I get asked about this quite a bit, so I'll answer the frequently asked questions here:

Do you accept group orders?
Sure, with wide open arms! However, I will only handle communications and payments with one person - the GO leader. It is still up the the leader to coordinate all the orders and payments. If it's meant to be a group order, you cannot ask the members to send in their orders and payments separately to me. That will be messy.

What's the best way to submit the order?
There's no special order form for this. Just use the excel form on my shopping service page.
You may either:

a) organise all your group members' orders accordingly by sellers in one excel form, like you would with a regular order for yourself. This would be the best way. If you need to mark out whose items belong to whom, you may write their names in the "Your remarks" column, or use different font colours to differentiate their orders. Please refrain from highlighting (shading) the row cells as I use that for marking out problem items and items that have reached.

or

b) Have a separate excel form for every member. I'll help to combine them. The problem with this is I may miss noticing that different members are buying from the same sellers, so your members may end up being charged extra domestic postage. The difference is honestly not much. If it matters a lot to you, then please use method (a), or specify in the remarks. Do also understand that for items from the same seller weighing more than 1kg, higher domestic postage may be charged because the listed domestic postage is usually only for the first kg.

Can you calculate the weight / shipping cost / item cost for each member?

No, that's the GO leader's job. If it is difficult for you, you are recommended to use method (b) in this case, because each form will reflect the item cost and weight of the items on the form. If you use separate forms for your members, you will be able to see the item cost and item weight for each member.

One GO member changed their mind, wants to ship out separately / Can I split packages to different addresses / to ship out at different times ?

You can, I'm very flexible with shipping arrangements. Just make sure that when paying for shipping fees, you update your address in your payment to the destination you want it shipped to.

Some advice for GO leaders:

- Only take in members who are committed, absolutely sure about what they want, have money to pay, and can pay you immediately. Fickle-minded members will cause huge delays to your GO, which is unfair to your other members who pay on time.

- Only contact me with confirmed orders. I will not accept "feelers". Large orders take a long time to process, and multiple "feelers" will surely prolong this process.

- You must be contactable at all times. Sellers may raise issues even after the order has been processed. If you will be away, have another person take your place temporarily.

As stated in my previous post, service fees have been revised. I've created new order forms reflecting the revised rates, and have also simplified them in hopes that they are easier and quicker for everyone to fill up. They are on their respective shopping service pages. However, if you prefer the old forms, or have already submitted orders recently using the old forms, you may stick with using them.

There is also a new shipping method E-Post for shipping to USA. It's a more affordable alternative for those who dislike the uncertain waiting time of registered airmail but find the other express methods to be costly. I have also updated the shipping rates. Some methods/countries will see a slight increase while others see a slight decrease. It is not significant in my opinion and hence I have not announced it beforehand. The new shipping rates take effect from today.

Recently, I'm seeing an increasing number of people emailing me their orders not in the required format. There are also more people asking me things that have been obviously stated on my website. The reason these formats exist is to keep things organised and efficient, and reduce the likeliness of mistakes. Additionally, not using the proper format suggests that you didn't read the contents and TOCs on my website, which is not good at all because assumptions and misunderstandings can cause an order to go wrong.

For your own sakes, before you order, please take responsibility by understanding how it all works and doing your part to ensure your order goes smoothly. Whether you're a seasoned Taobao shopper or recommended by friends, understand that all shopping services operate differently, and all shoppers have different needs.

From now on, if I receive orders that are not in my required format, or questions that have been answered on my website, I will ignore them.

Sorry to bring this bad news, but due to increase of costs of various services such as warehouse rental, staff pay for logistics services etc, my contacts in China have increased their fees, so I have to increase mine accordingly :(

The following changes apply to Taobao orders (International) paid for after 19 March 2014 Beijing time (specifically by 10 pm):

Service fees 15%
Currency exchange rate reverted back to 1 SGD : 4.4 rmb
This means that a 100rmb item will cost 100rmb / 4.4 x 115% = 26.20 SGD

ETA: I'm currently swarmed with orders from people trying to make it before the above changes come into place... At this point of time, if you send an order for something new and have not heard back from me, your order will most likely be subject to the new fees. Sorry! >_< If you can't accept that, please do not place your order.

Free storage period extended to 1 year from time of payment of order.

If you wish to get photos taken of your purchase for your checking, the service will cost 1 SGD per item (down from previous 2 SGD)

The other pages on my website will be updated accordingly after 19 March.

If you placed orders just before Chinese New Year (late January) or during the Chinese New Year holiday (which lasted until 14 February; CNY is actually a 15-day long holiday although most people don't actually take such a long break), your supposedly instock items may not have arrived because the sellers are still going through backlogs, or they're waiting for their suppliers to replenish stock. In the current situation, many of them have said they can only dispatch the orders around end of February (which is soon). Made-to-order / pre-order items are expected to take even longer, perhaps up to mid-March.

So please wait patiently. If you feel that your order is taking an unusually long time to finish up, feel free to contact me to ask for an update, but please bear the above situation in mind. Thanks!

