#spreenow

[frobby]

waiting for beautiful woman named "shipment ready for payment" to message me back

[starrysharks]

these questions are pretty similar so i'll answer both at once.

to buy from a chinese indie brand, you need two things: the brand's taobao link and a proxy site account. taobao is a chinese storefront (?) that most of these stores are hosted on. there are plenty of western stores online that also carry taobao brand clothing - like arcana archive, glitch cupids, and pixie rebels - but i would recommend just getting your stuff from a proxy as those stores often up the prices of the clothes.

note that it can be a bit of a struggle to get the taobao link of a store, especially if you don't have an account (which is notoriously difficult to get these days), but i did find some link lists! (mostly lolita stuff as that's what taobao is most popular for among alt fashionistas ^_^)

some other brands that i recommend -

eyeelike - y2k inspired, though their stock is usually very limited. sizes up to UK 10-12 (L) i believe

link (lemme know if it's broken):

frufru - bright, colorful, sorta harajuku-esque! i heavily recommend their star messenger bags, been wanting to get one of my own for a while ^_^

link

and hbreaker - a more visual kei sort of thing! more edgy than the other two stores, but i'm yet to check it out properly

link

so, now that you have the link, you need a proxy site. this is so that you can send the clothes over from china to your own country. in the past, i would've recommended pandabuy, but it died a few months ago due to illegal replica selling. for that, i'd recommend avoiding proxies that allow replicas, because they might go under while you're trying to get clothes shipped. (that happened to me T_T)

some that are reliable are:

sugargoo

superbuy

spreenow

now all you do is use the search bar (make sure it's on the "shop" mode rather than "product"), and plug in the link to the shop you want to buy from, and it should be the first result. get all your clothes, and now all you have to do is have them shipped out! shipping usually costs a lot (£20+ from my experience) and if you're buying a haul, it can be over £200 for just 4-6 items, so i'd recommend only buying stuff you KNOW you're going to wear often and enjoy. shipping should only take 2-3 weeks (at least in my experience - i live in the UK, it might take more time in the US.) and boom! now you can dress like those cool girls on xiaohongshu!

there are also two western stores i'd like to go over that have similar clothes - sixth dimension and minga london.

sixth dimension has many good qualities - they have more inclusive sizing (up to UK XL), reasonable prices based on their quality, and they restock and do sales often. i heavily recommend them if you can't afford the high shipping prices or if the sizing is too limited for you!

unfortunately, i have less nice things to say about minga london. they're highly extortionate in terms of pricing - i've seen shein quality cardigans sold for upwards of £70, for example. they do drops often, and have been accused of fast fashion but i'm not sure if that's legit or not. they've also stolen designs in the past. however, they do have inclusive sizing, up to XXXL. i'd recommend only buying from them if they're doing a sale, or if you literally have no other choice.

now regarding fruits mag - unfortunately, you can't buy from them. fruits mag is a japanese magazine that went over a variety of different street styles, so if you want to buy from fruits, you'd have to buy from the brands that the people in the magazines are wearing. as fruits was most popular in the 2000s, most of those brands are defunct...however, i do have some recommendations for japanese alternative brands!

alice and the pirates - popular lolita fashion. pretty good sizing i think, and they do worldwide shipping too iirc.

baby the stars shine bright - same as aatp, but more "cutesy".

acdc rag - yami kawaii type clothes with inclusive sizing.

dearmylove - jirai kei/dark girly clothing and beautiful shoes. inclusive sizing, i'm pretty sure they have a full plus size range! also collabed with needy streamer overdose lol

liz lisa - lolita/mori kei/girly styles and pretty coats. quite expensive tho...

moi-meme-moitie - the brand of malice mizer's guitarist mana-sama! gothic lolita. i'm not sure about sizing or prices.

6%dokidoki - yume kawaii and decora style. very colorful! i'm not sure about sizing.

angel blue - japanese kids clothing, usually worn in general kawaii and jojifuku styles. as it's for kids, the sizing is NOT inclusive at all, UK size S-M at the most from what i've seen. usually you can only find resellers on depop, but the pricing usually isn't horrible.

other than brands, i'd recommend looking for clothes thrifting on and offline (hit big city thrift stores for better chances of alt clothing), buying accessories from verified etsy sellers, and just looking around the house for anything you can turn into an accessory or part of an outfit! i hope this post helps you though!

