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Thread: buying directly from taobao.com by yourself or through me

  1. #1
    Join Date
    10th Nov 2009
    Location
    Diamond Creek, Victoria
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    620

    Smile buying directly from taobao.com by yourself or through me

    I wouldn't post this thread if only 1 or 2 years ago, but now, due to some logistic breakthrough between Aus and China, buying TF directly from taobao.com seems feasible.

    taobao now provides seamless freight forwarding service to many places including Australia. It works as the following:

    Step 1: create a taobao account, and fill in your Aussie phone number and address;
    Step 2: choose the toy/seller you want, and simply click buy;
    Step 3: taobao platform will automatically identify your address to be an overseas one and inform seller to send item to forwarder's address; therefore from seller's point of view, he/she simply send item to a local recipient without detailed knowledge of the foreign buyer; at this point you will pay toy's price + local transportation cost (usually less than 5 AUD);
    Step 4: waiting for the forwarder to inform you about the international shipping cost, once you receive the notice, you pay again for international postage. this transaction is now too seamlessly integrated within taobao platform. At this point you will already know your total deliver-to-door cost of your toy.
    Step 5: waiting for up to 3 weeks for your item to come.

    The language:
    as far as I know they are around 10 sellers with long term (10 years +) reputation. it is easy to remember them. google web translate also helps.

    The bank account:
    taobao recognises Aussie credit card and mobile number (for verification code). However, the exchange rate they apply might be a small rip-off.

    Warranty issue:
    3rd party toys now all provide warranty to buyers. taobao sellers simply give you their contact so you can contact yourself. I am sure they have team member speaking English. They will firstly offer part replacement, if you can prove it is too hard just by replacing certain part, they will offer replacement, but usually postage cost is on you. Sending replacement parts from China to Australia is done via "SF Express", which is different from taobao forwarder, and it is pay-on-receiving.

    official toys do not have warranty, so if you find a missing wheel, bad luck. However, the taobao listing price for a Hasbro Leader Class toy is usually 250RMB (50 AUD) , so I would take that risk if I am going to collecting TF in long term.

    taobao's forwarder postage cost:
    to Australia, it is roughly 13 AUD for first kg, and 4 AUD for each additional 0.5kg.

    GST:
    the total cost, toys + postage should not be more than 1000 AUD, otherwise GST will apply.

    All I said above is not new except the integrated forwarder service, which really makes taobao feasible/accessible from Australia. Skipping all transactions that involve US dollars will bring the cost down a lot. I started buying TF in 2009, when 1 AUD worths more than 1 USD, but this won't come back in near term.

    ==================== ==========================
    I hope above is helpful to you. If you still feel not confident, as part of my home business, I can help you with all above with a % charge for service. My wife is doing buying agency at home for our suburb area. We offer pay-on-receiving service. You will be paying "transparent price of the toy + pre-disclosed % service charge + postage cost to your door" and only pay once the item arrives. The exchange rate applied will be the day rate when you are about to pay us. If you are interested in this, please email me at xin@diamondvalley.cn or pm me here.

    thx

  2. #2
    Join Date
    23rd Sep 2014
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    373

    Default

    * 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 .

  3. #3
    Join Date
    10th Nov 2009
    Location
    Diamond Creek, Victoria
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    620

    Default hi

    Quote Originally Posted by aching878 View Post
    * 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?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    23rd Sep 2014
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    Sydney
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    Quote Originally Posted by langzixinxin View Post
    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?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    26th Mar 2014
    Location
    Sydney
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    Default

    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.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    10th Nov 2009
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    Diamond Creek, Victoria
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by aching878 View Post
    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.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    10th Nov 2009
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    Diamond Creek, Victoria
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Initial_G View Post
    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.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    23rd Sep 2014
    Location
    Sydney
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by langzixinxin View Post
    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

  9. #9
    Join Date
    10th Nov 2009
    Location
    Diamond Creek, Victoria
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by aching878 View Post
    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.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    23rd Sep 2014
    Location
    Sydney
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by langzixinxin View Post
    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

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