesn't send to BigBad Toy via taobao though.

It doesn't really matter, you still can somehow add their wechat and pay them in wechat and ask them work out how to send to Australia. Wechat will include AUD soon.

Yep had this happen on many products when I tried to buy since few months ago and had a few major stores on Taobao help check out from their end as well, it's a taobao issue as long as your trying to to send certain TF 3P brands overseas to countries like AU, when you buy item on the confirmation page you'll see item restricted from sending to your country warning and option to commit purchase is grey out

The wechat sort out other shipping is option but can ends up costing too much, as the shipping rate shops/sellers can use is a lot more $ than the reship fee taobao offers so it could end up more expensive or just the same as buying from other online stores

I've been buying from Tao for years so all those options changes etc been there done that . It was more flexible few years ago but nowadays it's a lot more restricted

[langzixinxin]

Yep had this happen on many products when I tried to buy since few months ago and had a few major stores on Taobao help check out from their end as well, it's a taobao issue as long as your trying to to send certain TF 3P brands overseas to countries like AU, when you buy item on the confirmation page you'll see item restricted from sending to your country warning and option to commit purchase is grey out

The wechat sort out other shipping is option but can ends up costing too much, as the shipping rate shops/sellers can use is a lot more $ than the reship fee taobao offers so it could end up more expensive or just the same as buying from other online stores

I've been buying from Tao for years so all those options changes etc been there done that . It was more flexible few years ago but nowadays it's a lot more restricted

You are right. I know what happened now. The sellers know better than those toy makers. Hasbro asked taobao to block some of the items from sending overseas containing certain key words, maybe more than just FT MT UT etc. But it can be easily bypassed by asking the seller to change the item name from "FT transformer shockwave (for example)" to "Aussie Michael's toy". Solved.

However you can only do that if you know/trust the sellers very very well. Because once the name changed, your record cannot be used as a contractual evidence of your purchase.