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Buying through an agent, start to finish

Nine steps, two payments, and three places where people lose money. Read it once before your first order and the rest of this site makes more sense.

The steps, in the order they happen

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  1. Find the listing. Browse a category or search a keyword. You need the actual product link, not a screenshot and not a brand name.
  2. Pick an agent. Do this before you paste anything, because the cheapest one depends on where you live and what the parcel will weigh.
  3. Paste the link and specify the variant. Colour and size in the note field, every time. One link often covers a dozen variants.
  4. Pay for goods and domestic shipping. First of two payments. This is the item price plus seller delivery inside China.
  5. Wait for stock-in. The seller ships to the warehouse. Days, sometimes a couple of weeks for made to order items.
  6. Read the QC photos. Count the items, check the variant, look at the packaging. There is a clock on complaints.
  7. Decide when to ship. Free storage lets you accumulate, which is where consolidation pays. Watch the ceiling.
  8. Choose a line and pay freight. Second payment, priced on real weight. This is where the agent you chose in step two pays off or does not.
  9. Clear customs and receive it. Duty is yours. Record the unboxing before you cut the tape.
A pair of sneakers from a real listing in the catalogue
Step one is always a specific listing, not a brand. A real listing from the catalogue.
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The three places people actually lose money

  • Step two, choosing the agent by its advertised fee

    Most agents charge no service fee and take the margin on the exchange rate instead, so the advertised zero tells you nothing. Compare the all-in figure for your destination and weight.

  • Step three, leaving the variant to chance

    One link, many variants. If you do not write the colour and size in the note, somebody else picks for you, and a wrong variant is not a fault anyone will pay to fix.

  • Step nine, treating duty as a maybe

    Every set of terms excludes customs charges. If your parcel is worth more than your country's threshold, budget for it rather than hoping.

A fourth one is quieter: letting items sit past the free storage period. The free window is advertised, the hard ceiling is in the terms, and past the ceiling goods can be treated as abandoned. The fee page has both numbers.

Using the tools on this site, in the order they help

Before step one, use the search box at the top of any page, or the sixteen category tiles. Search the way a seller labels things, not the way you would describe them: garment type, brand, colour.

At step two, open the destination picker and set your country, your expected weight and what you care about. It reads the sampled freight tables back to you and names two or three agents worth checking, with the date attached. That is the step this whole site exists for.

Before you commit, run the four checks on the comparison page. Ten minutes, and it is the only part of the process that is hard to redo later.

At step six, the QC page lists what to look at and in what order.

None of these tools place an order, hold your money, or talk to an agent for you. They narrow the shortlist and tell you what to check. The last word always comes from a live quote inside the agent you picked, because a sampled table is for narrowing down and never for the final decision.