/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

>>10457917

How direct are we talking? Antaina has an email, when I used it they had me email them what I wanted, paypal them the payment and then they sent me the shoes, but the whole thing never went through taobao at all.

Not a lot of shops will deal with foreigners directly, though. A lot won't ship overseas, full stop.

As for the warehouses built into taobao, I learnt how with the video that's stickied on reddit's r/taobao and some local blogger's walkthrough. It's worth it, the agent+shipping fees for my country used to start at 20USD but the warehouse starts at 20rmb. A lolita dress set cost me 51rmb to send to my address now.

However, there's some tricky parts and some downsides to it:
- It's up to you to read the descriptions carefully and make sure you're buying the right thing and not like, accidentally buying the "tail" payment for a dress you never paid deposit for.
- There's things you're not supposed to buy/ship, aside from powders, liquids, flammables, you're also not supposed to ship weapons, batteries, etc. Certain licensed items aren't allowed to ship internationally, you'll find out when you go to check out.
- The warehouses have a limit on how large the items can get.
- Speaking of, it can be a pain in the butt if you need to contact the warehouses about anything, took me forever to find the right link to contact them with.
- You also need to download aliwangwang, sellers will sometimes contact you about the oddest things (frequently inaccurate stock and had my orders replaced).
- and ofc, no returns. Refunds will require negotiating with the seller (through aliwangwang) in chinese.
- If you use an agent, at least they'll check the items in China first, and they can advise you on what can't be shipped.

It's up to you if you think it's worthwhile. I have chinese-speaking friends so I'm not too worried, but anything that looks like a complicated/important transaction I do still use an agent rather than a warehouse.