Thanks for checking. Where do sellers usually state the non-usage of coupons, in the product selection? And how do they word it usually? I tend to overlook all these small details. Never seen them before also.

He removed his store coupons for the sale, meaning you can't collect it, but I had some of his coupons in my inventory that I collected in the past, so it was automatically applied during checkout, but only the small 10 Yuan coupon, which I thought was normal, since a lot of seller will only disable the higher value coupons during a sale, like the 15, 20, 30 yuan ones, leaving the 3, 5, 10 yuan ones still collectible.

Made a minor error:

Total was 195 before discounts.

After discounts for me was 148. So I saved 47.

After discounts for the seller was 166. (he screen-capped me his side of the order).

So that means Taobao absorbs 40% of the discount, and 60% is absorbed by the seller...if he agrees to.  

Discounts were:

- 10 yuan off 99 shop coupon
- 20 off 200 (so 10% discount)
- 50 off 500 Cainiao code (so another 10% discount)

Out of the 60% absorbed, 10 yuan was his own shop coupons, so 10 yuan = 20%.
So not including the shop coupon, maybe half is absorbed by Taobao, half by seller.

Not sure the math is right. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Nice! I also saw quite a few positive feedbacks for Wuhan EMS on Superbuy and the only complaint is the wait time for the carrier to pick up the package but 5 days are nothing in the current situation. I will also use SB before official taobao transport is back to normal both in terms of price and packaging as I can avoid 10% tax by using SB.

Do you weight them before opening the box? Taobao official transport often inflates the weight, especially when I lump multiple orders together. So I always request refund after comparing the weight I received and the weight they charged me. Not sure how SB is but even just a 0.5kg difference (45 yuan for Wuhan EMS) is not a small number now.

No, the discount will be distributed proportionally to different stores based on the prices if you activate the cross-shop discount.

 

For me, the warehouse for Singapore once measured the length of a 20cm box as 40 cm, more than double!

Yes, but in order get the 50 yuan discount, I had to hit 500 yuan and above in orders. If I cancel that part of the order, that means I technically didn't hit 500 to qualify for the discount.

My order was 554 total, before discount.

If they allow me to cancel 195 of my 554 yuan order, means I only paid 350+ to get the discount.

And is that a loophole as well, if allowed? If let's say, I only want to spend 400, so I order 500 but cancel 100 after ordering, just so I can get the discount on my remaining 400.

 

is it cheaper to buy Fanstoys Phoenix in Taobao?

 

Let's say you buy from two shops with a total price of 500 yuan to qualify 20 yuan cross-shop discount. The first shop is 200 yuan and the 2nd shop is 300 yuan. Then the discount for the 1st shop will be 20*200/500 = 8 yuan and the 2nd ship will be 20*300/500 = 12 yuan. If you cancel the order for the 1st shop, the 12 yuan is still applied to the 2nd shop.

The catch is that the 2nd shop has to agree with your cancellation. Is it a loophole? May be but I also know some shops (like PSX) will ban you if you cancel too many orders. But I think it is the best way (to distribute the discounts across shops) for Taobao to handle cross-shop discount.

 

Not necessarily, probably not now at least. The 1st thing is you have to be able to find it on Taobao. The 2nd thing is the price may also be inflated. The last thing is that now it will be quite expensive to ship something like Phoenix.

Check BST on tfw2005 or various FB groups frequently. It pops up from time to time. The last time (last week) I saw it on FB is $250 + shipping from Texas but of course it was sold rather quickly.

 

Just an FYI, I use a proxy into Hong Kong to bypass the you can't ship page and Superbuy buys it. These links may not work for you without the proxy.

Toyworld Jack
TW千斤顶GS02小比例口袋战争变形玩具金刚G1男孩儿童礼物Toyworld-淘宝网

Heatdeath
漫型 变形玩具铁工厂 红龙 IF EX-42 Heatdeath热寂之逆鳞-淘宝网

Redbull
Generation Toy GT GT-11 RedBull 横炮牛-淘宝网

KFC Blaster
K記 KFC MP级 录音机拍子达（含发条磁带）金属烤漆版-淘宝网

XTB Seaspray
X社X-transbots浪花气垫船变形机器人玩具MM-12合金金属色G1-淘宝网

XTB Windcharger
变形玩具 X社 MP级别 MM-VI 动漫色 充电器 /Boost 再版 现货-淘宝网

XTB Tailgate
X社 MM-VI充电器 MM-VII挡板 动画版 X-Transbots 迷你战士 现货-淘宝网

General Grant:
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=588620799512

 

Thanks. By proxy, do you mean you have a Chinese shipping address provided by SB?
All these links worked for me. I did not get the "can't be shipped to your country" error page on any of those links. I only get that error if the listing title has the words "transformers", "transformed", "hasbro" or some variation of those.

Also I've also set SB's warehouse address as my default address in Taobao.

What's an accurate and convenient way to search for KFC items in Taobao? KFC items don't have the typical product number format like Fanstoys, Takara, and other companies have? I keep getting listings for KFC Chicken.

