I Bought From Xianyu Again Using 42agent

I've been planning to write this post about five times since the moment I had to, but my lazy ass never did lmao.

Today I'll talk about an order I made on March 17th 2019 and received a little less than a month later, on April 10th. It was my second order on Xianyu, and my first using the proxy 42agent AKA TaobaoRing. For some backstory on why I used 42agent instead of Yoybuy (as I did for my first order on Xianyu), you can skim through this post.

Although I'll make some comments about 42agent thus reviewing in some way the service, this post is not a full review of the proxy.

The items I ordered

These are the two items I ordered on Xianyu. Sorry for not posting my own pictures here, I didn't take pictures of the clothes in their original state when I received them.

Bobon21 trench coat

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Bobon21 fluffy blue cardigan

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source

The service

To order the clothes on 42agent, I used the method I wrote about here. As I mentioned, the buying process went smoothly. When the proxy received the trench coat, they notified me and told me it had a defect on the sleeve:

In fact, the left sleeve has a black dot; I'm not sure whether it's a ballpoint mark or something else:

(Picture taken by 42agent)

Although it's a very small stain, I was pretty frustrated that the seller didn't mention it (and I know she might not even have seen it but anyway.) Otherwise, I didn't expect 42agent to inspect the coat but appreciated it.

Here's an overview of an order's details (when you click on an item you ordered from the page "Order List"—I clicked on my trench coat):

Top of the page—I like how everything looks organized.

Scrolling down, you can see pictures (once they received the item) and other info:

If you go further down, there's a section where you can exchange messages with an agent:

And at the bottom, there's a timeline of every action related to the item:

I really like how clear and detailed this page is. I would say there's more information than what I'd normally need, but if I'd had a problem or a question with any of the items, I'd have a lot of info. I especially like the timeline.

Service fee

It's "8% of the total items cost and domestic shipping fee", but "[m]inimum service charge is 30 CNY". I paid the minimum which is 30 CNY for each item, so 60 CNY in total.

When I ordered my three items with Yoybuy, it appears the service fee was 5.47 USD in total, according to my order history.

I'd tend to think 42agent's service fee is expensive (e.g. you end up paying more than 15 CAD if you buy three items only—and there's still the int'l shipping, the domestic shipping if necessary and other fees like Paypal's every time you make a transaction.)

Also, I have no idea why 42agent charged me, for each item, a 15 CNY domestic shipping fee (so 30 CNY in total); on the items' page, both sellers assumed the domestic shipping fees (unless the seller and the buying agent had a conversation I was not made aware of). It sucked when I saw I had to pay this charge, but didn't want to start a case so I just paid it and kept shut.

International shipping was also expensive; 21.78 USD using eYouBao. I don't exactly remember how I chose this shipping method, but I opted for the fastest (and safest) yet "cheapest".

Receiving the items

This section is going to be short. As I mentioned, I forgot to/didn't take pictures of the clothes when I received them. Moreover, I didn't take any try on picture of the cardigan cuz it looked horrendous; first, the fur looked disgusting/dirty, so I only put it on for about 3 seconds; second, the shape was asymmetrical, as if some parts had shrunk in the drying machine; third, the colour was much darker and I just didn't like it. For the last point, I had already noticed Bobon21 sometimes used filters on their pictures which would lighten the clothes, but holy cow did I not expect it was the case for the cardigan FML.

Bobon21 trench coat

The trench coat is really pretty. Except for the mark on the left sleeve, the condition is perfect and the tags are still there. As for the fit, there were two things that were different from the stock picture:

• The belt strangely arrives under the two upper buttons instead of over; however, I prefer all buttons showing so that's a win.
• The upper button on the left is considerably lower. That unevenness may be common to other Bobon21 coats of the same model, but because the belt usually covers the upper buttons, it's not a problem.

Thankfully, my mom sewed the problematic button to the same height as the one on the right. The coat looks much better now.

(You can see a bit of the new blouse I'll talk about in my next blog post hehe)

That's all I had to say about my second experience buying from Xianyu and my first using 42agent. The proxy is good but expensive. If I knew the clothes on Xianyu would be worth it, I wouldn't mind that much, but from my first and second experience buying there, it's not the case.

Fortunately, the coat and the cardigan are in the last Bobon21 items I want to get (but missed on Taobao). I'm thinking about getting the check grey OP I got in red in my first Xianyu order, but I'm not planning on buying it anytime soon.