You know it's a little bit unfair when Chinese New Year is almost a whole month behind the new year in Gregorian calendar, as all businesses turn out to be suspended during the Chinese Spring Festival. You will see a notice like this "Closed for CNY" almost everywhere. It's like the Earth stops rotating when China is celebrating its most important festival. Well you don't have to agree on that, coz even I myself do not.
CNY is partly the reason I haven't been updating my blog. I haven't been on Facebook for a while either. My store on Aliexpress was closed too. People could only reach me via email, which once in a while I would check.
All companies open (back in business) at Feb. 9, however, it's almost the same case every year that most factories have been understaffed. This is the reason when you order a bag, which is out of stock, and you are informed to wait 10 or more days. A lot of seasonal colors have been sold out, and supplies are restricted. The regular permanent colors like black or red are good to go though. I guess what I am saying here is, when you are planning an order, please double or triple check with the sellers about the availability.
There's some other information that I want to share with you in this post:
About AliExpress:
Some of you are still not familiar with how AliExpress works. It's a funny story that a client placed an order on AliExpress and emailed me the screenshot of this order, but I never received it. Her emails went on and on, and I then discovered that she thought I own AliExpress, and every payment she made on there goes to me. AliExpress, like eBay, is an open platform for Chinese sellers to sell internationally. Everyone with a Chinese IP can register with AliExpress and start selling. There are hundreds of thousands of independent sellers/stores on there.
Paying via AliExpress is safe. AliExpress holds the payment till the buyer confirms delivery of the order. This means when you place an order with AliExpress, the money does not go directly to the seller. Ali will not release the money before you confirm receipt of the goods. In the meantime, the seller has to pay an earnest money for each single order received, and Ali will hold this part for 2 good months. If you are buying from AliExpress, make sure you confirm delivery after you receive your goods. The deal is only closed after you hit the "Confirm Order" button and leave a review/rating on AliExpress.
About Shipping:
Shipping details are only available on EMS/DHL website in at least 24 hours after the tracking number is updated to AliExpress. Some sellers update the tracking even before the packages are mailed out (to buy them time because Ali has a time limit for shipping), but some will wait till 24 hours later, so when you get the tracking number, you can already track it. Some buyers freak out when there seems to be no updates after they get the tracking number. This is totally unnecessary because, first of all, Ali protects the buyer like I said above; and secondly, it's perfectly normal that EMS doesn't show updates in 3-5 days (in cases even longer). For example, some shipping agents send the
packages in Guangzhou, where the warehouse is located, but when there is a mailing rush
and Guangzhou customs/airport is stuck with too many parcels, your order may either
be transferred via other cities, which takes 1-2 days longer, or wait in line for its flight, which takes even longer, in some cases up to 10-15 days, especially during Christmas. If the parcel stays in China customs for 5-7 days, don't worry, EMS is ensured to clear. However, if the parcel stays in the customs of the destination country for more than 7 days, you should worry. You may either get a fine/ duty to get your packages, or nothing at all. This happens every 5 out of 100 orders according to my own experiences.
About Quality:
People have been asking about the differences between 1:1 and original quality. You better refer to my previous post: Some ABCs About Replicas.
I would like to add something more:
Usually only leather bags have this kind of grading. 1:1 means comparable leather (made in China), while original leather means imported (almost identical to the real thing), but both are authentic leather to be sure. HOWEVER, all 1:1 quality replicas do not have genuine leather interior/lining, they are most likely leatherette, in some cases, just PU, which technically should only be used for AAA or Super A quality. So to summarize:
AAA: Leatherette outside + PU interior;
1:1: Authentic leather outside + Leatherette interior;
Original: Authentic imported leather inside out
However, this is not 100% absolutely the case, because some factories use original leather + leatherette interior for their so called "original grade", and some use authentic leather + PU lining for their "1:1 grade". What's worse, I even know of some trusted sellers who sell AAA as 1:1 and 1:1 as original. Now you can imagine why there is such a big price difference among replicas when they are just a copy of the authentic. The best way to test if a seller can be trusted is to inspect if the interior of the bag sold is leather or not when he/she claims it to be original quality.
Too much to be said. I guess I have to shut up myself before somebody else shut me down.
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