 

I use a VPN (NordVPN) to set my IP address to Hong Kong. If your IP address is from the US and you click on some links you will get a page that says does not ship. A lot of links don't do that, but its just easier for me when searching Taobao to set my IP address to Hong Kong. I think I'll try setting my address to the Taobao warehouse and see if it stops doing this.

I don't have a surefire way to search for KFC on Taobao. I do a variety of things. I do this for more than just KFC.

1. I have a series of stores bookmarked and I'll look under their brand sections.

2. I'll search within stores for KFC. For whatever reason searching Taobao as a whole doesn't pick up on their items even when KFC is in the title.

3. Once I find one item with the name of the figure or brand I'll untranslate it from English back to Chinese copy the characters and paste it into Taobao Search.

4. I'll use the image search, where you upload an image to Taobao. You can usually tell when an image is promotional and they also tend to use the same images on the Chinese Ebay stores.

5. And sometimes if I'm having a really hard time finding something. I'll use the price range search options to narrow the search down to items in the price range and I'll try search terms that I think will work will narrow it down further.

 

As far as the VPN goes, do you do something like this?
How to Get a Hong Kong IP Address from Anywhere in 2020 [+VIDEO]

How much does a VPN like NordVPN cost you to have?

 

This seems to be the name, based on some of the listings - K记梦幻模玩

There might be others, not sure. I only buy KFC chicken.

Having a China address will definitely remove the shipping restriction. Not sure about remote locations in China, though.

Have you ever encountered a link where you can ship ONLY after you change your VPN location from US to China?"

 

I bought it for 3 years for $80. I have a VPN for security if the above trick works I'd just use that. Also Hong Kong is the only Chinese IP address available in China, and since it looks like Hong Kong's special status is about to vanish I don't expect it to be there for much longer. I wouldn't get a VPN long term just for that.

This link is blocked if I my IP address is not set to Hong Kong.
孩之宝 变形金刚 赛博坦围城 沃尔玛限定 网飞动画 L级通天晓-淘宝网

I don't actually personally buy things through Taobao. I use a purchasing agent (superbuy) to place the orders. So once I have the link I can buy anything. Well at least anything that doesn't trip superbuy's alerts (weapons, chemicals, etc..). I have never run into that though.

 

Can I use the trick in the video to switch back to my USA IP address when I'm done with the Taobao transaction?
I might explore this if the VPN is only a 1 time fee.

KFC Junkions preorders are on Taobao.
Oddly only 1 seller there has the preorder for v2 Dumpyard.

v2 Dumpyard
KFC P-6B 垃圾场再版 垃圾星人垃圾场 MP级别比例-淘宝网

Others (LBP)
KFC-小蜜蜂小王子玩具特区-淘宝网

 

Those were pre-orders. IceMan pre-ordered from Thor Toys, Sheridan from Little Bee Prince.
Not sure I'll bother with FT pre-orders anymore, once my current lot are fulfilled. It's easier to just buy outright at release, and I'm happy to pay a little more to avoid the pore-order fulfilment delay. Not "western retailer" more, but an extra 50 yuan is peanuts in the long run.

Use image search.
I find that a lot of 3P figures get odd names and inaccurate numbering and Google Translate can do weird things to listing titles.
Grab one of the official photos from Show.Z site or similar and plug that into the TaoBao picture search tool. It will almost always pick up at least one listing that matches and then you can use the listing title on that to pick out suitable keywords to search for.

 

To reset your IP address to your normal one you just disconnect from the VPN client or choose an american location to have an US IP, but still protect your info. Which is what I have it for. Some sites don't play nice with VPN though. Superbuy doesn't work with a Hong Kong IP address through my VPN for instance.

 

Noticing a few store closures since the Weijiang Iron Man thing... Toyhouse factory and KBB official for starters.

 

Absolutely....when it is available for preorder or if it is newly released and you're able to still find it.
If you want the best deal on a Fanstoys item on Taobao, make sure to lock in a preorder.

What happened? What's the story behind that?

 

So that's how it works.  

I don't think he is expecting cross-store discount.

If the seller objects to the sale, I would just go with their wishes.

Typically, if they still break even or make a small profit, they will honour the deal. But if they make a loss, they might as well don't sell.

 

Actually more like 50/50, shouldn't count the shop coupon if you're talking about cross shop promos and codes.

He decided to ship it this morning, before I could talk to him more about it. Now to wait and see what he actually sends. 

I may still decide to "give" him back his 29 yuan, or at least part of it, depending on the goods received. His prices were rather cheap already even without discounts, at least for 2 of the 3 items.

Anyway, I did speak to Taobao CSO. They said sellers are supposed to honour any discounts buyers used, and he is not supposed to ask for a top-up post sale. So their advice is to apply for refund if this should happen again, and it will not affect the other discounted items.

No wonder some of the Weijiang branded products suddenly went out of stock yesterday in my cart. There's still a lot of Weijiang stuff available though.

 

Maybe a coincidence, maybe the time of the year. Both companies haven't released a product in a long time and KO companies usually rebrand pretty quickly unless they go into 3P.