[review] Taobao X Skycart - My Taobao Experience IV

It's been a while I have done any review on Taobao forwarders

Click below for:


Lequgou (i don't think they are official forwarder anymore)
PRouter
65daigou and Peeka
65daigou and feedback section


Obviously for official forwarders like 4PX and PRouter, much have changed, including their shipping cost and local courier and stuff. I will not be talking about them since I have not used them ever since I switched to 65daigou, you can read about the charges and stuff on the taobao website.

I am going to talk about the new kid on the block - Skycart





They have been pretty aggro in trying to pull members from 65DG to them, even enticing people with "exclusive rates", advertised on facebook groups and even done up an official account on hardwarezone. They also went further to give people $10 voucher to purchase any Taobao goods and I used it just to try it out, to buy an item that cost about $11. In the end the international shipping for that item was also waived - if you stay on this page long enough, you would think that 'yea she deserved that to be waived' BTW, I didn't ask for any freebie or discount. I really just wanted my items to reach Singapore.


As I said they have been trying to compete with 65DG, take a look at the shipping charges





skycart



65daigou



Almost exactly identical yes? *ignore the US bit, it can't compete with 65DG's $3.50.

P/S I have posted similar review on a Facebook group, not plagiarising hor!


Most of the items (80 in total) are not mine (friend's wedding/BTO stuff), which made the below wtf moments even more WTF.



Full disclosure: I was first approached by someone working there (i think la, else why tell me about skycart right) to join. Didn't use their service until recently. HOWEVER, I am not sponsored in any way and I used Ship-for-you (SFY).


As I have mentioned there are many items, I am not about to go to Taobao and see which was the item that last arrived, suffice to say most items would have reached the warehouse before 11.11 because I wanted to avoid the peak period.

Ordering: As this is a SFY order, one needs to key in the details of the parcel into the system. For those of you who have used 65DG, even if you do not key in your items, they would automatically be added into your account. It is not perfect, sometimes u need to chase the CSO to add in and it can take days, but there is that automated system. There is NONE for Skycart. I have 80 items, I am supposed to key everything myself. I gave up after 30 items, Skycart team kindly took over and uploaded everything into the system thankfully. As you can see from the picture, the interface looks nice, but when items were first uploaded, you need to scroll a lot (especially when you have 80 parcels) to track everything, unlike 65dg which less nice looking but pragmatic.







This is how the order look like after I told them to put the 80 packages into three large orders. So this one has 17 packages. If you don't know the excel file I sent to them, there is no way of telling which packages are within this order list. Also take a look at the timing. I ordered way before 16 Nov since I said I wanted to avoid the 11.11 peak period. It is 22 DECEMBER now, talking about updating the system man. As a customers who has gotten the goods, I don't really care about this now, but imagine this as a restaurant. This will feel like... plates left around the restaurants and no one clears them - speak volumes about their management system.


All these while I am almost online talking to Skycart reps on their FB msg everyday just to track my items, since they arrived but the status on Skycart system kept showing seller dispatching to Skycart. In terms of updating, it was not good. It also doesn’t make sense to me that if the items arrived before 11.11 why aren’t they updated promptly or didn’t they put it under my name in storage so don’t need to take so long find.

Communication: was very prompt 80% of the time, I understand that due to the unfortunate delay, I have entered the 11.11 period and they have tons to settle so that's fine. They also admitted that my order was quite huge and it 'taught them a lot' (not sure if they are cursing behind my back but nvm hahaha). They were very nice with their words and really strive hard to meet expectations, but when you are used to efficiency, these words sound nice but at times do not really help.





need to put some picture, else this looks very wordy hahahah!


Shipping: thankfully after 17.11 (Tues) items arrived in SG pretty quickly on Fri but I had to wait until Monday 23.11 to pay for shipping (i finally paid for it on collection day itself, 2 hours before collection). I was given the order list stating individual weight of each package, but if I do not calculate myself, I would not have known how heavy the parcels were or how much to pay PRIOR to them being shipped out to Singapore. This is pretty problematic because there are instances where the volumetric weight is so shit high and the shipping cost can be higher than the item cost, people tend to not ship the items to Singapore. I am not sure if you can do this with Skycart, I never try since most items were not mine anyway. If you want to know the individual weight of the parcels, you would have to request for the excel file - again, this is something one doesn't need to do with 65dg.

