Shopping Taobao or other shop for clothes maker TIE AOAO ?

This is that Taobao store, but I don't think I've been using it lately. It looks like they switched to the Weidian store.

If you like these designs, I recommend browsing on rednote. Dealers in China usually post their new releases there. However, I've heard that REDNOTE has a policy against promoting other platforms, so you'll need to do some tricks. For example, if they use a peach emoji while showing a new product, it means the selling platform is Taobao, and if they use a fish emoji and write Xianyu, V, or VD, it means it's Weidian.

 

Holy of holiest of markups 200 CNY is less than $30... Or is that just a deposit fee?

 

200rmb is the deposit; the full price for the outfit is 338rmb (about USD $46).

 

That's the final deposit - the full price is 338 RMB. So around €40 which makes it still quite a markup.


@ashefaust - I also have trouble browsing TaoBao etc directly but manage to buy the items I want through different proxy services pretty easily. Some have better search functions than others and I sometimes need to use another one to browse a whole store better to snatch a link but it is possible to get what you need that way, too. Some support image search as well. I've tried Superbuy, CSSbuy and Parcelup and they all have their perks and shortcomings, but as they are based in china it's still tons cheaper than an us-based dealer even with their service fees.

 

A little off-topic, but I wanted to know if you have access to Weidian? I want to check out one shop, but Weidian does not want to send me the code to make an account. >>

 

@Starling I don't have any issues with Weidian, and I've been able to make transactions just fine until recently, but I've noticed that it's fairly common for account verification codes to not be sent when signing up for sites in China. I've had similar issues with xianyu when I was logged out, so I've used Alipay verification and passport verification to recover my account...

 

@river_seine Ugh, that's so annoying. I was lucky enough to be able to make accounts on TB, Xianyu and Xiaohongshu. But Weidian will just not send me the code, alas. But there's a specific BJD eye shop I would love to check out. Would you be able to give me a link to it? The artist is called 阿柴柴. Otherwise, I guess I will go back to stalking Xianyu for resells. 8')

 

@Starling 阿柴柴

@ashefaust I do the purchasing myself and use a shipping agent, so my primary shipping address is in China. With Alipay, the purchase itself is simple.

 

@ashefaust

If you want to purchase directly from Taobao and Weidian, you will need to open an Alipay account, verify your ID with them (which is passport for international customers), and then once verified, link your Alipay to those stores. Alipay is basically the Chinese payment gateway and similar to PayPal, albeit a lot more centralized and stringent with verification. ID declaration is unavoidable if you want to enter the Chinese payment ecosystem, so you have to decide if you want to take that step. But once you're in the ecosystem, you can shop directly on Taobao and Weidian.

If you decide not to use Alipay, proxies/shopping services will order on your behalf. I've only used Superbuy as a proxy, they will shop on Weidian. I'm pretty sure Parcelup and Spreenow will too.
You can also contact Christina of New Clover Singing to proxy for you -- she's been in the BJD business for a very long time. Aside from orders on her website, she'll do proxy services too. Contact her directly and ask for her rates and terms, there should be an email on the NCS website.

Whether you buy direct or via proxy, as @\river_seine said, you'll need a Chinese domestic shipping address because the vast majority of Taobao etc sellers will not ship directly out of China. Pretty much all proxies also have warehousing/freight forwarding. If you use their shopping services, they'll take care of receiving. If you're ordering direct, I know Superbuy can be used as just a freight forwarder without also using their shopping service; check other proxies to see their terms. Once you have a domestic shipping address, you can then consolidate your orders and send it to yourself in one larger shipment.

 

Aihre already gave a great in depth answer but I'll just add that CSSbuy also does Weidian and can be used as freight forwarder. Superbuy and a few others also do Xianyu. It takes a bit of shopping around to figure out which service fits best for your needs (and which you can actually pay at as they've been slowly culling PayPal and Google pay everywhere - the alipay app just won't download on my phone for some reason so I've had to figure out alternatives - so that's a fun little problem one can potentially run into ).

About using the services for searching: if you found a product but want to see the whole store, it seems to work most reliably in Parcelup but they're not always 100% up to date with the listings so I usually take the direct links from them and go to other proxies. Superbuy tends to be a hit or miss with that but has a decent search engine, I find CSSbuy is most reliable with photo searches. For doll items, you'll need to know how the machine translation for certain items is from Chinese for more results (like 1/4 is "4 points", doll is often "baby" etc). I assume searching in Chinese would work also if you want to copy product names or find sellers on other social media platforms.

It's not as comfortable as browsing the sites directly of course but the workarounds are somewhat successful and depending on the service, you can also consolidate parcels both from things you ordered yourself and had the service buy for you as long as they arrive in the same warehouse.

 

@river_seine Thank you SO SO SO much. I'm sorry for being so annoying, but you're the first person I've found who has a Weidian account. ; ;

@ashefaust I've also only used Superbuy as a proxy, but I can attest to them being reliable.
Other than the previously mentioned options, there's also Cherry from Cherrygoods. While he mostly deals with blindbox dolls, I've had him order some GSC stuff for me. So I think something else wouldn't be a problem for him, especially if you have a link.

 

@Starling No problem, it's not that hard to find