Ordering Loong Soul Chinese website registration

There's a thread about people's experiences with ordering from LS's English website.

Is there a reason why you want to order from LS through their website, instead of communicating with them through a dealer such as Alice's Collections? LS also has a Taobao store - is your friend able to proxy for you directly from Taobao?

I ask because ordering from the EN site of a Chinese company has the potential to be troublesome. The posts on the thread I linked suggest that payments have hiccups or don't always go through. Communication may also be slow. You may have a smoother time ordering through a dealer like Alice's Collections. If you're after something specific (eg. not on AC's usual listings), it may be easier for your friend, or dealers/proxies like AC or New Clover Singing, to make enquires and order for you through Chinese channels like Taobao.

Sorry for not answering your questions (I've never ordered from LS) - I'm making these suggestions because it may save you hassle down the road!

 

A word of caution about their Taobao page- they often have things listed for sale that are actually no longer available, and you generally won't find out until after ordering them and getting a refund. I think this is more likely to be an issue with accessories (clothing, shoes, wigs, etc.) than dolls, but you may want to keep it in mind if your friend is able to create an account and purchase through them. The prices are lower on Taobao (I'm not sure what they are on their Chinese website) than on a dealer's page, but since dealers like Alice's Collections offer free shipping for dolls, I've found it to be a bit of a wash in terms of pricing. I don't know what shipping from Malaysia to the US is though, or from Loongsoul to Malaysia.

 

I apologize, I didn't pick up that you wanted to login on LS Chinese site when I was reading your OP.
Yes, CNY prices are substantially lower than EN-facing dealer prices - I've moved away from dealers to buy from Taobao for that reason!

I agree that making a Taobao account is the best option. https://howtotao.com has guides - it's easiest to do it through the Taobao Lite smartphone app than through the website on a PC browser (account creation in China is usually bound to phone number instead of email). I couldn't make a TB account on the website using a PC, and kept getting locked out, but was able to make an account right away when I used the app on my phone. After I made my account I was then able to login on a PC browser.

With international shipping, LS may be able to ship internationally from their TB shop, but if they don't (and 98% of sellers on TB won't ship overseas), you'll need a domestic address (aka a "warehouse") for them to ship to. Taobao does some warehousing and I think it's dependent on the buyer's country - Malaysia may be one of them. But if not, you'll have to find a shopping service with a freight/parcel forwarding option, like Superbuy, that the seller can send to. HowtoTao.com has a list. You can register, provide the warehouse address to the seller, and then handle all shipping to yourself in USA.

If making a TB account fails, you can try the LS Chinese website again, or try out Bhiner - I'm less familiar with it as I don't use it, but they're a shopping service with a BJD-specific interface you can use to search and browse, all in English, prices in CNY and will also handle shipping. But I think they recently stopped accepting PayPal as a payment option (only card), and their search is a little borked - but it's still a way of browsing TB in English without needing a TB account.

 

I prefer parcelup as a proxy personally, there’s big issues like no wishlist function and it's not really made for browsing too much so you gotta get good at snatching taobao links to a random item so you can browse the shop. But hey it's even cheaper than bhiner and they accept PayPal so I'm willing to work with both issues.
I decided to find the loongsoul taobao shop in parcelup btw if it helps Seller 龙魂社 - Parcel Up

 

I would also say try using their Taobao - you'll probably need to use a proxy but that means a) you can surely get international shipping b) you'll have a middle man if anything goes wrong/the item arrives broken (plus you still have the Chinese prices). It's worth checking what the shipping quotes are beforehand, though, as there are cases when a dealer that offers free shipping ends up being cheaper in total. I've been using superbuy and they've been prompt to help out when problems arise but they also dropped PayPal without a warning (although they restored it as a payment method shortly after) so make sure you can also use an alternative payment method when going with any Chinese proxy these days.

 

A few people have had difficulty ordering directly from Loong Soul:
/threads/ordering-from-loongsoul.562087/

I ended up ordering from Alice's Collections even though it would take longer because of the difficulty that others were having. I had originally wanted to buy directly from them.

 

If you go with a proxy (like parcelup, bhiner, etc) they do charge a commission fee (I think parelup's is 5-10%), and their shipping rates tend to be pretty high (i've paid nearly the same for a skirt and shawl that i paid for a full 68cm doll direct from the company on things i've bought through taobao via proxies like parcelup). Not to try to discourage using them because they are easy to use and do make accessing things that can otherwise be hard to get a lot easier! Their shipping calculations seem to be much more tied to dimensions or volume of a package than it seems common with shipping from other places, which seems to make them much higher. But it *will* be very well protected- the last package i got had like 3 layers of tape all around on it xD