Saturday, February 21, 2009

Online Shopping Experience with a Chinese Website

I made a purchase of two pairs of Calvin Klein underwears at a Chinese online merchant at the Chinese equivalent of eBay.

Photo in the Ad

Actual Merchandise

Looking at the actual pair of underwear, with my uninitiated eye, I don't think it is a genunie product from CK. In terms of quality, actually it is not too bad. The material being used is very similar to genuine CK products. For this particular case, as the underwear is still usable and the price I paid is not extorbitant, I will just rest this case, but I will be more careful in dealing with the online Chinese merchants.

For online shopping in China, they have the paypal equivalent call ZhiFuBao (支付宝). When you make an online purchase, the full amount of the price will be deducted from your ZhiFuBao account and held in custody of a third party (in this case, ZhiFuBao). After you have received your purchased item and happy with it, then you can instruct the thirt party to release the money to the seller. It is a good measure protecting the buyers. However, there is still a loop hole in the system. ZhiFuBao will only hold the money for 7 days, after that, the money will be released to the seller automatically. So make sure the product reaches you within that time, otherwise, you money maybe as good as being thrown away.

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