Options to get stuff shipped from China...Lets discuss

raksrules

raksrules

Elite
I have opened this thread to seek opinion on people who already do or intend to import stuff from China where you can buy almost every thing at really competitive rates. Ofcourse, we are talking about original brands and replicas too. Based on all this, what I have figured out in last few days of my research over the internet.

  • On Aliexpress, 95% items are no longer shippable to India and if you do find someone that ships (officially through aliexpress website and payment system), the charges are really exorbitant.
  • You can contact individual sellers and ask them over chat if they are willing to ship to India. If yes, they ill give you shipping charges which obviously won't work. As an example, I enquired about a fake lego architecture set which was $17 on aliexpress, I was given quote of $22 for shipping alone.
  • Alibaba is also another option to buy and you can search for sellers whose MOQ (minimum order quantity) is 1. For single item, price is higher and shipping here too isn't that great. This option should not be considered as it involves talking to seller and negotiating and such. Not always feasible. Same case will aliexpress too actually.
  • Buying agents - websites like superbuy or pandabuy act as agents and will buy product for us from websites like taobao etc and we can use their estimator tool to estimate the shipping charges. This is a hassle free option as it is more or less like shopnship etc work. Just that you have multiple options of shipping. Cheapest is EMS. An example I tried was for a 3600 gms fake lego set and lowest shipping was 360 CNY (4200 rupees). This does not consider customs. At 4200 rupees, for each kg, we would be paying 4200 / 3.6 = 1200 rupees approx per Kg. Remember that customs is not considered here so that is still an additional cost.
  • I was searching on aliexpress for shipping forwarders and got some India based ones so I contacted one on whatsapp. The rate they gave me was
    • Rs. 2000 per kg for 1-5 Kg
    • Rs. 850 per kg for 5-20 kg
    • Rs. 800 per kg for 20-50 Kg. and so so.
  • Adding ebay.com as an option after @ze_cook mentioned the same in this thread.
The above rates are for air freight and include customs duty and delivery to your door. I feel that customs duty included is a good option so we don't have to worry but the only thing is people from one city need to order together as it will be single package and we need to have it more than 5 Kg to make it worth the effort. Just that they mentioned that they calculate volume weight using formula -> length(cm) x breadth (cm) x height (cm) / 5000 = xxx Kg. I am unable to understand this properly. They said volume weight or actual weight, whichever i higher.



If anyone has any other options or is aware of things that is not common knowledge and such, please do mention.
 
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Inb4 people begin to criticize the government for making Aliexpress imports more challenging. I used to import a lot for personal use every month. I have fond memories of the postman coming to deliver Chinese goods every month. The cost of shipping from China post to India post was next to nil. Now, it's only feasible in bulk.
 
TinTinSnowy said:
Inb4 people begin to criticize the government for making Aliexpress imports more challenging. I used to import a lot for personal use every month. I have fond memories of the postman coming to deliver Chinese goods every month. The cost of shipping from China post to India post was next to nil. Now, it's only feasible in bulk.
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Is it not possible for someone to import from Nepal and then ship to India?
 
I've been ordering stuff from china through ebay. The sellers are all too happy to ship to india, it's just AliExpress as a platform that blocks it.
 

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ze_cook said:
I've been ordering stuff from china through ebay. The sellers are all too happy to ship to india, it's just AliExpress as a platform that blocks it.
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Do you need to contact them beforehand to ensure they are shipping to India ?
What kind of timelines ?
 
ibose said:
Do you need to contact them beforehand to ensure they are shipping to India ?
What kind of timelines ?
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Typically, no. If they can't ship, they contact you (you can see one such example in the screenshot, the mini pc that was refunded). To blr, it's 2 - 3 weeks, on par with AliExpress.
 

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TinTinSnowy said:
Inb4 people begin to criticize the government for making Aliexpress imports more challenging. I used to import a lot for personal use every month. I have fond memories of the postman coming to deliver Chinese goods every month. The cost of shipping from China post to India post was next to nil. Now, it's only feasible in bulk.
Click to expand...

But aren't people right in criticising. Their make in india jumla is not working for many sectors. Even if it is, then prices aren't coming down. Case in point is iPhone.
Toys are another example. We hardly have any proper toy manufacturer in India. It is ridiculous that aliexpress is able to sell a 6Kg fake lego set for Rs. 2500 and even ship for free all the way to US but if you ask to ship to India, it will cost me 5K more.
chungus said:
Banggood is also an option try it
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It seems they have very limited products for India.
 
The Eastern Freight corridor has just been finished and freight trains have just started operations on it now. So goods can easily be shipped on that route in around 24 hours according to railway officials.
The Western Freight corridor will take another year to be complete i guess. So once that is over, companies will start mass importing from China even more because both these corridors will enable transport of goods inside India within 24-48 Hours!! Expect Chinese imports to become even more cheap since both these corridors will be used since both are linked to major shipping ports and hubs.

