Hougang Parkview: Another Big Loot from Taobao (淘宝)!

I recently made another purchase using Amcon Express. I didn’t like this experience as much as the previous time. I felt that this time round, communication with May wasn’t the best and she also insisted that I told her the wrong information. It was not totally her fault, perhaps due to the fact that there were much more items this time round, I came across some really crappy taobao sellers.

So what happened exactly? I did the usual thing, buy all my items from taobao using my credit card and having Amcon’s address as the shipping address. I was quite happy actually, cos’ I got some discounts from my tmall 积分 and 淘金币. However, two sellers took very long to ship the items (books and cork board) and by then 90% of the items have already arrived in the China warehouse on 21st June. Without my knowledge, May decided to ship these items to Singapore (装柜) first, then she shipped the other batch over on 23rd June. Normally, this would not have been an issue but there were more bumps in the process this time round.

1st problem: number of boxes (箱数)
This problem is arise when I purchase more than 1 bulky item from their stall, some of them were not able to tell me how many boxes these items would arrive in. So the number of boxes Amcon received and the number of boxes I thought I should receive didn’t match up;  because some of them told me that the items (study chair and weighing scale) told me that they will ship the items in two boxes but ended up shipping it in one. How to avoid this? Keep on checking with the seller, generally if there is only one tracking number (订单号) there should only be one box.

2nd problem: seller not taking note of instructions (备注)
This problem only happened with the seller which I bought the study chairs from. There were lots of options for the study chairs I bought; you can choose the height of the back support, the type of legs and the material of the chair. With this, most sellers will cater to this my having you select them during the purchase process. This seller did not cater to this, so I had to choose some other similar option while the seller adjusted the price and put a note down. However, even after extensive communication with them, they managed to send the wrong legs to me. So after I made noise about their irresponsibility, the seller send me the correct legs free of charge. So now I had to have another batch of shipment coming in.
Furthermore, May suddenly said she receive another package at her warehouse which I have no idea came from which seller (initially I thought it is from whom I bought the cork board from). So I won’t be able to pinpoint the crappy seller until I receive the item.

3rd problem: below average service from Amcon
Somehow, May was not as prompt as the previous time. The last time I shipped my items, it arrived in Singapore in 8 days. This time round, it took 13 days. I mentioned it to May, not to offend her, but just wanted to know if it was due to a holiday or something. She was very offended and became defensive and started insisting that I told her certain things which I did not, and I have my Whatsapp to vouch for that. It was only at this point did I realize I had 3 shipments coming in – 21st June, 23rd June and the final batch in 1st July (the items arrived on 28th June, but somehow she did not ship them over immediately). This 1st July shipment will only arrive in Singapore on 13th July.

One of the reason why I chose Amcon again was because it took the shortest time to arrive in Singapore from China and also the service from May. I didn’t mind paying more (shipping is more expensive plus the $35 extra admin charge) for better service but after this round, I shall try Oops.sg for my next shipment.

Unhappiness aside, at least I got my items! My shipment was HUGE (1.3 cbm) this time round, made me think that I didn’t utilize the 1 cubic metre fully the previous time. I barricade myself from the entrance after unwrapping all my items!

I don’t have the pictures for all the items as I was too tired and excited with the unboxing process, plus I was doing it alone, but this are the significant ones.

Food slicer very useful! No more tears when slicing onions or being afraid of chopping of my own fingers. The blade is very very sharp, so the handle should be used all the time.
Knife stand it is made of bamboo (hopefully its true). Fits all our knifes well, good quality.
Magic bullet cheap alternative to the Shimono food processor that my mum has. Works just as well so far and the plug is compatible to our sockets.
Toolbox better quality than the ones in Toyogo, however you don’t have to specially buy this since Homefix also has comparable ones.
Motorised ‘unicycle’ this is for a relative, who is thinking of selling it, contact me if you are interested (item has been sold)! Very good quality and packaging but requires some practice to learn how to ride it.
Wall clock good quality and it looks great!
Toilet roll box very happy with the quality since I had a hard time finding a decent seller. Many of the other sellers had a lot of complains about quality and broken items.
Tanita weighing scale bought two of them, both arrived in original tanita packaging, Japanese words and all. It is so much cheaper and the quality is comparable.
Dining chairs love the design, but the chairs came with scratches on all the legs, indicating that their paint job is quite lousy. the seller said that I should have told them that it was meant to be shipped to Singapore so that they good package the chairs better. However, some of the scratched areas have already rusted, so I am pretty sure it was scratched a while ago and not only during the shipping process which the seller kept insisting that it was. I got a 20% discount though after I made noise.
Corkboard definitely cheaper and extremely good quality! I bought the 80 by 120cm one.
Kitchen rack no pictures for this, but the quality is really really good! Furthermore, you can shift the height of the rack. I was initially kicking myself for not buying something similar in Daiso but I gotta say that I was greatly consoled when I un-boxed this.
Study chairs no pictures yet as I am waiting for the damn legs! So far the quality seems pretty good and it was packed well too.

Check out this post for reviews of the items.