Taobao Haul / Taobaoring Review

*detailed reviews and pics of each item to follow soon-





After years of pondering how to use Taobao I finally decided to actually go ahead with making an order this year. I've made half hearted attempts before but not knowing how much shipping will be really throws me off, this time I decided I'd at least try it once and see how it goes.


I asked around some peeps and folks of instagram, with most recommending Taobaoring to use as my agent. I think they're supposed to be the cheapest in terms of agent fee though I'm not 100% sure on this. I split my order with a friend though its generally recommended to split the order with many people to keep postage costs down.


Here's a timeline breakdown for my order - 

I chose my items and then was invoiced for my first payment on the 12th of May. I had a total of #27 items. Of those 27, only 1 had to be refunded due to lack of stock. The majority of items came extremely quickly but since I was ordering made to order cosplay costumes some of these took much longer. The maximum time frame was 25-30 days for my kanato cosplay.



There was quite a few weeks delay on my order but through no fault of taobaoring, if anything I give them major credit for handling everything so quickly and smoothly. They would always reply to me the same day and made everything very easy to understand. 

There are several payment methods you can chose - I initially chose paypal as I use this for most things. Upon payment however I saw that there is an extra 4.4% paypal fee ontop and also that paypals exchange rate did not follow any other exchange rate of the time that I could find. As a result my items ended up costing me far more than I'd anticipated. I explained this to taobaoring who agreed to refund me the money and allow me to pay another way. 

My second option was bank transfer but this also ended up not really saving me any money (probably about £2 in the end!!) and it was more hassle than it was worth. Since I had to wait on a refund and find the time to make the transfer I added wait time to my order. Eventually I paid on the 5th of June but was informed I'd paid too little since I paid in the wrong currency (CNY....I'm astounded how I can do so many things wrong) but they were very understanding and said they would order the items now and add the money I owe to my second payment shipping cost.

Time wise this means the sellers had from the 5th of June to deliver to the Taobaoring headquarters. I paid my second payment on the 1st of July with it shipped the same day. I originally chose SAL shipping as it is cheapest (takes 1-3 months) but since I'd wasted so much time with the payment process I decided to change the postage to EMS to ensure our parcel arrived quicker. EMS gives a discount on postage over 5KG weight so I think in the end it did cost us more but only slightly. My only real issue with EMS is that it 'usually' gets hit with customs charges which SAL often avoids.

Our package was a whopping 1100g and it cost $160 for shipping (not including the missing money from payment one). The parcel got to the UK in about 3 days and sat in customs (eek!) for like another 4 days or so. It arrived on the 9th of July. My tracking did say 'insufficient address' at some point so I had to call the postal service which was parcelforce. They told me there was no house number on my package but they would attempt to redeliver which they did. When it arrived it did indeed not have any house number on...or any of my address other than a postcode?? not sure whats happened there but its safely in my hands!

I'll only be reviewing the items I purchased though I may do a review of my friends Diabolik cosplay for comparison reasons since we bought from different sellers.

On to the FINGS!  -


Wigs


Kucos









Here they are straight out of the bag. Ayato is really nice and more of a pinky red. Ruki has quite a lot of pink underlayers which don't really show in the display image though this is also down to styling. When I style these I'll add some photos!

Ayato | Ruki


Lucaille



Really nice wig, lovely colour that looks just like his. It has a bouffant type top on it to match his hair though when I briefly tried it on it looked a little extreme! Hopefully this is again down to styling. It definitely has a lot of volume!!

Ayanamisatoru



This wig is for a panty and stocking character originally but I actually purchased mine for Nona from Death Parade. I can't speak for how suitable this wig is for kneesocks but for Nona I think it ended up a really good match. Colour wise I think its the best I've found since there haven't really been any 'Nona' wigs sold yet. 




 I didn't actually take any pictures of it straight out of the bag other than the top pinned one since I had to start styling it straight away into Nona. It came in two parts, with the base wig top right and then a clip on ponytail that was reaaaaally long. The quality of it isn't the best, you can see wefts on the base wig and the ponytail feels really rough and knots easily. When its all done up and pinned though you can't really notice this.






This is a final image of the wig which also shows the false hairline I created using some of the ponytail hair. It was very easy to create volume in the top which is perfect for Nona.

Kneesocks

梅子cosplay万事屋



This isn't a hitachiin wig, not sure who its for but its why I got it! My old one was really fake orange so I thought a more natural one would look better (even if their hair is fake orange!) Unstyled its super poofy, feels quite soft and the hairs seem to be a blend of several colours. It's very pinky orange.


