raksrules
Oracle
My brother was travelling to HongKong (HK) for vacation and I wanted to get few things through him. Especially knock off lego motors and such. I didn't get an opportunity of buying them when I went to vacation in Vietnam.
I started exploring options and realised that HK based websites was a no go as most didn't deal with knock off stuff. Also, they didn't have like super quick delivery which was important as I had availed such 2 hour delivery in Vietnam when I shopped on shoppe there.
That's when I got to know that people in HK usually use Taobao. I was having least expectations as we all know that even getting Taobao to open is a pain in India and moreover we always thought it is for people in mainland China. So I downloaded Taobao on my phone and as per some instructions online, set the country to HK and language to English.
This is when it became a breeze as now everything was in English and that made the site far easier to browse.
Please understand that the English interface and HK region will have far less items than what you will get if you had mainland China address and region but still there are lots and lots of options.
I added address of my brother's hotel in HK and my India number (number is anyways never used). The hotel was ok for me to send packages and they would hold them.
I realised that Taobao was providing direct shipping to Hong Kong, but there is also a consolidated shipping option much like an agent, but it is all implicit. You don’t have to specifically do anything but most sellers what I saw were offering direct shipping to Hong Kong.
You can see the ETA of your order before even placing it (post seller shipping, not your order but it says that once seller ships, it will take say 3 days etc). This ETA is mostly accurate so you can gauge when your order will be received.
Talking to sellers is also good as they have automatic translation. Their replies come in Chinese but are automatically translated. Obviously somethings are not translated accurately. People who have dealt with Chinese sellers and translation should know that when translation says "the baby is on shelf" means "item is in stock" .
The tracking number you get after item is shipped is for only upto the China side warehouse , not for your final destination. It seems even when it says direct shipping, items still land in a warehouse on the China side, and after that, some sort of consolidation happens where it gets a new tracking number for the Hong Kong site shipping. This Hong Kong site tracking number has now worked for me for some reason so I have given upon that.
I know the consolidation happens because I have seen where I had 3 to 4 orders from totally different sellers originating from different places in China, but all of them getting a single Hong Kong based tracking number and which all got delivered on the same day.
This is how tracking of HK side looks. But the history of entire tracking from seller to destination is maintained well inside Taobao app.
So i would say that this is a very good option to get great priced stuff from Taobao china If one is going to HK and want to get it Delivered there. Do check the delivery time ETA as I have seen those ranging from 2 days to 5 days.
International shipping will be charged but it won't be al lot. Also, there be a transaction fee sort of on the checkout price so that has to be paid too. You can pickup the packages at their numerous points (you have to select the one most convenient to you while checking out)
I choose hotel delivery which is slightly more expensive but far more convenient.
As not holding locations/ pickup points may be near and may not have capacity.
Any questions, you may ask me below in comments.
I started exploring options and realised that HK based websites was a no go as most didn't deal with knock off stuff. Also, they didn't have like super quick delivery which was important as I had availed such 2 hour delivery in Vietnam when I shopped on shoppe there.
That's when I got to know that people in HK usually use Taobao. I was having least expectations as we all know that even getting Taobao to open is a pain in India and moreover we always thought it is for people in mainland China. So I downloaded Taobao on my phone and as per some instructions online, set the country to HK and language to English.
This is when it became a breeze as now everything was in English and that made the site far easier to browse.
Please understand that the English interface and HK region will have far less items than what you will get if you had mainland China address and region but still there are lots and lots of options.
I added address of my brother's hotel in HK and my India number (number is anyways never used). The hotel was ok for me to send packages and they would hold them.
I realised that Taobao was providing direct shipping to Hong Kong, but there is also a consolidated shipping option much like an agent, but it is all implicit. You don’t have to specifically do anything but most sellers what I saw were offering direct shipping to Hong Kong.
You can see the ETA of your order before even placing it (post seller shipping, not your order but it says that once seller ships, it will take say 3 days etc). This ETA is mostly accurate so you can gauge when your order will be received.
Talking to sellers is also good as they have automatic translation. Their replies come in Chinese but are automatically translated. Obviously somethings are not translated accurately. People who have dealt with Chinese sellers and translation should know that when translation says "the baby is on shelf" means "item is in stock" .
The tracking number you get after item is shipped is for only upto the China side warehouse , not for your final destination. It seems even when it says direct shipping, items still land in a warehouse on the China side, and after that, some sort of consolidation happens where it gets a new tracking number for the Hong Kong site shipping. This Hong Kong site tracking number has now worked for me for some reason so I have given upon that.
I know the consolidation happens because I have seen where I had 3 to 4 orders from totally different sellers originating from different places in China, but all of them getting a single Hong Kong based tracking number and which all got delivered on the same day.
This is how tracking of HK side looks. But the history of entire tracking from seller to destination is maintained well inside Taobao app.
So i would say that this is a very good option to get great priced stuff from Taobao china If one is going to HK and want to get it Delivered there. Do check the delivery time ETA as I have seen those ranging from 2 days to 5 days.
International shipping will be charged but it won't be al lot. Also, there be a transaction fee sort of on the checkout price so that has to be paid too. You can pickup the packages at their numerous points (you have to select the one most convenient to you while checking out)
I choose hotel delivery which is slightly more expensive but far more convenient.
As not holding locations/ pickup points may be near and may not have capacity.
Any questions, you may ask me below in comments.
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