[tragicnik]

How to buy lolita in the Philippines!!

I made this guide(?) a few months ago in the lolita fb group since it's hard to find lolita pieces in the philippines at like a good price TT

Lolita is really expensive especially for minors like me lol so this is what has worked for me and I hope it can help you too!!

✮ sites and apps i use to buy lolita

Carousel- it's 2nd hand so it's cheaper there are replicas though, there's still branded lolita dresses here I mostly see alice girl and infanta and they usually go for like ₱500-3000 which imo is pretty good TT

Facebook- brands/sellers(?) you can buy from here are Dorotee Sweetlips and Rosychicphilippines, I think it's better to buy from these people because they don't sell replicas.

If you don't mind buying replicas that's fine but I think if you have the money it's good to buy actual pieces because it's higher quality and will last longer:p

Spreenow- this is taobao agent, which is like an organization or person that buys on taobao on behalf of other people. It's kind of hard to make an account on taobao so people just use that instead! Spreenow is pretty good you just have to convert php to hkd, there are pretty affordable lolita pieces on there the only problem is the shipping fee lol. The shipping fee is like really expensive, especially on taobao resellers so I think it's better to buy from taobao agents.

Bodyline- a Lolita brand, more affordable but whenever I check the website most pieces are sold out:(

Btw you can also find ouji and other J-fashion on these sites except for bodyline i think

✮ I hope this helps!!!

[the-bjd-community-confess]

How to use Taobao: Do you get told to log in? Make an account using a tutorial online.

Does it immediately get locked? You have to make an Alipay account and give them your information to verify you. You need to give them an ID and a bank card. Then you can follow the steps to unlock your account depending on the warning it gives you. (Google translate is good enough to figure out which one is the reason behind the lock out.)

There's no way around that and if you can't or aren't comfortable with that then get the link from someone else and use Superbuy/Spreenow/42agent or NewCloverSinging.

Taobao has an image search function. See something on m00nlight or somewhere else and want to know who made it? Toss that shit in the search bar and it should try to find similar item listings.

You can also have shit just sent to a warehouse to avoid having to pay bonkers shipping every single time an item is finished. Usually it's a couple bucks within China.

Most items have their wait times and order periods posted somewhere on the images of the order page. 2-4 months is common for outfits. Some makers are even 6 month waits. You will pay a deposit that is also listed on the page. Check back after the wait period is up. There may be a new listing with the item you ordered called Final or Tail when translated. That is how you pay the remainder of your item and it will be shipped once payment is confirmed.

This is as much as I can say on the matter. I've tried too many times to help some people and I don't know how much more information I can give someone. Your problem can be copy pasted into Google and usually someone on Reddit has figured it out. Peace.

~Anonymous

[deregirls]

Hey guys reminder since I forgot and paid the price (litetally):

Most of those shops that get promo'd by aesthetic blogs with "discount" codes are scams for one reason or another. Most are overpriced dropshippers with iffy at best customer service, even if they have "good" reviews. Even if you do get the product (which you sometimes WON'T), you're likely paying 2-10 times the price that it actually is online. They use Tumblr users to advertise themselves with their URLs as "discount" codes to prey on people that don't know better.

Let's be honest when you think about it, do you really want to trust a site that relies on some 5k at best follower aesthetic blog on Tumblr of all places for advertising?

Most lolita/"kawaii" shops (kawaiibabe, for example) are dropshipping from the Chinese shop Taobao, which has tons of different proxies you can use to get their products for a fair price with actual customer service. I don't personally have any experience with using them (though I have been recommended spreenow by friends and it seems easy enough) so if someone wants to provide more info on that feel free!!

This also applies to a lesser extent to shops like DevilInspired or LolitaWardrobe. While they do not jack up the prices nearly as much, and sometimes provide the convenience of being a bit easier than proxies or having some products available after they're sold out on corresponding Taobao shops, and while people find them good for searching for things they later order from Taobao using a proxy, it's typically better to use proxies for making purchases. You'll pay less even when you factor in shipping and fees, the customer service is better, and you're more likely to...get the product, or at least get a refund if things go wrong.

