Taobao vs Ezbuy
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| Logos from Google images. |
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post.
After all the business saga between Taobao and Ezbuy in 2017, it seems like Ezbuy is finally back with their Taobao-buying services (at least for now). I started buying
directly from Taobao since 2017 due to the whole drama, but this year (2020)
I've decided to try Ezbuy again to shop on Taobao. I thought I'd share some of my findings to help you decide what is the best way to shop from Taobao in Singapore/Malaysia. Hopefully, these might help you!
Pricing (Shipping + Fees)
This is probably the most important deciding factors between the two platforms. You can find Ezbuy's shipping rates, and Taobao air shipping and sea shipping rates on their respective website. Taobao too has offered direct shipping
for shipping your items separately but I do not recommend that because that's gonna be extremely expensive.
On top of shipping fees, Ezbuy still does charge
their 8% service fee for items that are under the Ezshop
section, basically for items that aren't listed already on their platform
(please do take note that their "forever free agent fee" only applies to
items listed on their platform). However, Ezbuy does
run promotions from time to time where they remove their
service fees. This 8% service fee is calculated on top of the sum of
the price of the items purchased + its total shipping cost.
Another thing to note is that Ezbuy helps you repack your items so you save on shipping weight if your items are light and you are
ordering from various stores. Say, maybe you bought 3 headbands that are
around (100g), Ezbuy will help you repack them into one box so you'll save
on the weight of 3 boxes. On the other hand, for Taobao, you will be
paying for 3 headbands + 3 boxes worth of weight.
Comparing the two platforms, it's more cost-efficient in terms of
shipping fees to buy through Ezbuy when they run their free-agent fee
promotion.
Coupons and Credit Card Promotions
All that said, you're not able to use any Taobao coupons through Ezbuy.
For all events like 618, 11.11, 12.12, you can't use coupons or promotions that are available on Taobao. That means losing out on credit card promotions such as saving $10 with
a minimum spend of $120, or collecting Taobao's cross stores
discounts.
Taobao also charges a 3% fee on credit cards, although for
most of the key events, they have coupons that you can collect to waive
off that fee.
Existing Ezbuy listed items from China
I wanted to highlight this because Ezbuy do list items from China and these
items qualify for their flat rate shipping if you have their Prime account.
Unless you're buying really bulky items, I doubt you would sign up for their
Prime account. So should you still buy Ezbuy listed items?
After doing some comparison, I would advise you to just get it from Taobao
directly, whether you ship it through Taobao or Ezbuy, please check out the
pricing section above.
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Ezbuy pricing on the left and Taobao pricing on the right. (Price
before shipping) |
I didn't spend too much time trying to search for the exact same item, but
I'm pretty sure you can easily find a similar item or even the same item on
Taobao easily. Comparing the prices of both, you can see quite a distinct
price difference!
Comments section
I find this extremely important when shopping from less mainstream brands,
because these items sometimes might not be true to picture. And the great
part about shopping on Taobao is that their comments sections are filled
with useful comments for you to make a decision on your purchase. However,
on Ezbuy, comments are extremely limited and not helpful. You would probably
make a purchase because something is cheap but there might be a chance it is
not as what you're expecting.
Language
Taobao currently is still fully in Chinese, but Ezbuy is partially in
English. Ezbuy does translate the item names to English, but the product
selection is still in Chinese. If you are able to find a product on
Taobao, language shouldn't be a problem. Personally, I think you'll still
be able to shop on Taobao easily with basic Chinese.
Conclusion
If you're still wondering who is cheaper, and which platform to use, here's my rule!
I would use Ezbuy on days when:
1. They are having their free-agent fee promotion or
1. They are having their free-agent fee promotion or
2. When Taobao isn't running any special credit card promotions and my items are below $25 and less than 1kg because Ezbuy still
has cheaper shipping rates.
Otherwise, it would be much wiser to shop directly from Taobao and use
their shipping because the 8% service fee starts becoming really
exorbitant. If language is really a problem, you might want to consider comparing
prices between Ezbuy and Lazada instead.
Do drop me an email if there's anything on your mind that you'd like to know!
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely
to the author.