This year I'd really like to set aside more free time on weekends to be spent with my family, friends and on self-improvement. Therefore, I will not be working on shopping service matters or answering any shopping service related emails on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays (Singapore calendar, there are not many of them, don't worry).

The exception is for the handful of customers who are business operators and need Taobao stock for their operations, as well as urgent orders. And of course, if anything crops up with your order that needs your urgent attention, I'll notify you too.

Just to recap the meaning of urgent orders as stated on my shopping service pages:
I don’t accept orders with urgent absolute deadlines (I don’t own the postal service or the shops so it’s really not up to me to promise you a date that you’ll receive your items). However, if your item has limited stocks (less than 5) or a specific limited order period / discount campaign, you may put “Urgent” in your email subject and I’ll prioritise your order to purchase it earlier. Refer to this page to understand how to read stock availability.

I'm not a full-time shopping service by the way, for those who didn't realise. I have a day job from morning until evening. I may handle shopping service matters during my day job if I'm having a lazy day. Otherwise, I'll be working on shopping service matters only from 8pm to 10pm (Singapore time) every weekday.

Therefore, if you submitted an email or order after 10pm on Friday, the earliest you may expect to receive a response would be on Monday after 8pm. Typically, I respond within 3 working days (excludes weekends and pub holidays).

I seek your kind cooperation and understanding!

As mentioned in my post dated 23 January 2014, I'll be increasing the exchange rate used from 4.4 rmb : 1 SGD to 4.3 rmb : 1 SGD for orders submitted after 8 February.

Hence, all orders and add-ons submitted after 8 February 23:59, Beijing Time will be subject to this new exchange rate. I base this on the timestamp of your email. I have updated the shopping service page with the new order form. But if you used the old one, I will edit the exchange rate for you, no worries.

There are no changes to the shipping rates.

In addition, total sums will be round up to the nearest 1st decimal place for easier calculations in future. For example, if the total sum comes up to 45.618 SGD, it will be round up to 45.70 SGD instead of 45.62 SGD. This applies for all services, including shipping fees. It does not apply to individual prices.

I have switched agents for the Singapore shopping service and as such, there are many changes. Please refer to this page.

Thanks!

Understandably, some people only have a few important things to buy, and just add on some other items to take advantage of shipping savings. If an item(s) on your purchase list is not available and you'd prefer to drop part of the order or the entire order in such cases, you can, but please let me know which items are your important ones so I'll check those out first before going through the whole order. That will save us both time. You can either fill up the order form with just the important items first, or fill up the form with your whole list but mark out those that are more important.

However, please understand that items may suddenly go out of stock even after I paid for it. In this case, if I've already ordered everything else, you can't cancel them. To resolve this, we can first go ahead with purchasing the important items, then purchase the rest separately when the important items have arrived. This may cause some delays and incur additional domestic postage, but it beats buying a whole bunch

I'm dealing with a huge backlog after Chinese New Year. Please excuse me if I take longer than usual to get back to you (I try to keep it within 5 days).

To avoid further delays, please have all your questions and concerns in one email. Each time you raise an enquiry after I answer your last question, your email gets pushed back to the end of the queue.

As usual, I will prioritise emails with completed order forms. I may not answer emails without order forms, especially if the question is answered on my website. Kindly only email me if you're serious about purchasing.

Submission of CWT36 orders is over. Please don't send in any more order forms for CWT 36. They will not be accepted.

Please also be reminded that I'll be increasing the exchange rate used from 4.4 rmb : 1 SGD to 4.3 rmb : 1 SGD for orders submitted after 8 February. Sorry ^^; Nevertheless, this only really affects Singapore buyers, and if your currency is strong against the SGD, it probably doesn't affect you much.
Shipping rates will also be revised accordingly and the changes will take effect from 15 February onwards.

I'm currently swarmed with new orders lately. I prioritise emails with properly filled order forms first. So if you just sent a question, I will take longer to reply. Sorry about that! If you already have an order on hand, then I strongly suggest you send it along with your question.

Recently, the yuan has been going up pretty aggressively against Singapore dollars ^^;
If this situation does not improve, I'll be increasing the exchange rate used from 4.4 rmb : 1 SGD to 4.3 rmb : 1 SGD for orders submitted after 8 February. Sorry ^^;

1) Intermittent hiatus for processing of orders / emails - Hiatus from 30 January to 3 February
I may be able to reply if I happen to have spare time, but there's no guarantee. You may continue to send your orders but most likely i can only get back to you after 3 February.
ETA: Sorry, hiatus starts from 31 Jan, not 30 Jan. I forgot about reunion dinner ^^;

2) No processing of shipments from 27 January to 6 February as postal services are closed. For Budget express courier shipment to Malaysia and Singapore, the hiatus starts from 23 January.

3) Typically, rest period for many of the sellers and domestic couriers is from 23 January to around 8 February. During this period, I can still place orders, but please understand that the sellers will not despatch your order, and they may take longer time to respond if you have questions for them.

For those who are ordering custom-made items (cosplay clothing, lolita clothing, props etc), please remember to factor the above rest period into your waiting time.

The above applies to both the China and Taiwan shopping services.
Exception is for CWT36 orders. Deadline for finalised orders is 3 February.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone who celebrates it!