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Taunted by low prices, getting the best bargains. You can get blinded with the great deals you can find online in one of the many thousand Chinese web stores. Yes, there are truly thousands of online stores. The quality of these stores and their products have improved immensely over the last 10 years. A few hundreds are here to serve you the best they can. Their goal is to give you the best deal. But don’t shop blindly. Many stores just pop up and disappear within a few months with one purpose, to steal your money or send you fake products. Avoid them.
Buying products from China is a good way to save money, but there are also risks involved. In this guest blog, Bastiaan de Koning from StartBuyingInChina.com takes you through the 7 mistakes you better avoid, when you start buying in China. Maybe you think you already know these mistakes and they won’t happen to you. After 6 years of blogging, Bastiaan noticed that still many people get trapped due to one or more mistakes. Don’t be that person. Avoid the mistakes and enjoy this guest blog.
Chinese stores offer low prices. That’s why I started to buy products directly from China ten years ago. Chinese stores can do this because many products you buy in your country are manufactured in China. By selling directly to you, you skip all the brokering from other companies who want to make a profit. The downside is that some people can take advantage of your ignorance. Scammers create wonderful-looking stores with fake, badly made or even no real products at all.
When you think you found the best deal ever, it’s probably the worst, because you will be scammed. The rule of thumb is: If it is too good to be true, it isn’t true! Always check out the store. Is it legit or fake? What do other people say about this store? Of course, check Scamadviser before you buy too.
China is well-known for counterfeit products. A product is called counterfeit when it looks like the product of a real brand, but is actually fake: sometimes, a 100% copy with inferior material, sometimes with small adjustments to the original design, logo or brand name.
Beware, counterfeiting and importing counterfeit products is illegal in most countries. If you import a counterfeit Gucci bag from China, it might be punishable in your country. That’s never worth the risk, in my opinion. Another problem is the material, such as jewelry sold as sterling silver being made of fake material.
Everything starts with common sense. It’s impossible to find a luxury brand offering products for a bargain price. If you see one, your alarm bell must go off. Don’t get fooled by the prices.
In mistake number 2, we looked at counterfeits. Apart from these being illegal in most countries, there are more products that are illegal to import. Most countries have rules for animal products, organic products, weapons, toys that look like weapons, products that can be used like weapons, medicines, radio transmitters and more. When you import these kinds of products, you might get in trouble with your customs. Check your country’s import rules if you are not sure.
For example, some green lasers have a range up to 6,000 ft or 2 km. In the USA, laser pointers are forbidden above 5mW. In Australia these are forbidden above 1mW. In some Chinese stores you can find laser pointers from 50mW! That’s strong enough to blind a pilot in an airplane and forbidden in most countries.
Your country has specific rules about products you are allowed to import. Although you can buy these products legally in China, to import them to your country might be not. Check your custom regulations to find out whether you can import the products or not.
Chinese stores are well known for their free shipping, but it can take a long time before your products are delivered. That’s why all Chinese stores offer some kind of express shipping. The express shipping methods promise faster delivery and more tracking possibilities, but are always more expensive.
Just a few years ago, free shipping from China could take up to 30 days easily, sometimes 60. Express shipping was guaranteed within 7 days but it could still take weeks before you get your products. How is that possible? One reason is that smaller stores don’t have warehouses at all. They are resellers of other manufacturers. Once you order your product, it must be re-ordered in China, repacked and resent. Sometimes the product is made on demand. This process can take up to 7 days, before it is shipped at all. There goes your express delivery...
If you need a product quickly, contact the store. Check if they have your product in stock. Check for overseas warehouses. If not, just be patient and select free shipping.
The number of payment methods a store offers is an indication for their trustworthiness. If they only offer Western Union or bank deposits, you can easily get scammed. That’s because you can’t follow the money after it is delivered. Credit cards & PayPal have money back insurances. Scammers generally do not prefer using these systems.
Even if they mention multiple payment methods on their site, it is not guaranteed you are dealing with a real store. I’ve heard many stories that people are asked to use a more dangerous payment method because their ‘PayPal’ wasn’t working at the moment. Hmmmm, my alarm bells are ringing!