Why am I telling this? Because it will make shipping faster in India now. We used to wait for days because freight was second hand traffic or only used to run at night. Now freight has its own different rail lines and can run 24/7. All the 4 week to a month of AliExpress shipments will come down to a week in the coming year.
 
6pack said:
The Eastern Freight corridor has just been finished and freight trains have just started operations on it now. So goods can easily be shipped on that route in around 24 hours according to railway officials.
The Western Freight corridor will take another year to be complete i guess. So once that is over, companies will start mass importing from China even more because both these corridors will enable transport of goods inside India within 24-48 Hours!! Expect Chinese imports to become even more cheap since both these corridors will be used since both are linked to major shipping ports and hubs.

Why am I telling this? Because it will make shipping faster in India now. We used to wait for days because freight was second hand traffic or only used to run at night. Now freight has its own different rail lines and can run 24/7. All the 4 week to a month of AliExpress shipments will come down to a week in the coming year.
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Good to know but aliexpress just doesn't allow India shipping and that part won't change. That is what my concern is.
 
6pack said:
The Eastern Freight corridor has just been finished and freight trains have just started operations on it now. So goods can easily be shipped on that route in around 24 hours according to railway officials.
The Western Freight corridor will take another year to be complete i guess. So once that is over, companies will start mass importing from China even more because both these corridors will enable transport of goods inside India within 24-48 Hours!! Expect Chinese imports to become even more cheap since both these corridors will be used since both are linked to major shipping ports and hubs.

Why am I telling this? Because it will make shipping faster in India now. We used to wait for days because freight was second hand traffic or only used to run at night. Now freight has its own different rail lines and can run 24/7. All the 4 week to a month of AliExpress shipments will come down to a week in the coming year.
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That's just the domestic shipping, right? Domestic shipping has never been an issue with AliExpress, at least in my experience. The lions share of the time taken is usually China > Indian customs clearance.

All this is moot anyways, as AliExpress doesn't allow an Indian shipping address.
 
raksrules said:
Just that they mentioned that they calculate volume weight using formula -> length(cm) x breadth (cm) x height (cm) / 5000 = xxx Kg. I am unable to understand this properly. They said volume weight or actual weight, whichever i higher.
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This is standard across all shipping services. Like, if you're shipping something with very low density, it will take up a lot more space in their vehicles and they will lose money if they charge only for actual weight. So they calculate the volume of the shipment, then divide it by a constant to arrive at the chargeable "weight" (the constant varies across shippers).

www.shiprocket.in

Volumetric Weight Calculator - Dimensional Weight Calculator - Shiprocket

Volumetric weight calculator Enter Dimensions cm cm cm Calculate Reset Results will be appear below: 0.00 kg What is volumetric...
www.shiprocket.in www.shiprocket.in
 
Weren't all the current options including eBay and forwarders already discussed in the other thread on Aliexpress? Personally, been ordering from eBay for the past 3 years since AliExpress was blocked. No customs on any of the 2 dozen or so items ordered in that period. Delivery period is typically 2-3 weeks but received the last package earlier in the month in 10 days.
 
calvin1719 said:
This is standard across all shipping services. Like, if you're shipping something with very low density, it will take up a lot more space in their vehicles and they will lose money if they charge only for actual weight. So they calculate the volume of the shipment, then divide it by a constant to arrive at the chargeable "weight" (the constant varies across shippers).

www.shiprocket.in

Volumetric Weight Calculator - Dimensional Weight Calculator - Shiprocket

Volumetric weight calculator Enter Dimensions cm cm cm Calculate Reset Results will be appear below: 0.00 kg What is volumetric...
www.shiprocket.in www.shiprocket.in
Click to expand...
Wow. Thanks a lot for that link because it changes lot of things w.r.t freight forwarders. Like I saw something is 5900 gms in weight but based on package dimension, weight comes to 8.3 kg. That can escalate costs.
t3chg33k said:
Weren't all the current options including eBay and forwarders already discussed in the other thread on Aliexpress? Personally, been ordering from eBay for the past 3 years since AliExpress was blocked. No customs on any of the 2 dozen or so items ordered in that period. Delivery period is typically 2-3 weeks but received the last package earlier in the month in 10 days.
Click to expand...
What kind of stuff are you ordering?
 
ze_cook said:
I've been ordering stuff from china through ebay. The sellers are all too happy to ship to india, it's just AliExpress as a platform that blocks it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this, I've had hundreds of orders on Aliexpress and was hesitant about purchasing from eBay even though the sellers appeared to be the same.

I recently placed an order on Banggood but got cold feet and cancelled after a day (went the DIY route). Refund was completed within a week.
 
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t3chg33k said:
Weren't all the current options including eBay and forwarders already discussed in the other thread on Aliexpress? Personally, been ordering from eBay for the past 3 years since AliExpress was blocked. No customs on any of the 2 dozen or so items ordered in that period. Delivery period is typically 2-3 weeks but received the last package earlier in the month in 10 days.
Click to expand...
What do you usually order btw. I'm thinking of buying some chassis fans ?
 
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