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.
The online management interface works more or less the same as the rest. Fees wise, on top of shipping, there was also a per parcel clearance fee. Definitely more expensive than ezbuy Taobao forwarding, but the important thing is, they can ship the stuff.
Understandably, my parcels which i have submitted for shipment before CNY (31 Jan) was only shipped on 13 Feb, with the ETA being 4 Mar (19 days). A long wait. It was further delayed due to some problem with the ship. Nevertheless, I finally received my parcel on 16 Mar. Good thing they are open even on a Saturday, till 5pm. Collection was a breeze. The office seems better appointed than ezbuy’s. By the way, the parking grace period is only 5 minutes, whereas it is 10 minutes at ezbuy. The queue is usually longer at ezbuy though.
The entire experience was actually quite positive and i have no hesitation about recommending them. But, given that they are more expensive, I will probably stick with ezbuy (now that i know they still do work when accessed through VPN).
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