Not providing several options for the payment method is an indication of a fraud store. If possible, always choose the most secure payment option. When money transfer is the only option in your country, be sure you're dealing with a real and trustworthy store. Real stores like AliExpress have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. The money is stalled as long that the products are not delivered. If your products are not delivered or you are not satisfied, you can always get a refund. Check your store if they have any guarantee like that.
This can be the most frustrating part when you import something from China. It is also the most difficult part. Unfortunately it is impossible to explain everything in detail but I’ll explain the principle so you have the tools to calculate it yourself. I will give you some tips to avoid this. First, let’s start with an example:
Example
My friend Saskia is a yoga teacher and she sells yoga mats to her students. She needs 10 mats. If she would buy this in the Netherlands, she would pay about €30 (US$33) each for a good quality mat, plus shipping costs. When buying online in China, it would only cost €20 euro (US$22) each with free shipping. Sounds great, right? She can save up to €100 (US$110)!
But what actually happened? When the parcel was delivered at her door, she had to pay another €67 (US$74) to the postman. If she didn’t pay, she would have to return it. She had no choice at that moment but to pay. Her savings vaporized to only €33.
Let’s break the numbers down.
| Product (10 yoga mats) | €200 |
| Shipping costs | Free |
| Insurance costs | None |
| Declaration: Say 3% of (Product + Shipping + Insurance) | €6 |
| VAT: 21% of (Product + Shipping + Insurance + Declaration) | €43.26 |
| Total (Product + Shipping + Insurance + Declaration + VAT | €249.26 |
| Payment to the postman for handling declaration | €17.50 |
| Extra costs (Declaration + VAT + postman) | €66.76 |
These unexpected costs gave her a bad day, as you can imagine. The shopping site didn’t tell her this could happen. Who is to blame? The Chinese shop? No, it all has to do with the (in this case European) import regulations.
What can you do to avoid these extra costs? First you need to know (check your country’s custom regulations):
- When do you pay declaration costs? In the Netherlands, it needs to be paid when the product price is above €150 euro.
- When do you pay VAT? In the Netherlands, it needs to be paid when the product price is above €22
Try to stay below these numbers. If you have free shipping, split your order in multiple smaller orders and stay below the free limits you can import. It might be a lot of extra work, but can save you a lot of money too. Also, check if the stores have insurance for these costs. In the situation you must pay extra costs, some stores offer a refund for these costs.
Products are usually delivered from China to the other side of the world. This takes time. A few years ago it could take up to 30-60 days. Nowadays, the bigger stores have overseas warehouses and can promise delivery times within 7 days. However, not all the stores are that big.
When you buy from AliExpress, you are not dealing with one big store at all. AliExpress is a market of thousands of smaller independent retailers and manufacturers. When you buy products from China, after you did your research, checked for real stores and used a safe payment option, you still need to wait. Know that 7 days is very fast to get some product from across the world to your doorstep. Don’t be impatient when it takes a little longer. Just chat with the store and ask if they can help. Some parcels do get lost. Your seller is often willing to send you a new product if this happens.
Examples
Sandra: Well, I have had registered orders from China that took more than 2 months to arrive, just to leave China took more than a month. Why? Because many times they’re in transit in China, they go from one city to another until they’re put on a flight to Portugal!
John: My wife ordered a hat for a wedding 22 days in the future. Selected postal expedited (5-8 days). It arrived (damaged) a week after the wedding.
When you need your products fast because you really must have them fast, don’t buy it from China. For example, if you have an event like a wedding and you plan to buy some products from China, make sure you have at least two months ahead. If time is not a real issue, enjoy the benefits when you start buying from China!
Making purchases from China can be fun, exciting and profitable but it can also be a disappointment. Knowing these 7 common mistakes might help you to avoid them. If you want to learn more about Chinese shops, how to buy safely, how to avoid scam sites, visit the blog StartBuyingInChina.com and opt in for the 52 weekly tips about China.
Check out Scamadviser’s list of Reliable Chinese Ecommerce Stores where you can shop safely.
Guest post by StartBuyingInChina with edits by Scamadviser.
