My annual Taobao shopping has come and gone. Now it's time to show you what I've got.
I've only wanted to buy makeup brushes but the official consolidated or direct global shipping refused to let me check out. (I originally wanted to tumpang on my sister's purchase cuz makeup brushes surely wont be heavier than 100g gua)
So i went and bought anyway, and used a 代运。
Tadaaa!
Only the brushes are from taobao, the beauty blender lookalike is from my local MR DIY store (you can find a lot of cheap household goods here, including beauty tools, skincare and some makeup.)
Since 100g of brushes cannot justify me paying 1kg of airfreight charges (yes i'm kiam like that) so I went and round a few clothing shops and bought some clothes. And then my parcel became 1.14 kg, forcing me to pay another 1 kg of airfreight charges. Oh well.
I bought some el cheapo clothes: rmb 10 white top, rmb 1 cropped top, leggings at rmb 29.90 (and came with an anti-theft clothing tag so it became a holed pants. Not cool). And another laser cut out collared ivory blouse rmb 47.
Now let's talk about the brushes. I bought 1 set from Qoo10 half a year ago and the eyeshadow brushes did nothing to pick up and transfer colour so i wanted another set. After some googling around i found out that animal hair is best for powders and synthetic fibres is good for liquid.
I went and bought this 5 pc set which claims to be pony hair, haha. They cost rmb 17. I also found a set of Real Techniques eyeshadow brushes at rmb 31 but they're synthetic fibres so i had to pass.
Amazingly these rmb 17 brushes pick up eyeshadow like a pro and transfer onto my eyelids like a dream!! So nice! My previous one rolled up the eyeshadows and yeah. I'll show you the pictures.
And a small stubby foundation brush which is similar to the Shiseido #131 brush. Costed me rmb 9? It eats up a lot of foundation, and requires such a long time to produce an even finish so I'm not really warming up to this brush...yet.
Overall purchase was rmb 130 ish which is rm 95. And add on rm 27 for shipping it is almost 1:1 already. Ringgit plummeted so bad the rate was 1:1.44 vs last year's 1:1.79 ish.
Oh yeah, some tips for taobao shopping.
Global direct shipping= you pay upfront for the shipping which is calculated at checkout (same cart order only and you cannot add later purchases) and they will automatically ship out your parcel after all of your items arrived in their warehouse.
Consolidated shipping= you get to choose which shipping company to use (with different rates), you can add on later purchases and warehouse rental is free for about 20 days. So your earlier parcels can sit in their warehouse for 20 days while you do your other shopping. When all of your parcels have arrived you can 合并订单 and ship them together. Pay for the shipping based on the weight and they will ship out for ya.
I'm not really sure which one will be the cheaper one as I've only used the global direct shipping
My experience with the global one was good. The parcel arrived at my sister's in Singapore on 18th November (her order was placed on 11 November) so it was speedy. They charged me rmb 49 (50% off 11.11 event) for 7 pcs of cheongsam and 3 pairs of nu bras. I reckon it would be around 3kg and the consolidated shipping charges would be around rmb 60 ish even after the 50% first kg off. So yeah rmb 49 will be cheaper.
At the payment gateway, I know it will be cheaper to pay with ur money in 支付宝 but if you don't, you can pay using netpay which supports most of the local banks in Malaysia.
Bulky and sensitive goods charge a lot for shipping so i normally buy clothes only on Taobao.
Another upcoming annual sale would be the 12.12 sale. So prep your shopping cart before then!