[aerohail]

hi! may i ask, what character is this? and, where did you get that specific cotton doll? i like his face and legs bc they aren’t so short haha

https://www.tumblr.com/aerohail/717855389743448064

Hi! They're a non attribute cotton doll! No character! You can find them here!

[wri0thesley]

also! if any of you are like me and are Alas, Controlled By The Excited Demons Of Surprise Boxes, genshin's tmall currently has their mystery boxes back on sale! you can see some of the things you might get if you scroll down! you can buy from taobao using a proxy like spreenow. i got a mystery box last year and it had a paimon figure, paimon blind box, keychains, postcards, acrylic stands, buttons, a fancy print, genshin balloons and a hilichurl plush in - it was super fun to open and imo worth the money if you're a fan of genshin stuff as a whole and don't have One Particular Character Only you like!

[uwubunnis]

Good morning,

May I ask where you find all your adorable knee/calf socks? I always have trouble finding ones that aren't meant for little (age below 10) girls. I need adult women. Thank you for your time and really enjoying your posts!

hiya!!

I get my socks from all over the place, but I'll try and list a few here (with links!)

₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊ ପ(๑•ᴗ•๑)ଓ ₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊

roji roji socks:

i wear these the most! they're actually OTKs, but I typically wear them under my knees because they tend to roll on me. I have them in all 4 colors, mint x pink, blue x pink, pink x yellow, and pink x purple. really cute and super stretchy! roji roji also has TONS of other cute socks!

you need a shopping service for taobao, but they're only 29 yuan! (appr. $5 USD). taobao shopping services include spreenow, 42agent, or superbuy!

☆link☆

purple w white star socks, and bi colored striped socks:

these are actually from claires! I don't think either are in stock anymore unfortunately, but keep an eye out as the claires big kid socks are actually super stretchy!

here's some cute strawberry ones they have rn though!

☆link☆

moon & star socks:

not ideal for fairy kei with the colors, but they can work! again, these are OTKs but since they roll, I wear them as UTKs.

and they're on Amazon, so very accessible!

☆link☆

purple legwarmers:

these are tall enough to look like OTKs on me!

again, on Amazon!

☆link☆

pastel scrunch socks:

I got all of my scrunch socks on lolita collective, but last I checked they were all out of stock 😭 however, my violet just released this full set of pastel colors recently!!

They're out of stock, but they were so popular there's a good chance they'll do a second release! there's an option to have them email you when available!

☆link☆

tights:

bonus section! all my solid colored tights are from target or random aliexpress stores lol. I do love Kawaiigoods tights though!

They're a bit expensive but they're SO strong and will literally never rip!

☆link☆

₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊ ପ(๑•ᴗ•๑)ଓ ₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊

and to anyone, feel free to send asks if you ever have questions about particular pieces of an outfit, or any fairy kei questions in general! I'd love to help however I can!

[alias-mike]

ALSO IN REGARDS TO THE LAST POST. while lolita wardrobe isnt a scam or as bad as devilinspired, theyre still decently pricey when it comes to buying stuff from taobao. use 42lolita (more reasonable reseller) or spreenow (shopping service) instead

[happybandage]

-taobao outfits i want 2/3-

clothes design obv from there, i just drew my oc´s wearing them-

SHIRT:http://www.spreenow.com/category/c50012/taobao-agent/taobao/621180627417

SKIRT:http://www.spreenow.com/category/c50012/taobao-agent/taobao/623246355258

[pastel-pinku]

Roji Roji * socks fit, and I’m happy with the shoes!

[mahou-queen]

Spreenow / Taobao Item Review

Hello all, recently I used a shopping service called spreenow to order some things from taobao, and I wanted to review the items I got as well as the service I used.

♡The backstory:  I’ve been wearing lolita for approximately 10 years and I have never used a shopping service to buy from overseas despite how much I wanted to, I was afraid to. I had heard over and over that it was so complicated and confusing and you had to be really careful and blah blah blah. Back in my early lolita days there was no devilinspired, or my lolita dress. We had clobbaonline and their site was much smaller, very limited, and you had to order through their email. Today I am here to tell you that using a shopping service is not scary or difficult! I got fed up with losing money to resellers and decided that since I needed so much stuff I was going to use a shopping service to buy directly from taobao and save some money!

