Unboxing My First Taobao Online Orders

September 15, 2022

I've been seeing posts about Shoppee online orders from various users here, and I've been wanting to try ordering online myself. However, I do not want to become addicted to it, so I chose not to install the app. I recently decided to declutter and reorganize my room. When I heard the young Chinese lady mention her intention to order online on Taobao, I asked her if she could buy for me as well, and we could split the shipping cost. She, fortunately, agreed.

Taobao is one of the biggest online shops here in Hong Kong, originated in China, and shipping orders to other Chinese places like Taiwan, Macau, and more. That is similar to Alibaba but customers can purchase single items on Taobao, unlike Alibaba which is mainly used for purchasing wholesale. The shipping fee is much lower too.

One of the products I have in mind that I want to order includes wallpaper for my room. Unfortunately, the one I chose can not be shipped to Hong Kong for some reason. So instead of ordering products for my room, I opted to go for accessories for my photography hobby.

It was a week ago when we placed orders online. And yesterday, when the Chinese lady arrived home, she was hugging a huge bulk of boxes wrapped with tapes. Those were our orders online. Mine was only two and hers was many, lol.

She unboxed the small one and gave me the bigger box. I was confused about why it was heavy and big, as I was expecting only a smaller size for my order.

This was my second order. Guess what's inside it? The box is quite fancy and even great to use for gift-giving, haha. I guess I now know what to gift to my partner at Christmas.

The package was well-wrapped with a tootsie pop wrapper as it was marked fragile. There you go, the crystal ball I ordered for photography. I was expecting a smaller size since I chose the 10 cm option. The prices vary depending on the size, and the 10 cm size fits my budget for it, so I chose it.

The smaller box was for macro photography, and I so love the lens. Unfortunately, the clip is shorter than I expected and it doesn't fit with my phone's camera. It includes a box and a lens cleaning sheet.

Yet, it fits my old phone's camera so it won't be a waste.

I paid HK$76 for these two orders, which are equivalent to less than US$10 or PHP 551. But since my crystal ball was quite heavy (it is heavy and enough to break a skull, lol), I paid 88% of the shipping fee. It wasn't as expensive as I thought, and was only HK$34 for all orders, including the Chinese lady's. In total, I paid HK$105 for these two orders, or less than US$15.

Just this morning, I tried using these two, and I like the results.  On Sunday, I would try more angles and spots at the park nearby using the crystal ball.

I suddenly tried using the macro camera on my current phone to compare it to the old phone using the macro lens. The first photo is from my old phone using a macro lens, and the second one is from my current phone.

Which do you think is better and looks more natural? 😅 The photos are raw and have no color enhancement. I guess the Samsung camera on my old phone is still better, lol.

That concludes my online purchases. Do you remember my plan to purchase a DSLR camera? I've been mulling over whether to pursue it or buy a laptop instead. I realized it is more useful to me now that I am blogging. Furthermore, my photos will be safer if they are saved on my laptop. I'm just waiting for something, and hopefully, I'll be able to buy a new laptop before the end of the year so that I can save for the DSLR camera next year. These are gifts for myself, and I would be overjoyed if I could buy them all. Then comes the drone next. I hope so 😊.

Autumn is coming and my buddy confirmed that she'll be available by next month. And yes! We will back to traveling ☺.

Thanks for dropping by and happy Thursday 😊.

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