Terrayla: Shopping Service Review: Taobaotrends

http://terrayla.blogspot.com/2014/06/shopping-service-review-taobaotrends.html

My order:

Full item review here: http://terrayla.blogspot.com/2014/06/bobon21-taobao-order-review.html

This was the first time I had used Taobaotrends. I am not new to Taobao by any means but I just wanted to share my experience with using Taobaotrends as my SS (Shopping Service).

♥ Overview
This is going to be a wordy, and hopefully helpful *somewhat* in-depth review (not a tutorial).
In brief, Taobaotrends is the best Taobao shopping service I have ever used. I am not paid to say/write any of this. I was genuinely impressed by the amount of effort Taobaotrends put into their service. I have been frustrated with aspects of other shopping services, but I could not find anything wrong with Taobaotrends. My only complaint is that I wish I would have used them sooner!

Speed: 5/5 - updated me frequently, always responded quickly, very swift with updating order statuses.
Price: 5/5 - cheapest SS out there IMO. No PP fees and low SS fee if you pay via gift.
Shipping: 5/5 - offer SAL shipping (cheap) and packaged everything neatly. no damages/missing items.

♥ Website
Taobaotrends (http://www.taobaotrends.com/) is formally known as Tbtrends (http://www.tbtrends.com/).
Their website is fairly easy to navigate with a Home overview, a How to Buy guide, a tab for Payment & Fees and a tab for Shipping. Ordering is simple. You register for an account and log in with your username and password. I like that they use a shopping cart ordering system. You just copy and paste a link of the item you want, specify any comments, and then submit! So much easier than Excel spreadsheets.

♥ Speed
Before I made my order with Taobaotrends, I E-mailed them asking questions in comparison to the previous shopping services I used. Taobaotrends always responded back to me within 24 hours, and generally within 12. There was never any lack of communication and they never kept me waiting. Any inquiries I had, they quickly responded back.

Just one day later after submitting my order, I received confirmation through Email of which items were in stock and first payment information. That was the quickest wait time I had to endure with a shopping service. From then on, I regularly checked my Email to see an "Order Status Change" E-mail from them as I didn't want to constantly refresh my Taobaotrends account.

♥ Payment
First thing first is their conversion rate. 1 CNY = 0.168 USD
This is important as typing "100 Chinese yuan in USD" won't get you the same result as what they charge you because most Taobao SS use their own conversion rate. The conversion rate isn't really any higher or lower than any other Taobao SS.

There are two payments: Payment one is item price + domestic shipping and payment two is the shipping cost from them to you. Domestic shipping is a flat rate of 15 yuan per store/seller. They also charge a 10% shopping service fee but they will reduce the SS fee if you pay as gift (because Paypal fees). Minimum SS fee is 35 yuan.

♥ Shipping
One of the most important aspects to me when buying from China is shipping. Taobaotrends offers a 40%-50% shipping discount if you use EMS, however EMS still remains as more expensive. Taobaotrends is one of the few SS who offer SAL shipping, which is another reason why I gave them a try.

My package weighed 3.0kg. The cost of EMS was $61.99 USD (240+75*5)*60%*0.168 whereas SAL was $40.32 USD (120+60*2)*0.168. You can see which one I chose, and every option comes with tracking. I don't mind waiting up to a month for a package as I'm not in an urgent hurry to have my package arrive within 3 days.

♥ Dispatch
Prior to shipping my package, Taobaotrends sent me a private link to their 云盘 (a Cloud-based storage website) which contained my packaging photos. I was really impressed with how much time they put into orders! Not many Taobao SS take photos of your items once they arrive (some even charge for that), and the ones who do only take one photo of them all grouped together. But Taobaotrends took two photos of every item and a group photo!

Some photos:

♥ Shipment
The tracking website they sent me for Chinese mail is: http://intmail.183.com.cn/ or http://intmail.183.com.cn/icc-itemstatusen.jsp for English language. My tracking number was CP273485362CN and I didn't have any issues with tracking it down. For me, SAL on average takes 10 business days to arrive. It took 2 business weeks for my package to arrive. They shipped on Saturday, May 17th and I received my parcel on Monday, June 2nd.

♥ Package
This part doesn't have to do with Taobaotrends itself, but my experience with USPS. I have never had a problem with USPS. In fact, I love that I can order overseas without having to worry about custom charges! I've ordered from Taobao maybe 15 times, and each time I have had to sign the package. I waited in the front room but the mailman never came. Later that day, my tracking number was updated as "Delivery status not updated". I'm going to assume the mailman would rather shove my parcel through the tiny mailbox than to walk up the stairs and ring the doorbell for a signature...