Taobao Buying Tutorial

[Dirili]

erm.... does anyone want to tell me about how group orders work? At least so we can determine if it's worth doing with this sort of thing. If it's anything like what I'm thinking, there would end up being 3 shipping charges, so it may not work out well.

I think I'm going to do an order soon because I need a vast amount of snaps and they are a lot cheaper to import too.

[letchhausen]

I want some fabric....but perhaps it would be complicated....I'm not familiar with how group orders are typically handled...

[victoriavictrix]

Well I would pick a trim site, a fabric site, and a notions site.

A separate group order for each.

Probably the notions site would not be all that popular but the trim and fabric would.

After that I think you let people browse the site, decide what they want, and you figure up how much and what their share of the shipping would be from China. Then you collect the money from them, and when the stuff arrives, you figure out what the shipping would be to them, collect that, and ship it off.

I admit, it is a lot of work. Some people charge a 10% upfront handling fee for their trouble.

[kittyasauras]

I think if you've never run a group order before, you shouldn't. It's a lot of work!

Especially if you are going to be buying foreign goods with foreign currency. Paypal charges fees for currency conversions, and then you would have to worry about the other paypal fees..etc.

[Dirili]

Thanks for the explanation Victoria! And for the advice Kitty. That's a bit how I thought it would work, but I thought maybe there would be something more to it since it doesn't sound like it would save people much unless it's a bunch of people ordering just a few items each from a place that has big shipping fees.

With buying from Taobao Focus there hasn't been any Paypal fees, but it's sounding like buying on Taobao would not be a great first group order experience...

It probably wouldn't be worth it unless each buyer is buying a large quantity, because the costs would add up too much for individuals I'd think in a group, especially if anyone is outside the U.S.:
Product cost
10% TF fee
shipping from seller to TF (usually not very expensive, but the more sellers we're buying from, the higher the charge)
shipping from TF to me
shipping from me to end buyer

And then I'm not sure how I would divide up the shipping fees either... I'd have to try to find some way to weigh each order to see what percentage of the shipping costs each order cost.

[Jany]

My experience is that paypal fees are charged automatically as soon as a payment is made in a different currency than the buyer's country's. It's not much, though (0.13% or something).

[Dirili]

TF must be absorbing the cost then because it definitely hasn't been being charged to me.

[Jany]

Fair enough

[Dirili]

Ok, placed an order a few days ago, and loosely estimated, this is what I bought and what the average cost would be for each if I had bought here and that doesn't include shipping costs if I bought anything online:

70 meters trim ($105)
49 meters various types of cloth ($392)
6 meters vinyl and leather ($72)
13 meters brocade ($195)
36 meters elastic ($18)
Total: $782

What I've paid so far: $234
I shudder to think what the shipping cost is going to be though because this is going to be heavy. I know it will be over $100, but hell, as long as the shipping is less than $500 I still saved money lol. Pretty sure the shipping won't cost me over $200... *crosses fingers* I was thinking it will end up being around $150 or so. *hopes*

[letchhausen]

Let us know so we don't get shipping shock with our own orders....