Short answer first, detail underneath
Every answer below opens with the direct version in one sentence. Read the paragraph after it only if you want the reasoning.
Before you order
These four come up before anybody has spent anything, and getting them wrong is what makes a first order stressful rather than expensive.
Can I buy anything directly from this site?
No. There is no cart here, no checkout, and no stock.
This site is a catalogue and a set of written notes. Every product card links out to a service that can actually price the item, take payment and ship it. Nothing you do here moves money, and nothing here is held in a warehouse. If a page on this site ever appears to offer you a purchase, something is broken and we would like to know.
Do I need an account with one of these services?
Yes. An order has to belong to somebody, so you sign in before you buy.
The service buys on your behalf and then holds your goods in its warehouse until you tell it what to ship. Both halves of that need an account attached. You can browse a catalogue, and usually search a service, without signing in; you cannot place an order without one.
Is the price on a product card what I will pay?
No. Treat it as a snapshot of a listing, not a quote.
A price on a card was copied from a seller listing at some point and the seller can change it at any time. It also covers the goods only. The international leg is priced separately, later, once your parcel exists and has been weighed, and no honest quote for it can exist before then.
Which Chinese marketplaces can these services handle?
It differs by service, and each one names its own sources in its search field.
This is the cheapest thing to check and almost nobody checks it. The small icons next to a search field, and the grey placeholder text inside it, tell you what that service expects to receive. The homepages read for this site named different sets, and one showed six source icons where another showed three. If the platform your item lives on is not named anywhere, that is worth knowing before you register.
Source excerpt
After you have paid
The second half of the process is where the jargon lives. These are the five questions that arrive once an order actually exists.
Why am I paying twice?
Once for the goods inside China, and once for the parcel that leaves it.
The first payment is the item and its domestic delivery to the warehouse. The second is the international shipment, and it cannot be calculated until the box exists, because it depends on the actual weight and size and on the route you pick. Two payments is the normal shape of this arrangement, not a surcharge.
What does QC mean, and do I have to look at the photographs?
It means photographs taken at the warehouse before shipping, and yes, look at them properly.
They are the only sight you get of the item while it is still cheap to do something about it. Go through them deliberately: read the label against the listing, count the pieces, ask for a tape measure across the part you care about, and ask for a close frame of any seam or fastening you are unsure of. Asking for another picture costs nothing. Approving a parcel you were unsure about costs a great deal. There is a longer version of this in how an order moves.
How long will a warehouse hold my things?
Each service sets its own free period, and the ones printed on the homepages read for this site were not the same as each other.
Because the periods differ and can change, no number appears here. The figure that matters is the one on the service you are actually using, and it belongs in its help centre or terms rather than on a badge somewhere else. The claims page records what each homepage printed on the day it was read, with that date attached.
Who pays import duty or tax?
You do, on your own country rules, and the service cannot decide that for you.
Whether a parcel is charged, and how much, is set by the country it is entering, using the declared value on the paperwork. Ask your own customs authority, because the answer depends on where you live and changes without any shopping site being told. Nobody selling you something is the right source for this.
My parcel has stopped moving. Who should I ask?
Before it clears customs, the service that shipped it. After, the courier in your country.
Once a parcel has been handed to a domestic carrier, the service that packed it is usually looking at exactly the same tracking page you are. That is not evasion, it is the limit of what it can see. Keep your tracking number, and take it to whoever currently has the box.
Where to go when you need help, and who to ask for what
Help is split between two places and sending a question to the wrong one wastes days.
- Anything about a live order goes to the service holding it. Payment, an item that has not arrived at the warehouse, a photograph you want retaken, a parcel you want reopened, a refund. No third party can see your order, and this site certainly cannot.
- Anything about a policy goes to that service help centre first and its support channel second. Get the answer in writing and keep it, because a support reply is more binding than a badge on a homepage.
- Customs, duty and taxes go to your own national customs authority. Nobody in this chain is qualified to answer for your country.
- Anything about this site comes to us. A broken link, a quotation that no longer matches the page it came from, a category that leads somewhere wrong, or a sentence here you think is misleading. Write to [email protected] and you will reach a person.
One request, made seriously. If a quotation on this site has gone stale, tell us. Everything quoted here was read on a single day and dated on that basis, and the only way a dated record stays honest is if somebody says when it stopped being true. The log of re-reads is where corrections land, and the about page says who is responsible for them.