Cosplay Costumes




I was quite worried about ordering this cosplay since there are no drop down options, it basically says 'tell us your measurements' so I gave everything I thought they'd need. Happy to say it came out perfect! The trousers are really nice quality and fit well. Since I'm going for a boy silhouette, they might of fitted a little too well around my waist which gave me larger looking hips, the only way I could fix this was by not doing the top button up!! As a pair of trousers though I could wear these IRL aha. The tops a little thin and see through but its fine since Shinji wears a t-shirt underneath anyway. The belt is the same as many cheap ones I've seen on ebay but its nice not to have to search for the colour myself.

Ashamed to say the only photo I have showing the full cosplay is this one...ahem.


Kaworu / Shinji Cosplay - I can't seem to find the link to the actual costume, seems for the moment only the belt and collar are available which is here

Dogeggg










This was by far the costume I was most excited about! I got this in an XL (I'm a UK 8-10 for reference) which originally I thought yeh this fits but after trying it on a few times it just didn't look right. I ended up taking it in quite a bit, by several inches on each side so I'm not sure if a Medium would of been a better choice? I think ultimately it was better to go with the bigger size since I find that often when going down a size the garments end up shorter and wider when I need the length still for my torso and legs! So this is something to consider if you're buying one...I'd rather too big than too small at the end of the day.
The quality is really nice, my photos are over exposed but it really does look true to the stock image. I'm most happy with the patches and details- the belt is also amazing. Part of the cap broke off when I opened it but this was easily fixed. The hat also has elastic inside to secure it to the back of your head which is nice.




for dancing it is better to remove the belt and hat....eh heh

Cop Rin / Sosuke 



Kanato is also from Dogeggg so again the quality is really nice. This costume was the one that took longest to make which I can see why! Theres a lot of parts to it and it has lots of details.



Same as before, I got an XL which again I think is too big, the waistcoat is humongous for some reason. The shirt and jacket are also a little big. One major thing to note is the colour of the jacket, I had no idea it would be purple since it isn't really clear from any of the photos. This has put a spanner in the works for my cosplay group since my friend was asked which colour she wanted and we both wanted black.....so of course hers has arrived black and mine is purple doh! Mine also came with some red and white studs (not pictured) to add to the collar on the jacket.

I'll note that while I wasn't given options my friend was also able to chose what pattern of trousers she would like and the colour of the jacket and buttons which is quite nice.



I can't really fault the quality of mine, the shirt is a good weight and thickness, the ruffle collar is really nice. The waistcoat is like a faux suede material and quite thin. The shorts are lovely and as with the shinji trousers are something I could wear in general. They fit me perfectly which was a bit surprising! Kanato obviously wears shorts but theres no picture of them on the stock images, only a close up of the top of trousers that they put on every diabolik cos. Overall I think its really good for the price point, definitely one of the best cosplays I have purchased which makes a change!


Miscellaneous items










ahhh the eva bag, one of the main reasons for my order! I'd attempted to buy this previously on aliexpress but for whatever reason the seller just did not send it. On taobao it was half the price too so its all good. Since I'd looked at this a few times I already knew that the quality was so-so. I can confirm when receiving it, the front zipper immediately broke on first use and does not do up properly which is really annoying but expected. I told myself I wouldn't overfill it as it seems the type that will break at the straps easily. Its such a huge bag though its kinda hard not to shove everything in it.

It has about a gazillion compartments inside, two side pockets and 3 main pockets on the front. It also has a foamy like divider inside. Theres some text on the straps which has come away in places and various logos on the pockets. The colour of the green is a little weird since its shiny so not really like Unit 01 but overall it looks great.


I really love this bag and if (when) it breaks I'll probably just buy another aha



Don't have any pictures but they look exactly like the stock image. They're a wee bit short on me eek!





These are upside down, whatever. ahaha. Just something for fun, I got this exo sehun shirt. Its really thin and the quality of the print is pretty rubbish but it cost like nothing so its to be expected? Its something I could of made myself nicer but oh well.



Again, no pictures and this is another case of really short but really wide? The shirts really nice but it just doesn't fit right since its too short on me. I can wear it unbuttoned but even then since its so wide it looks a bit odd?!


One of the best purchases of my life. I love this cap! The logo is embroidered and there is even nerv on the clasp on the back. when buying the price automatically went to £90 or something stupid so make sure you correct that if you buy it!





The Eva squad.








Thats all for now,  hope some of this was helpful if you're thinking of ordering. Drop me a comment if you have any questions about anything I purchased here
 x

















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