C2C in China

I've been in Melbourne for 4 years and 6 days now. I absolutely love this city and planning to stay here. But one thing I miss most back in China is Taobao. Taobao is a C2C (customer to customer) online shopping website where individuals or small business can open online retail stores for all kinds of things. I was addict to Taobao when I was in China. You can find almost everything on it and they are very CHEAP!!! After I came to Melbourne, I can't resist my online shopping addiction and try to find some website like Taobao. And I found ebay.au. I heard about eBay long time ago but never used it as I have Taobao in China. But I was a bit shocked the first time I open a product page on eBay. It was sooooo simple. Many products don't even have much description, not even mention pictures. Here is a store I picked from Taobao.

http://store.taobao.com/?spm=a1z0k.1000783.2.7&shop_id=60205158

The store mainly sell women's clothes and some accessories. Each dress or accessories have detail descriptions and pictures. The length, chest, waist and shoulder for each dress and size. And it is not only in clothes but also home & garden or any other categories.

And the PRICE!!! Well, it may not be fair to compare the price as China is the world's factory. But still, I miss the price on Taobao sooooooo much. With same amount of money, I could get probably 3-4 items from Taobao rather than 1 in Melbourne. Even in China, with maybe 300 RMB, I could only get one t-shirt from shopping mall but 4-5 t-shirts from Taobao including delivery fee.

And then the delivery issue. Most package of mine are delivered by post. But there are whole bunch of express companies in China. Most of them are very cheap and fast. And they work on WEEKDAYS. You can get your package on Sunday!!! Isn't that wonderful? On the other hand, deliveries on eBay is killing me. If I want the cheap price, the product will never be within Australia. It will be in Hong Kong, or UK, or USA, but never AU!!!! And it takes forever to get those deliveries.

And last but not least, communication issues. There is a software called Wangwang provided by Taobao for instant communication between customers and sellers. You can always get help once you need it. But I always need to wait AT LEAST half hour to get in touch with eBay's seller. Sometimes it took me days before the owner realise there is a email from customer!!!! I even need to contact the seller just for combine orders where Taobao has the shopping cart function. And it is not that high-tec. I don't understand why eBay doesn't has it.

I use myshopping.com.au sometimes to compare prices from different australian online shopping website. And I did find what I need is cheaper than shops. But those website are B2C and I may discuss it in later blogs. As I don't own a car, it is much easier for me to shop online. I think it makes me stay at home a lot more than I used to and I love it!! If you know some awesome online shopping website, share with me :D