Introduction: This is a real blog that a 42agent customer from Canada provided. In the blog, she introduced her Xianyu(闲鱼) order experience with 42agent step by step, as well as the sides she is satisfied with our service and the sides not. Hope this helps when you want to buy from Xianyu, which is the biggest second-hand items platform in China.
Sophie, mid-20s, living in Canada. My first language is Quebec French. I like to blog about anything in my life but mostly clothing, hair and food. I bought items from China using a service 42agent and I’d to share my shopping experience with you.
First of all, let me show you how to place Xianyu order on 42agent website.
- Go on the item’s page on Xianyu. Click on the “three-dots icon”. A menu will appear.
- In the menu, click on the icon contoured in yellow, “分享” means “share”:
3. After clicking “分享(Share)“, another page appears, click “复制链接“, it means “Copy link“.
4. Go to the 42agent’s website (whichever one you chose). In the order form, paste the link which you just copied:
Then confirm/submit your order, and that’s it!
The coat I had ordered was successfully purchased some hours later (after receiving the OK to pay the first charge and paying it):
I was pretty satisfied with the smoothness of the transaction.
Secondly, let me talk about my Xianyu order and items.
The items I ordered
These are the two items I ordered on Xianyu. Sorry for not posting my own pictures here, I didn’t take pictures of the clothes in their original state when I received them.
The service
To order the clothes on 42agent, I used the method I wrote about here. As I mentioned, the buying process went smoothly.
When the proxy received the trench coat, they notified me and told me it had a defect on the sleeve:
In fact, the left sleeve has a black dot; I’m not sure whether it’s a ballpoint mark or something else:
Although it’s a very small stain, I was pretty frustrated that the seller didn’t mention it (and I know she might not even have seen it but anyway.) Otherwise, I didn’t expect 42agent to inspect the coat but appreciated it.
Here’s an overview of an order’s details (when you click on an item you ordered from the page “Order List”—I clicked on my trench coat):
Scrolling down, you can see pictures (once they received the item) and other info:
If you go further down, there’s a section where you can exchange messages with an agent:
And at the bottom, there’s a timeline of every action related to the item:
I really like how clear and detailed this page is. I would say there’s more information than what I’d normally need, but if I’d had a problem or a question with any of the items, I’d have a lot of info. I especially like the timeline.
Service fee
It’s “8% of the total items cost and domestic shipping fee“, but “[m]inimum service charge is 30 CNY”. I paid the minimum which is 30 CNY for each item, so 60 CNY in total.
When I ordered my three items with Yoybuy, it appears the service fee was 5.47 USD in total, according to my order history.
I’d tend to think 42agent’s service fee is expensive (e.g. you end up paying more than 15 CAD if you buy three items only—and there’s still the int’l shipping, the domestic shipping if necessary and other fees like Paypal’s every time you make a transaction.)
Also, I have no idea why 42agent charged me, for each item, a 15 CNY domestic shipping fee (so 30 CNY in total); on the items’ page, both sellers assumed the domestic shipping fees (unless the seller and the buying agent had a conversation I was not made aware of). It sucked when I saw I had to pay this charge, but didn’t want to start a case so I just paid it and kept shut.
International shipping was also expensive; 21.78 USD using eYouBao. I don’t exactly remember how I chose this shipping method, but I opted for the fastest (and safest) yet “cheapest”.
Note from 42agent: we charge service fee based on each separate order. If customer puts two items in two orders, there will be 2 service fee. For domestic delivery fee, our website has automatic system to input domestic fee for highly efficiency. If you find one item has free shipping on seller’s page, then please leave us a remark or message, then we will confirm with seller. If it’s true free domestic shipping, we will remove it for you manually. Hope this makes sense and helps you save some fees.
Receiving the Xianyu items
This section is going to be short. As I mentioned, I forgot to/didn’t take pictures of the clothes when I received them. Moreover, I didn’t take any try on picture of the cardigan cuz it looked horrendous. First, the fur looked disgusting/dirty, so I only put it on for about 3 seconds. Second, the shape was asymmetrical, as if some parts had shrunk in the drying machine. Third, the color was much darker and I just didn’t like it. For the last point, I had already noticed Bobon21 sometimes used filters on their pictures which would lighten the clothes, but holy cow did I not expect it was the case for the cardigan FML.
Bobon21 trench coat
The trench coat is really pretty. Except for the mark on the left sleeve, the condition is perfect and the tags are still there. As for the fit, there were two things that were different from the stock picture:
Coat belt strangely arrives under the two upper buttons instead of over; however, I prefer all buttons showing so that’s a win.
You can see upper button on the left is considerably lower. That unevenness may be common to other Bobon21 coats of the same model, but because the belt usually covers the upper buttons, it’s not a problem.
Thankfully, my mom sewed the problematic button to the same height as the one on the right. The coat looks much better now.
That’s all I had to say about my second experience buying from Xianyu and my first using 42agent. The proxy is good but expensive. If I knew the clothes on Xianyu would be worth it, I wouldn’t mind that much, but from my first and second experience buying there, it’s not the case.
Fortunately, the coat and the cardigan are in the last Bobon21 items I want to get (but missed on Taobao). I’m thinking about getting the check grey OP I got in red in my first Xianyu order, but I’m not planning on buying it anytime soon.
Note: the above writing are adapted from a 42agent customer, original blogs are:
https://prettysecretmemories.blogspot.com/2019/03/xianyu-updated-method-to-get-product-url.html
https://prettysecretmemories.blogspot.com/2019/05/i-bought-from-xianyu-again-using-42agent_26.html