Taobao agents: ezbuy vs SGshop

Doing a quick review here because I'm rushing out my work even though the weekend is near. My weekend is pretty much burnt because I have TWO weddings to attend and they're both my treasured friends! Seems like Oct to Dec really is a very popular time for weddings.

With our prewedding shoot coming up next week, there's also so much to prepare for, especially the props! Really praying it doesn't rain on the day!

After that, I'll need to soon start on choreographing a wedding dance for my dearest roommate who is getting married to her hall senior in December.

Basically the backstory was that she asked me which studios can do wedding dances for her, I did a quick check and was 😱😱😱 at the ridiculous fees they charge.

So I told her to save her money and that I'll do it for her for free. She can consider it my wedding gift to her haha but I'll still be giving her ang pao for the banquet la 👫👰

Anyway I digress. The main point of this post is to compare between the 2 most popular Taobao agents, ezbuy and SGShop, and how they fared on Singles Day.

I mentioned before that my previous wedding parcel was ordered off SGShop, and I was really blown away by their service. Especially for the customised items which were done so nicely!

Like this gorgeous figurine for my decor.

And my customised ring box! I really liked the hexagon glass box idea that has been a recent phenomenon on Pinterest, but with so many #dayrebrides using that for their wedding I really wanted ours to be different.

I did an advertorial for SGShop previously on my blog, which was how I got to know about their 11.11 promos in advance, so that's why I started shopping and adding items to my cart right after getting the brief!

But a few days ago, I saw that ezbuy launched their 11.11 promos too and the biggest lure was their $2.99 international shipping! My parcels from SGShop previously have never been cheap, probably because of the weight and size.

So I decided that for 11.11 I shall get the best of both worlds by buying parcels from each of them! That way, I can also compare directly and decide for the future which one to stick with.

Here are my thoughts so far. I'll probably do an update when the items arrive so I can compare their checking and repacking services.

Last minute resort to download and check out on the mobile app because the website simply wasn't working.

Ezbuy review:

👍🏻 $2.99 prime shipping for international mail, flat fee!

👍🏻 searches in English are better and come with more results, compared to SGShop

😰 last week they sent out an apology email to customers for being understaffed and slow delivery of packages. Never mind, everyone deserves a second chance!

😡 WEBSITE CRASHED. It took me a grand total of 2 hours to check out my shopping cart to no avail, and I was watching 😨 in shock while refreshing Taobao and seeing the stock numbers drop, drop, drop.

😡 live support chat that was set up specially for 11.11 couldn't even load

😡 product prices were not automatically updated in my cart. My evening gown was discounted by $30 on Taobao after midnight, but the price on ezbuy still showed the higher original one. I thus had to manually add all my items again to make sure I got the discount. You can imagine how frustrated I felt when you consider how slow ezbuy website was.

😡 lots of customer complaints even on their Facebook, showing that I'm not the only one experiencing the tech issues.

😡 tried again after lunch at 2 plus and both the website AND mobile app crashed.

I gave up trying to add more wedding items into the cart so that I could use the $10 off early bird voucher that they gave out, because the freaking website wouldn't even load. I wasted my lunchtime on this.

Seriously, ezbuy?

The only consolation is that I carted out most of the heavy wedding stuff on ezbuy, so I'll be saving on the shipping. Other than that, I probably won't use them again.

SGShop review:

👍🏻 really good with customised items and checking for quality or defects, based on past experience with them prior to Singles Day

👍🏻 had the preorder service to ensure your item won't be out of stock

👍🏻 will automatically refresh your price to 11.11 sale price. If you used the preorder service, they will rebate you the difference.

👍🏻 WEBSITE DID NOT CRASH. I was using their website to check the price on SGD for my items of interest because ezbuy was not working 😑

👍🏻 live chat service was slower than my past shopping experiences, but still at least responsive vs ezbuy which I never ever heard back from.

😐 more work needed to save less money. To get free agent fee, need to download and cart out through their app instead of the website.

😕 international shipping is more expensive vs ezbuy $2.99 prime membership

Final verdict!

Ezbuy: not good during crazy sales period because you risk getting your item out of stock, more expensive (if you don't re-add manually) and due to website crashes so often. Good for bulky or heavy buys.

SGShop: I personally will use them when I want to ensure quality and customisation. Very responsive team and customer care support (even over the phone). The only downside is you really need to do research to save money with their promos, and there's no flat international shipping.

Btw if you aren't signed up with SGShop yet, can use my link for a whole bunch of newbie discounts!

http://bit.ly/2fI6Ief

I'm frankly more familiar with SGShop as I've been using them for over a year now, whereas I only started with ezbuy a few months ago (and my parcel has yet to arrive despite ordering in early October).

Would love to hear feedback from the rest of you #dayreshopping and #taobao girls! Anyone used ezbuy or SGShop before for #singlesday or #dayrehomes? How was your experience on Singles Day?