It is recommended to go read that blog post first if you haven’t already, but a quick summary is that buying directly from Taobao with the use of a shopping service is much cheaper than going through a Taobao Reseller. Taobao Resellers can be useful if you are getting only a few items, or a friend or family member is trying to buy you a gift, but otherwise using a service like Spreenow or 42agent is much more affordable.
Two years ago, the general attitude towards Taobao Resellers was starkly different than it is today. Resellers were commonly regarded as being cheaper than using a shopping service, and the world of Taobao was lauded as a dark and scary website, full of scams and replicas.
Nowadays if you look in any comment section inquiring about Devil Inspired or similar overpriced resellers, you’ll see recommendations for shopping services and reseller horror stories from lolitas still waiting on six month old packages.
In 2019, Devil Inspired claimed they were working to lower their prices and provide customers with better quality service. A few months back, Like A Teacup wrote the article The Case Against Devilinspired.
A common comment in response to the original Taobao Resellers are Ripping You Off article was a desire to see actual results. Sure, we could theoretically purchase the OP from the original article and compare it with the price estimates, but would it ACTUALLY be cheaper in the long run?
Like any good experiment, it’s important that the results from a trial can be replicated time and time again.
I recently purchased CC Cat’s Rainbow Dollhouse JSK and the matching accessories and have located the exact same items on Devil Inspired and Clobba. The set was unfortunately not available on other reseller websites, as it seems there has been a large decrease in consistent stock between sites.
Just like in the original experiment, all controls have been kept the same. My personal Taobao order contained the JSK (size S, mint), the detachable apron, the wristcuffs, and the KC.
First up… Devil Inspired!
Purchasing all of the items from Devil Inspired (JSK, KC, wristcuffs, and apron) cost a total of $121.03. While not a bad price for a full set by any means, let’s see how it compares to our other options.
In 2019, Clobba was the second cheapest reseller to order from, so let’s see how they fare two years later.
Now, because this is a pre-order, Clobba cannot give us a shipping total. Fortunately for us, we can use other items on their website to get an idea of what that total MIGHT look like. By adding similar items to the cart, we get the following shipping quote.
As always, in the interest of keeping as many controls as possible, we will calculate the final total using the cheaper option. The final total using Clobba comes out to $115.
Finally, let’s look at our real-life results!
I placed my order on January 30th, 2021 and paid ¥444.40 for my items.
On April 6th, 2021, all of my items were ready to ship. I selected the cheapest possible shipping, which cost me ¥155.52.
When I purchased all of the items myself using Spreenow, I paid approximately $92. I will also note that my shipping total does contain a pair of socks, although I will argue this is a negligible weight and does not skew my shipping. As a broke college student, I’m happy to put in five extra minutes of work and save $23-$29 any day.
Of course, the case can always be argued that it is worth the money to purchase through a reseller due to the ease of access. And while yes, ordering through a reseller may be slightly more convenient, I personally prefer to make my money go as far as possible. This is $23-$29 on ONE SET. That adds up FAST.
Now that we know the actual results, let’s run some more theoretical results to compare across various platforms.
We will be using Infanta’s ‘Alice in the Dark Forest’ JSK for comparison this time.
Ordering this dress from My Lolita Dress would cost $66.42
Glitzy has free shipping, so your final cost would be $69.
Devil Inspired, true to its nature, is once again the most expensive of the lot. The dress alone will cost you $85.99.
Finally… Our wildcard...Loligals on Aliexpress.
By far the cheapest of any reseller we’ve seen so far, right? Almost seems too good to be true…
Forgive me for my tangent, but let’s talk about Loligals.
It seems that Loligals makes their profit through increasing the pricing on their cheapest (and most desirable) products. The Alice Girl OP pictured above is what one might call a ‘newbie magnet’. Beginners FLOCK to this dress. Loligals charges EIGHTY DOLLARS for it. $100 when it’s not on sale.
If we locate the same dress on Taobao, we’ll see the final total is 253 yuan, or about $39.
Sure, Loligals might be worth it if you need a VERY SPECIFIC ITEM that’s NOT scalped. Even Devil Inspired has the courtesy to only charge $44 pre-shipping (an extremely small profit by their standards). Loligals also sells replicas and extremely low quality mass produced pieces for heightened prices, so beginners BEWARE! Can you get items shipped cheaply via Loligals? Sure, but you might also accidentally pay out the teeth for a cheap dress.
Back to our original comparison dress!
Ordering the Infanta dress with the help of a shopping service comes out to $44 before shipping. MLD tells us the weight of this dress is approximately 0.8 kg, so just take that and plug it into SpreeNow's shipping calculator.
Glitzy has free shipping, so your final cost would be $69.
Devil Inspired, true to its nature, is once again the most expensive of the lot. The dress alone will cost you $85.99.
Finally… Our wildcard...Loligals on Aliexpress.
By far the cheapest of any reseller we’ve seen so far, right? Almost seems too good to be true…
Forgive me for my tangent, but let’s talk about Loligals.
It seems that Loligals makes their profit through increasing the pricing on their cheapest (and most desirable) products. The Alice Girl OP pictured above is what one might call a ‘newbie magnet’. Beginners FLOCK to this dress. Loligals charges EIGHTY DOLLARS for it. $100 when it’s not on sale.
If we locate the same dress on Taobao, we’ll see the final total is 253 yuan, or about $39.
Sure, Loligals might be worth it if you need a VERY SPECIFIC ITEM that’s NOT scalped. Even Devil Inspired has the courtesy to only charge $44 pre-shipping (an extremely small profit by their standards). Loligals also sells replicas and extremely low quality mass produced pieces for heightened prices, so beginners BEWARE! Can you get items shipped cheaply via Loligals? Sure, but you might also accidentally pay out the teeth for a cheap dress.
Back to our original comparison dress!
Ordering the Infanta dress with the help of a shopping service comes out to $44 before shipping. MLD tells us the weight of this dress is approximately 0.8 kg, so just take that and plug it into SpreeNow's shipping calculator.
The Infanta dress, plus shipping within China, Spreenow's fees and the cheapest shipping (E Packet) would be a total of 420 yuan, or about $64.4 USD.
So to answer our initial question on whether or not Taobao resellers are worth it in 2021, I guess the answer is… “it depends”.
It seems like many resellers are selectively charging more for items that are in higher demand. This Infanta dress is not highly sought after and so it seems like companies are keeping lower profit margins on it so they can make more money with the more popular pieces.
I definitely wouldn’t mind buying this specific piece off of MyLolitaDress, Loligals, or GlitzyWonderland since the markup on this specific piece is so insignificant. However, if you are planning to purchase an item via reseller, make sure to do your research first. If you plan to purchase multiple items, make sure to check them all since not all markups are equal, and a few extra dollars on each piece can add up fast. There’s no reason to pay a company $40 more than necessary for an item you can easily purchase using a shopping service.
Stay Sweet!
~Sugar Cube
No comments:
Post a Comment