Hooray, my first Taobao order has been completed! :D For those of you who don't know, Taobao is essentially Chinese ebay, except everything there is dirt cheap. I thought I was getting good deals on socks and hats from China on ebay only paying 4 and 5 dollars here and there, little did I know these very same things are on Taobao for like 50 cents ._. The catch is you have to pay for express shipping, which generally starts at around $25/$30, as well as a shopping agent. So it's only worth it if you plan on buying a bundle of things all at once. But even then, you still end up paying less than what you would have paid on ebay. For example, I bought a pair of boots on ebay for $30, and found the exact same boots on Taobao for about $7 or $8 (d'oh!)
I suppose I should start with the shipping service I used, Taobaospree. My agent was Lucy, she was very friendly and her English was pretty good. We corresponded via email and she was usually very quick to respond, with the exception of a day or two where I had to remind her about me. I would definitely recommend them.
I ordered from a few different stores, I'll start with CherryDance, a lolita accessory shop with a lot of cute stuff. I didn't take pictures because everything literally is exactly as pictured, and I'm pretty sure they take all of these photos themselves.
I bought two of these:
Four of these (randomly selected):
One of each of these:
They are all perfect! There are a few things in this shop I've seen elsewhere on Taobao for cheaper, but on a whole this shop is great for lolita accessories.
And now the fun part, clothes and shoes :D I bought both of these boots from Xiaomayi(?). I'll show what the picture looks like first, then what they look like irl.
Red boots :D
4/5 ;; My biggest complaints about these is they don't stand up on their own and they are nowhere near as high as in the picture. I'm only 5'7"/5'8" and they are calf high ;~; Honestly though, I should have paid closer attention to the measurements. My calf is 16" around and these are pretty snug at the tops if I am wearing more than one layer of something (like tights and socks). Not to mention I have to pull them up constantly...Also, I ordered a size 43, and I normally wear size 10 shoes, and these are pretty snug. Not uncomfortably so, but snug. The bottoms say "265[mm]" which is about 10.4 inches, which is just about right for a size 10. (If you're not sure about what size to get, take a tape measure and take the length of the inside of a shoe, and make sure you find out what the inner sole length of the shoe you want to get is) Other than those small problems they're not bad. I got lots of compliments about them :3
Grey boots :D
4.5/5 ;; I'm actually pretty happy with these! These are also a size 43 and just as snug as the red boots, but they are still comfortable enough to wear. The only discrepancies I can find are that the floral print looks a bit darker, and it seems they were a bit stingy with the lace (it's not as long as pictured). Other than that they are great :x
And now for the Dream of Lolita review ^-^
Bone corseted skirt:
5/5 ;; I am wearing a tube top thing <_< I didn't feel like changing, sorry x_x This is beautiful! Comes with a built-in petti, which was a nice surprise. My waist is ~34 inches so I ordered the XXL (that's painful to say ;~;) but it fits perfectly. I wouldn't really consider this regular lolita, it's much too short (well, on me at least ;~;). But that's fine because I think I am going into the casual lolita direction anyway. My one complaint is the zipper is a bit stiff at first, just zip it up and down a handful of times to loosen it up. ^-^
I paid about $50 total (including paypal and shopping service fees) for the items themselves and around $30 to ship them. (They have you pay for the items first, and then once they figure out the weight of all your items you pay that separately) So I guess that's about $5 per item, not bad ^-^ This was definitely a positive experience and I definitely will not be using ebay ever again :x
