Our Japanese shoji doors have finally arrived at the 65daigou warehouse in Guangzhou yesterday! YAY! :D This is for the doorway between the foyer and the living room, so I can carve out a proper, enclosed cat corner for when I foster cats, like I've done in the past.
What a nightmare it has been, coordinating the logistics of this thing. I opted to place the order myself initially cuz there were way too many options to choose from to custom-make these doors. I had to choose the number of tracks, the number of panels, the pattern of the wooden frame, the pattern on the shoji paper etc. It just seemed like too much information to convey so I spoke to the seller myself to get the details of the order ironed out, made payment via credit card and figured that that would be it (just sit back to wait for the items to arrive at the warehouse in a bit). Boy, I was SO off the mark...
I got a shipping notification via the Taobao app on June 27th and when I checked, it has already arrived in Guangzhou for 3 days, with a daily 提货通知：短信 通知失败 since June 24th! I was baffled - this was my 1st Taobao order after all - so I assumed it would all sort out by itself since I have already put in the 'Ship For Me' order the very next day after I got the notification.
After 3 days and no updates, I decided to drop 65daigou an enquiry on July 1st. 2 days later, they replied that they have no idea why it hasn't been delivered yet and advised that I should get the seller to have the item delivered to their warehouse. So back on Taobao I go, to chat to the seller and to ask her to get the local delivery company to deliver to the warehouse. The next day, 65daigou dropped me another note that the local delivery company that the seller used practises self-collection which they don't do. Which is all well and good since I've already asked the seller to get them to deliver. Ok great, no more problems, the total amount I've paid should include delivery right? ...WRONG!
On July 8th, when I checked the delivery status in the morning and it said 派送中 - I was over the moon. YAY, it's almost there! ...I thought. But in the afternoon when I checked again - the latest update said 派送失败（原因：付款问题（客户））BLOODY HELL. That was when I came to the realisation that I've just made the biggest, dumbest mistake of all, which was to assume that the price is inclusive of door-to-door shipping. I blame it on all the Chinese on the product page - it boggled my mind good. I even asked a friend to pore through the item page for me after that - there was absolutely no mention of the shipping / delivery methods on it. I should have asked the seller, instead of assuming! DOH! (Cue smack forehead lol) So back to 65daigou I go... They checked with the delivery company and were told that the seller opted for collection of delivery charges upon delivery. 65daigou's usual practice was to refuse anything that requires payment (which was what happened with my 1st delivery) but they agreed to pay the shipping charges first, if I could just let them know the exact amount.
Morning of July 9th had me speaking to the seller to get her to check the total amount to pay for delivery (inclusive of the 1st failed delivery, grr). She replied to me that night to say it was 198 RMB but I didn't see it till 10:30 the next morning. She also left a message earlier that morning with her mobile number to say that delivery mode cannot be changed after 11:30am! That set me in panic mode, so I quickly made a call to her (international call charges, gah!) to find out the details. That was when she told me to just pay her the delivery fees and she'd pay the delivery company on my behalf.
That set off another round of confusion cuz I wasn't sure how to pay her. She then told me to just order any item on her listing and she would change the price for me, just like the previous order for my doors. After 20 minutes of figuring out how to pay via the Taobao mobile app, I finally got the case settled. It was going to be delivered that very day. And all this while I was on the way to work! What madness, lol. Needless to say, I was checking delivery status on the app every other hour the whole of Friday. It finally got updated late that night with a 正常签收.
HIP HIP HOORAY! :D
Damage (till date): 1749 (doors/tracks) + 198 (2 x delivery) RMB ($450 ish)
Shipping @ volumetric weight of 42kg (sea) + 7% GST (for items above $400): $155 ish
If I'd gone with the 'Buy For Me' option - the agent fee would have only been 140 RMB (8% of item cost) and a lot less hassle. I wonder if I should try that for my next purchase haha.
In any case, what I've paid is still a lot cheaper than what I was quoted locally (2-3k range) for similar-looking wooden doors and this being the real deal. Provided the dimensions of the delivered product are accurate, of course.
A $600 gamble... (I have terrible luck tho.) Hope all that trouble will be worth it. :P
I got a shipping notification via the Taobao app on June 27th and when I checked, it has already arrived in Guangzhou for 3 days, with a daily 提货通知：短信 通知失败 since June 24th! I was baffled - this was my 1st Taobao order after all - so I assumed it would all sort out by itself since I have already put in the 'Ship For Me' order the very next day after I got the notification.
After 3 days and no updates, I decided to drop 65daigou an enquiry on July 1st. 2 days later, they replied that they have no idea why it hasn't been delivered yet and advised that I should get the seller to have the item delivered to their warehouse. So back on Taobao I go, to chat to the seller and to ask her to get the local delivery company to deliver to the warehouse. The next day, 65daigou dropped me another note that the local delivery company that the seller used practises self-collection which they don't do. Which is all well and good since I've already asked the seller to get them to deliver. Ok great, no more problems, the total amount I've paid should include delivery right? ...WRONG!
On July 8th, when I checked the delivery status in the morning and it said 派送中 - I was over the moon. YAY, it's almost there! ...I thought. But in the afternoon when I checked again - the latest update said 派送失败（原因：付款问题（客户））BLOODY HELL. That was when I came to the realisation that I've just made the biggest, dumbest mistake of all, which was to assume that the price is inclusive of door-to-door shipping. I blame it on all the Chinese on the product page - it boggled my mind good. I even asked a friend to pore through the item page for me after that - there was absolutely no mention of the shipping / delivery methods on it. I should have asked the seller, instead of assuming! DOH! (Cue smack forehead lol) So back to 65daigou I go... They checked with the delivery company and were told that the seller opted for collection of delivery charges upon delivery. 65daigou's usual practice was to refuse anything that requires payment (which was what happened with my 1st delivery) but they agreed to pay the shipping charges first, if I could just let them know the exact amount.
Morning of July 9th had me speaking to the seller to get her to check the total amount to pay for delivery (inclusive of the 1st failed delivery, grr). She replied to me that night to say it was 198 RMB but I didn't see it till 10:30 the next morning. She also left a message earlier that morning with her mobile number to say that delivery mode cannot be changed after 11:30am! That set me in panic mode, so I quickly made a call to her (international call charges, gah!) to find out the details. That was when she told me to just pay her the delivery fees and she'd pay the delivery company on my behalf.
That set off another round of confusion cuz I wasn't sure how to pay her. She then told me to just order any item on her listing and she would change the price for me, just like the previous order for my doors. After 20 minutes of figuring out how to pay via the Taobao mobile app, I finally got the case settled. It was going to be delivered that very day. And all this while I was on the way to work! What madness, lol. Needless to say, I was checking delivery status on the app every other hour the whole of Friday. It finally got updated late that night with a 正常签收.
HIP HIP HOORAY! :D
Damage (till date): 1749 (doors/tracks) + 198 (2 x delivery) RMB ($450 ish)
Shipping @ volumetric weight of 42kg (sea) + 7% GST (for items above $400): $155 ish
If I'd gone with the 'Buy For Me' option - the agent fee would have only been 140 RMB (8% of item cost) and a lot less hassle. I wonder if I should try that for my next purchase haha.
In any case, what I've paid is still a lot cheaper than what I was quoted locally (2-3k range) for similar-looking wooden doors and this being the real deal. Provided the dimensions of the delivered product are accurate, of course.
A $600 gamble... (I have terrible luck tho.) Hope all that trouble will be worth it. :P
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