For this article, I am writing about the 3 sites where I have purchased most of the Home Automation project parts.
Online shopping for China goods in Singapore is a wonderful experience. The parcel delivery services here are reliable and reasonably fast. So far I have not encountered a single package lost. My main consideration for online shopping is the ability to pay with maximum convenience, minimum fee and delivery to your doorstep.
Taobao
Taobao is the de facto shopping for those people in living China. In the early days, for those staying outside China, the only way to buy from Taobao was to go through agents who ordered the products on your behalf and charge a fee. Taobao recently announced a tie-up with Lazada (an online shopping portal bought over by Alibaba). Most of the fanfare is Lazada provides a Taobao link in Lazada portal. Actually, the main benefit is that I can order from Taobao main site and send over to Singapore via Lazada. Although in Taobao, there are many other courier services, Lazada is the most economical for my current goods I am shipping.
Some of the products are very cheap but if you include the shipping fee, it is not exactly that cheap anymore. Fortunately, Taobao allows you to consolidate the shipping at their warehouses and shipped to Singapore in 1 shipping. The shipping is fast and I can get my goods within 7 days.
Aliexpress
Aliexpress is my favourite among the 3 sites. Most of the things I wanted can be found here except for perishable goods. For a while, I was trying to figure out the differences between Aliexpress and Taobao. The same products can be found on both sites and equally competitive. At first, I thought Taobao was meant for domestic markets and Aliexpress was to serve the international market, but the recent introduction of direct shipping to Singapore has changed that.
One of the features which amazed me was "Free Shipping" regardless of amount. Literally, it means that. I have ordered an S$0.60 18650 power bank (without the battery) and it's arrived in 2-3 weeks in my mailbox. I do not think I am able to send some stuff within Singapore at that price.
Aliexpress allows me to purchase the goods in my home currency. e.g.a US$5 product is priced at S$6.90. The Google USD-SGD spot rate is 1.3606 (on the day these goods was purchased). This worked out the spread to be 1.0249%. On the bank statement, the credit card company will charge me another 1.01% for foreign country clearing centre (Aliexpress credit card clearing is set up in the UK). If I add this up, my exchange rate spread is about 2.04% which is lower when I use a credit card to buy in USD.
One of the annoying parts is that the delivery time is hard to determine. Aliexpress provides an alternative to pay for delivery. If I buy stuff for S$2 and my delivery charges are more than that, it does not make sense unless I order a few products from the same stores.
Banggood
In term of pricing and varieties, Banggood is not able to compete with Taobao or Aliexpress. Generally, the products will cost about 20% more. In some special promotion, it will be slightly cheaper or the same price. Banggood also allows payment in SGD and besides this,, they accept payment via Paypal. Using Paypal, I can transfer credit from DBS to my Paypal account. Using this method, there is no credit card charge.
Conclusion
E-commerce platform is so available prevalence in Singapore. The competition is very intense and recently, Amazon Prime has just touched down in Singapore.This will only be good for consumers.
The majority of my shopping for my project parts are still from Aliexpress. For other day-to-day household items, in Singapore, we have sites like Qoo10, Lazada, Redmart etc.
Online shopping for China goods in Singapore is a wonderful experience. The parcel delivery services here are reliable and reasonably fast. So far I have not encountered a single package lost. My main consideration for online shopping is the ability to pay with maximum convenience, minimum fee and delivery to your doorstep.
Taobao
Taobao is the de facto shopping for those people in living China. In the early days, for those staying outside China, the only way to buy from Taobao was to go through agents who ordered the products on your behalf and charge a fee. Taobao recently announced a tie-up with Lazada (an online shopping portal bought over by Alibaba). Most of the fanfare is Lazada provides a Taobao link in Lazada portal. Actually, the main benefit is that I can order from Taobao main site and send over to Singapore via Lazada. Although in Taobao, there are many other courier services, Lazada is the most economical for my current goods I am shipping.
Some of the products are very cheap but if you include the shipping fee, it is not exactly that cheap anymore. Fortunately, Taobao allows you to consolidate the shipping at their warehouses and shipped to Singapore in 1 shipping. The shipping is fast and I can get my goods within 7 days.
Aliexpress
Aliexpress is my favourite among the 3 sites. Most of the things I wanted can be found here except for perishable goods. For a while, I was trying to figure out the differences between Aliexpress and Taobao. The same products can be found on both sites and equally competitive. At first, I thought Taobao was meant for domestic markets and Aliexpress was to serve the international market, but the recent introduction of direct shipping to Singapore has changed that.
One of the features which amazed me was "Free Shipping" regardless of amount. Literally, it means that. I have ordered an S$0.60 18650 power bank (without the battery) and it's arrived in 2-3 weeks in my mailbox. I do not think I am able to send some stuff within Singapore at that price.
Aliexpress allows me to purchase the goods in my home currency. e.g.a US$5 product is priced at S$6.90. The Google USD-SGD spot rate is 1.3606 (on the day these goods was purchased). This worked out the spread to be 1.0249%. On the bank statement, the credit card company will charge me another 1.01% for foreign country clearing centre (Aliexpress credit card clearing is set up in the UK). If I add this up, my exchange rate spread is about 2.04% which is lower when I use a credit card to buy in USD.
One of the annoying parts is that the delivery time is hard to determine. Aliexpress provides an alternative to pay for delivery. If I buy stuff for S$2 and my delivery charges are more than that, it does not make sense unless I order a few products from the same stores.
Banggood
In term of pricing and varieties, Banggood is not able to compete with Taobao or Aliexpress. Generally, the products will cost about 20% more. In some special promotion, it will be slightly cheaper or the same price. Banggood also allows payment in SGD and besides this,, they accept payment via Paypal. Using Paypal, I can transfer credit from DBS to my Paypal account. Using this method, there is no credit card charge.
Conclusion
E-commerce platform is so available prevalence in Singapore. The competition is very intense and recently, Amazon Prime has just touched down in Singapore.This will only be good for consumers.
The majority of my shopping for my project parts are still from Aliexpress. For other day-to-day household items, in Singapore, we have sites like Qoo10, Lazada, Redmart etc.
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