Since 11/11 is dawning upon us in the coming week, I believe many people have been holding back their purchases so as to milk the biggest sales event of the year – Single’s day, especially on Taobao! After all, I believe this 11/11 thing originated from Taobao right? I might be wrong la, but they were the first online shopping site that I’ve heard of such crazyyyy sales.
Like many others, even though I heard a lot of good things from Taobao, I have always just stayed envious of people who knew how to shop on the platform, as I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO DO IT and I WAS SCARED I’D DO WRONG. The usual reasons of people being scared of going on the platform to buy things, despite all the good reviews are:
- The site is entirely in Chinese, and your Chinese not good / zai enough.
- You hear that got dont know what consolidation of parcels thing and read on other blogs that need to liaise with certain companies or what to consolidate your parcels. What what????
- Dont know how much is the shipping fees also cause like not upfront prices, need to deliver from shop to the warehouse then will know the shipping fees? Later too ex how?
- Dont know whether items are legit or what
- Hear say the shipping time can take 2-3 months, I’m not even sure whether my parcels are missing or it’s just not here yet
These were the concerns I had as well, and like many others, I googled and read other articles on this but yet, I was still lost and just gave up at the part where they mentioned about consolidating my parcels because my chinese can barely scrape through the ordering process, now I have to do even more to consolidate parcels?! So I have always given up and decided to just use our local platforms like Shopee or Lazada, or just save money la dont buy.
The previous post I did on the Taobao haul for my home – was the first time I’ve gotten stuff from Taobao. Boy! It opened up a whole new world of shopping for me, and everything was just so fun, smart and interesting. But of course, I got an acquaintance to help me to do the consolidation and shipping because I was totally lost at the check out part.
Direct Shipping to Singapore Option
This brand new feature eliminates at least 2-3 points from the above, and knowing how to make use of this option, would make the entire shopping experience just like any other online shopping experience – add to cart, checkout, pay and wait for your parcels. No need to consolidate or make additional payments.
To highlight the down sides of this option first, it is definitely not as cheap to ship the items over via the consolidation process, but it is still reasonable if you are buying the normal sized items and not huge and heavy furniture, because shipping costs are all based on weight and size. Consider it as a fuss free + EXPRESS function. And the second downside would be, the site is still in Chinese la, there’s nothing I can really help with this because Taobao comes from China?!
What’s so good about this new feature would be:
- Fuss free – like I mentioned. Add to cart, checkout and pay. No need for any consolidation
- The shipping fees are all stated UP FRONT, there’s no additional payments to be made when your items are shipped from the sellers to the warehouses in China
- If you select the air shipping option, your items can come as quickly as within 7 days OR LESS. It was amazing to receive my items almost instantly in the past 2 times i used this feature, as compared to my very first experience with Taobao, where I had to wait for 2 months for my items to arrive.
Step by Step Process of using this feature
Let’s say we all want to buy this pikachu car lamp
1 . Enter the keywords into the search box on the top of your taobao app
If you come across any items that you dont know the chinese term for, or you’d want to search for a cheaper / better alternative etc, you can always use this REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH
2. Look through the shops
As many different shops do sell the same items, and to minimize the possibility of getting crappy items, or dishonest/ bad sellers, you may do what I do!
It definitely doesn’t mean that those who sell more expensive are more likely to be trustworthy ah, cause I had on occasions bought from sellers who were WAY cheaper than some other shops and the items came in 10/10 quality and no defects / issues kind.
For me, I will see how many people have bought from the shop before and go into the shop to take a look.
3. Once into the shop, look at the items to make sure that it’s the correct item that you want and look at the possible shipping options.
Other shipping options you may encounter would be the following:
Pro tip: if you encounter this shipping option on an item that you really want, you can just reverse image search the item and go to other shops to click in to check until you see the 直达新加坡 option!
4. Before you add to cart, you may also want to scroll down somemore to check out the reviews, to have a peace of mind
5. After shopping, go to your cart!
6. Select the items you have decided to buy
7. Go to the confirm order / shipping page
Once you’ve selected, then you can proceed to make your payment, use all the promo / discount codes, and wait for your parcels to come! I have a promo code for you guys for 11/11 which is 50rmb off, a minimum spending of 599rmb – <TB11CL> which you can use!
I hope this step by step tutorial makes the shopping process easier for you guys! If you’re still blur, just go and try it out, trial and error, and you will get the hang of it after awhile, just like me!
The direct shipping option really minimises the hassle of consolidation and makes it really less intimidating for me, especially since all the shipping fees are upfront and I can use it like any other online shopping platform!
Hope this helps and you may reach out to me here or via instagram if you have any other questions!
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