Missing items: there were unfortunately 4 missing items and they weren't there obviously when I went to collect the massive number of packages. There was also a miscommunication, first they said 4 were missing, then someone said nope nothing missing, but finally on 23.11 they confirmed that four were missing. It would seem that it might be the seller’s fault if only 1 item was missing but since there is 4.. it is hard to explain I feel since the same address was given to all sellers (automated ma). Anyway, so I have decided to give Skycart the benefit of the doubt and since I am not using their buyforyou service, it is not like i can hold them responsible as well. They also mentioned that sometimes that courier paper get defaced, so they couldn't see the username properly so they could not allocate it to my name. I don’t think I would ever get to see my items again sigh. Then...


















On Dec 14, they told me they found the four parcels!! What's the best part? On ALL four parcels, courier sheets were all in very good conditions, as in no tears or anything. On 3 of those parcels, my username can be CLEARLY seen. How the @#$%#% did they missed the parcels is really beyond my comprehension. Again, it speaks volumes about their management system.

Edit: they explained and said that the tracking number could have been different from what was stated so they did not want to risk it. But it is under my name leh hai...


Vol weight VS 65DG: their formula was LBH/5000 while 65DG is supposedly LBH/6000*1.1. I back calculated from their vol weight calculation to derive the “supposed 65DG” vol weight and found that 65dg is still slightly lower but by a bit. So e.g. one of my parcel vol weight is 1.2kg (sky cart), using that 65dg formula it would be 1.1kg. So in reality, that 1.1 thingy from 65dg is NOTHING to be worried about. *this is on the assumption that 65dg and Skycart measures the length breath weight in same style*


Then again, give the bloody nonsense, even if 65DG tries something funny, I will HAPPILY pay the extra. At least I get my items quickly.


Delivery: this is something I overlooked (fml*10000) and given the delay in front I nearly wanted to flip table. So in their website they stated anything over 30kg, the delivery rate to home will be on a case-by-case basis. My 3 parcels came up to over 60kg, this was considered over 30kg yes? So I had to pay $47 for delivery to my house. So I stated that if I were to pay the parcels separately (all below 30kg), I only need to pay $8*3 = $24. They said “haha you found our loophole” .










yes I didn't read fml











Anyway, no matter, I am not about to pay $24 even because I am used to 65DG and bought these many items before, I still pay $8 even though parcels weigh over $30. So $24 does not make sense. Thankfully my house was one MRT stop away from their collection point, and I checked on Grab taxi that a cab ride home would be $7. even if I needed to make two trips, it would be $14, I still save $10!! Thankfully all items can fit into 1 car and with a discount code, my cab ride became $4. I saved about $20 leh (minus my MRT fare lah)!! Skycart team gave me a water bottle a message and a tote bag which I feel was a nice touch but a bit too little too late yes?

The second delivery ... norrrrrr you know for my four missing parcels. Was FUCKING ridiculous. The van is supposed to come between 8pm-815pm. It came at 820pm. I was there waiting since 8pm. There was NO NUMBER to call. NO ONE to ask. NO INFO on why the van wasn't here. It was THAT ridiculous. Had to cancel my subsequent appointment thanks to this. Unlike 65dg, the van arrived EARLIER and the driver even send a sms saying that he is there. You can even message the driver back and say sorry if you cannot collect. THIS. IS. SERVICE.


Edit: *someone on the fb group said she was late and it caused an effect* I was not informed about the lateness because.. the driver didn't have my contact no. Oh mai god.

Refunding: Anyway they owe me some money and I told them to refund it to my bank account because really after all these nonsense, would you still want Skycart credits? So they say that's ok, and told me there is a $1 admin fee.

YOU.


MUST.


BE.


KIDDING.


ME.


Singapore internet banking is farking FREE. You tell me you want $1 admin fee? I also need to refund my spree-ers at times, can I collect $1 from them too for electricity bill, internet bill, my energy and my time? I told them frankly that it does not make sense but fine (I mean I want my money!!!) Thankfully, they decided to waive it off this time. At the time of writing, I have not received the money -.-






this is exactly how i feel 70% of the time


I am sure it is entertaining as hell to read everything above, if you managed to read this far. It is quite obvious I am going back to 65dg and may even try 4px if I have many orders. Skycart is a small startup company, and they do need our support but I don't think I can support anymore, not with this huge amount of orders anyway. I am not going to risk people's wedding nor waste my precious time on this anymore. So if you happen to stay near their collection points, have very few orders and wants to enjoy fun customer service then you might be a suitable target group!