Parcel Forwarding – Yen Kai's Idea Cast

Taobao parcel forwarder review – SGShop

I never expected to have to try yet another Taobao parcel forwarder after i have already gone through Taobao official shipping, ezbuy and 86of. I had to ship a piece of phone battery, which is obviously a sensitive item. Taobao official sea shipping does not allow it. Ezbuy still does not work (and probably won’t for the foreseeable future, unless you use VPN as suggested by Aber). As for 86of, i can’t get a definite answer from them whether they can ship a phone battery.

I have actually registered with SGShop for some time, but didn’t find their rates attractive. Anyway, since the other options are not available, i decided to check them out, and I discovered a major advantage they have over the others: instant response local chat service (ezbuy has chat service too). I was able to get confirmation (they verified with the Chinese counterpart) that they can ship the phone battery via sea shipping.

Another ezbuy fail – eBay forwarding

Update: Not sure what happened, but i don’t get that error message anymore. So my post below does not apply anymore, and yes, i’m back to using ezbuy for USA forwarding.

I have used ezbuy to forward eBay purchases from the US countless times, but when i tried to checkout my cart today, i encountered this error message: “This item cannot be purchased because this item cannot be sent to your shipping address.”.

Scratch my head.. the address has never been changed and it is correct. I tried to register a new eBay account, and then i discovered the reason – a mobile number must be paired with the shipping address. A landline won’t do. I guess this almost means goodbye to ezbuy, because i can practically ship nothing through them anymore (i haven’t tried their latest China forwarding address though).

Instead, i might turn to SGshop or vPost or comgateway. I have done a Taobao sea freight forwarding through SGshop and will post my review very soon. Now, i might try to forward my eBay purchases through them also. Their USA shipping rates are almost the same as ezbuy – S$3.99 per 500g, plus a clearance fee of $0.98 for each parcel (which also applies to China parcels, lame). ezbuy is still the cheapest, with no per parcel fee, and there is an option of charging by actual weight, at S$3.99 per 500g. Unbeatable. Hopefully they can supply a mobile phone number in the future.

By the way, i am not endorsing SGshop, not yet at least. They seem to be just a “reseller” for uclick2buy, because the warehouse address is exactly identical, and “UCB” is part of your forwarding address, and it obviously refers to uclick2buy. Interestingly, uclick2buy charges S$13.50 for the first 500g and every additional 500g costs $4.25, which is a lot more expensive.

The Google results also show that sellers have been scammed when sending to freight forwarded buyers – the recipient receives the products but they claim they got an empty box and refuse to release payment. Sellers are probably quite wary when they see freight forwarding addresses, so you probably need to have a credible purchase history for them to trust you.

Ezbuy ship-for-me is down again

Ezbuy has been trying to get back onto shipping Taobao goods again, and the strategy they employed of late is to change the forwarding address frequently, plus, using funny looking addresses. The most recent forwarding address is 阳光海鲜大排档转凤岗韵达网点转xxx (where xxx is your user id). That’s the name of a restaurant if you’re not well versed in Chinese.

Anyway, Taobao caught up with the game (or maybe they were just lenient for a while) and managed to block Ezbuy from stealing business again. When i tried to check-out, i was led to the following screen, which is pretty much the same as what was prompted to Ezbuy users a year ago when Taobao first launched the move to block users from using Ezbuy forwarding.

I did manage to use Ezbuy ship-for-me twice in recent times though. Oh well.

Update: status still the same as at 4 Jan 2019.

Parcel forwarding from the US – vPost vs ezbuy

So, i just shipped two Amazon parcels from the US, using vPost and ezbuy respectively. I’ve been shipping parcels from the US using ezbuy exclusively for years, but was forced to look for an alternative recently.

You might be wondering, why would i need to ship Amazon parcels through a third party forwarder if there is Amazon Prime Now in Singapore that offers free shipping. The reason is, prices found on Amazon Prime Now, for some products, are much higher than that on the Amazon US website. Either that, or the product is not available. There are categories of goods that you will not find on Amazon Prime Now, such as Coffee Beans and other imported food. Continue reading Parcel forwarding from the US – vPost vs ezbuy

Ezbuy hits another wall

Apparently, Ezbuy is now blocked from forwarding Amazon purchases (for selected items). I turn to vPost for now, but i hope Ezbuy will be back in action (Update: i shipped another Amazon order to ezbuy warehouse and it worked). I believe they’re still the cheapest around.

Taobao parcel forwarder review – DPEX

My default Taobao parcel forwarder is ZTO-DPEX. I used to know how to change the default forwarder but I cannot locate the place to change it currently. If you know how to do so please enlighten me by leaving a comment! By the way, the shipping fee for ZTO is the same as for Dex-i (the lowest rates): 26 Yuan for the first kg and 9 Yuan for each subsequent 0.5kg. Somehow Taobao doesn’t bother to update their website to reflect the new pricing. Another observation is that the shipping weight may be rounded down, which is advantageous to consumers. My parcels weigh a total of 3.78kg, but i was only charged the shipping fee for 3.5kg (89 Yuan or S$18.30). I wouldn’t say it is cheap, but it is fair enough. Continue reading Taobao parcel forwarder review – DPEX

Taobao parcel forwarder review – Road Bull

My latest Taobao consolidate and shipping delivery via ZTO was just completed, and this time the local delivery was handled by Road Bull.

The interesting thing is, the delivery was done while I was overseas. A photo was provided as proof of delivery (featured image above). Continue reading Taobao parcel forwarder review – Road Bull

Taobao parcel forwarder review – Ninja Van

It’s been more than a year since i last used Taobao consolidated shipping. The singles day promotion looked tempting, and i gave it a try again. There was a 13 Yuan discount, which halved the first kg cost. At just 13 Yuan (S$2.70) for a 1kg shipment, i felt it would be a waste not to take advantage of it. The singles day promotion for the items i was eyeing were quite attractive too. Continue reading Taobao parcel forwarder review – Ninja Van

86OF Lost Parcel

And so it happened to me, as predicted by myself. My very first parcel that is nowhere to be found in 86OF’s warehouse.

You may have ended up reading this post because you had the same fate. What I have to say to you is, don’t panic! Most likely, the parcel will be found. Also, don’t get angry nor too worried. It doesn’t help at all. Just take the logical steps toward finding your parcel and hope for the best. That’s all you can do anyway. Yelling at the customer service does nothing to help your cause. Continue reading 86OF Lost Parcel

Review of 86OF Air Shipping

Timeliness is sometimes the deciding factor for making a purchase. With the possibility of receiving your goods roughly one week from the time you order from Taobao, there’s no reason to shop from elsewhere. This is made possible with air shipping.

There are many options available when it comes to choosing the air shipping forwarder, and for the Singapore market, there are practically 3 options available – Taobao Consolidate and Shipping (to be referred to as simply Taobao henceforth), ezbuy and 86OF.

I have used Taobao and ezbuy air shipping regularly, and this time round, I had a go with 86OF. They have just revamped their offering and it is quite competitive. However, they are not the winner, not yet. Here is how the three compare: Continue reading Review of 86OF Air Shipping

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