Before the link moves
How to pick an item that will not cost you later
Most of the regret on a first haul is decided on the listing page. Three habits do nearly all the work, and none of them require knowing anything about the market.
Read the title as writing, not as a label. It is whatever the seller typed. A title carrying a fabric, a weight and a measurement is a seller who expects questions. A title that is six brand names stacked back to back is a seller optimising for search.
Read the option names, not the photograph. Cut, length and lining live in the option list, and the option list is the only part an agent transcribes into an order.
Decide your question before you pay. Anything you want measured or photographed in detail is cheapest to ask for at the order stage. Superbuy prices detailed photos at CN¥3.00 in its own worked example; asking later costs you the days the parcel sits waiting.
How to judge a seller when the platform will not do it for you
Four signals that are actually available, in the order they are worth checking. None of them tells you the goods are good; together they tell you whether there is somebody competent at the other end.
Trading history
How long the shop has existed. Cheapest signal, hardest to fake.
Sales of this exact item
Not of the shop overall. A long-running shop can be brand new to the thing you want.
A buyer photograph in the reviews
The only image on the page the seller did not choose. Worth more than the other five put together.
Whether the shop answers
Send the measurement question through the agent before you commit. A seller who will not answer before taking your money will not answer after.
The mistakes that cost the most on a first haul
Ordered roughly by how much money they cost, not by how often they happen.
Letting the storage clock run out
Ninety days free, then a tenth of a yuan per item per day, then at 180 days the item is treated as abandoned and disposed of. People who are waiting for one more seller lose the whole order this way.
Paying freight on retail packaging
Package removal, tag removal and invoice removal are free. A shoe box is roughly 1.67 billed kilograms of air on a volumetric line. Most first hauls ship at least two of them intact.
Buying protection the parcel does not need
Corner protectors on a box of t-shirts is twenty five yuan spent on nothing. The menu is grouped by purpose for exactly this reason.
Not reading the restrictions before buying
Liquids, batteries and anything on the prohibited list are a route problem, not a packing problem. No service on the menu fixes an item that cannot fly, and Superbuy states an over-weight parcel cannot be submitted at all until items are removed.
Treating the estimate as the price
Stage one is quoted up front. Stage two does not exist as a number until there is a box with a weight. Both are real; only one is visible when you press pay.
The lists to read before you buy, not after
No packing service fixes an item that cannot fly. These are the four kinds of problem that are decided at the moment you choose the item, and every one of them is cheaper to avoid than to unwind.
Outright prohibited
Superbuy states that cigarettes, alcohol, medicines and prohibited goods are not carried, under customs regulations. There is no version of the parcel that contains these.
Restricted by quantity or format
Air transport requires non-hazardous identification for food, liquid, granules and paste. The agent recommends avoiding bulk and suggests cosmetics within 100ml per product and 200ml per parcel, sent with regular goods such as clothing and shoes.
Restricted by the line, not the item
Some goods can only go on some routes, and routes get suspended. The announcement list is the only place that appears. Why to open it on the day you submit.
Over the limit
Superbuy states an over-weight parcel cannot be submitted for delivery at all: you remove items and submit again. That is a packing decision forced on you by a buying decision made weeks earlier.
Next step.
- Checks and photos is where a bad choice is still cheap to undo.
- What it costs has the fee stages these mistakes play out in.