I see numerous sellers on both Ruten and Shopee selling items straight from Taobao, except at a minimum of 50% markup, even including shipping. If I was paying for the convenience of receiving the item right away that would be fine, but most the time they just place the order from Taobao and tells us to wait. When you look at the item description the literature is directly ripped from Taobao too.
Do these sellers really think we’re a bunch of idiots?
I bought so many items from Taobao that is often half the price these Ruten sellers charge for the exact same item, even including tariff.
The seller isn’t even providing a service such as translation because it’s not like Taiwanese don’t speak Chinese.
For just $199 I’ll teach you everything you need to know about how to make big money selling drop-shipped merchandise on Ruten and Shopee without any investment and ever having to touch product!
This is an induction wok, meaning it’s an induction cooker that accepts round bottom woks. It’s not the 1300w version you buy from Carrefour, but a 3000w beast that can actually fry or even burn foods very quickly. I bought the flat top version of this from China, total cost is less than 1000nt including shipping. But this Ruten seller sells it at 3x that.
Note: The induction cooker worked very well, and I like it better than the gas cooker because I’m not having to watch my ventilation or have CO poisoning, and it’s very easy to clean thanks to the glass top. When I cook I spray oil everywhere and over time it hardens and becomes impossible to clean. But with this I can wipe it down after each use and keep it clean.
It’s mostly import fees, plus their actual markup. They import so much that they can’t avoid customs fees, so they pass it on to you no matter the cost is above or below the $2000 maximum limit.
import fees can’t be more than 10%. It’s not 2x or 3x the price that’s for sure. There are worse examples, like a phone case costing 5nt at Aliexpress or Taobao and a Ruten seller sells the same item for 300nt.
And it’s worse than that because you see other items sold in store at 2x the price elsewhere and customs fee is nowhere near that. What make this really bad is if the item is broken or defective they don’t even want to hear from you. Even the distributor tells you to ship it back to the country of original manufacture.
A lot of those dropshippers come and go. The one you posted has only been in business for a few months. Good feedback though. For lower priced items, 40% is pretty normal for dropshipping. It’s all about the numbers of visitors and hoping people won’t look further for deals. That seller has over 100,000 items. Some people will buy sometimes. Others will compare prices and complain, but there’s nothing that can prevent it. I’ve done dropshipping. It’s a good model in the right niche.
I was going to say one good thing about ordering from a local seller is they can’t do that. If there’s a problem with the item, you simply don’t release the funds and shopee will require them to refund/replace.
The one from Carrefour is 110V, the ones you linked are 220V. It’s unlikely to actually be 3000W as that would require in excess of 13Amps without considering loses.
That seems a bit far-fetched and overboard.
““Chinese companies having power over what products are sold in Taiwan — even just the idea of it — is dangerous,” Lai added.”
Taobao is kinda creepy though. You can’t even browse without having an account. Ordering requires all the personal info, stuff you don’t need to provide with purchases in Taiwan. For cheap shit, you really do give up all your personal information. To the CCP. It’s a lot worse than just “personal data”