♡The info: If you don’t know, or are new to lolita; taobao is a Chinese website that hosts a bunch of sellers shops, kind of like Amazon. However, almost no shops offer shipping overseas so to shop there you have to use a shopping service.

A shopping service is someone who buys the items for you and then sends them to you, like a middleman basically. They charge a fee, usually 10% of the order total. I used spreenow at the recommendation of another lolita. 

♡The review:

this is spreenow.com. To order, all you have to do is (make an account first) put the taobao link in their search bar. 

Here I entered a link for this cute cardigan from taobao brand Cute Q here is the link if you’re interested: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7386009.0.d4919233.3d761955DhQP65&id=621813887915&_u=t2dmg8j26111

As you can see, you can select the size and color you want and then add to cart. Very easy. Once your cart is ready, you submit the cart, Spreenow checks the cart and then you have to pay.

**note** spreenow does not email you when things are ready, you have to check back to the site periodically.

paying was the only ~kind of~  hard part because instead of paying directly, you have to add funds to your account. They call this “Top up” they do all the conversions for you so you know exactly how much to transfer for the currency conversion. They do accept paypal!

after that they order the items, pack them, you pay shipping in the same way (through top up) and they mail them to you. The customer service is very good, they respond very quickly and their English is perfect. You can continue to add to the same order over time as long as it has not shipped. They offer lots of shipping options so you can find one that fits your needs and budget. I found the entire process to be amazingly simple. I saved approximately $50 by using spreenow instead of devilinspired and was able to get things that devilinspired does not carry. I highly recommend spreenow as a shopping service! 

If you want to make an account and shop use my link here~ https://www.spreenow.com/category/c38854/

♡The items:

Shimotsuki Sakyua star choker in black (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7386009.0.d4919233.3d761955DhQP65&id=524266691258&_u=t2dmg8j26111)

The choker is very well made, feels high quality and is soft against my throat. It’s a bit small, I have to have it on the biggest size to wear it, so I may add some chain to the end to make it more comfortable. The only odd thing is that its left handed? the clasp is on the opposite side of what I’m used to with western necklaces so that threw me off a little. Otherwise its beautiful and nicely made. ★★★★✩

Loris star crossbody in gold (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7386009.0.d4919233.3d761955DhQP65&id=523282283992&_u=t2dmg8j26111)

As always, loris is high quality and well made. I have other bags from loris and they’re all excellent. This bag feels nice, sturdy, has 1 interior zip, looks cute. Its exactly what I wanted. I have no complaints ★★★★★

Lucky star flutter sleeve blouse in lavender (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7386009.0.d4919233.3d761955DhQP65&id=548230015367&_u=t2dmg8j26111)

Needs a bit of a steam but this blouse fits me perfectly! It’s very pretty, I love the unique sleeve style. It feels light, airy, whimsical. The color isn't too warm. I tried to take a pic of it worn under a JSK so you could see the fit. It’s very comfortable and I kind of want to buy it again in another color. ★★★★★

Lucky star trumpet sleeve blouse in black (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7386009.0.d4919233.3d761955DhQP65&id=558661985437&_u=t2dmg8j26111)

This blouse is also great fitting, comfortable, soft, and lovely. I have wanted a black blouse for ages and I’m very happy with this one. The sleeves hit me slightly short (which I like), I would not recommend this one for tall lolitas.  ★★★★★

Leaf Sister (???) horoscope headdress (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7386009.0.d4919233.3d761955DhQP65&id=561382247288&_u=t2dmg8j26111)

THIS is the item that actually pushed me to use spreenow in the first place. It wasn't available on any reseller sites and i HAD to have it as it goes perfectly with several coords I am planning. It is very very well made, comfortable and cute. I am extremely happy with it. This is the first rectangle headdress I have ever owned and I cannot wait to wear it to meets. ★★★★★

Halloween Alice strawberry love check accessories (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7386009.0.d4919233.3d761955DhQP65&id=610460744258&_u=t2dmg8j26111)

This was something I added onto my cart at a later date. I was nervous about the rings because I didn't know if they were adjustable so I was relieved when I found they are! Really cute, there was some hot glue strings left on my hair clips, nothing I couldn't just peel off though.  ★★★★★

BONUS~~ I received some small free gifts, I do not know if these were from spreenow, or came with something I ordered?

I got 2 blue bow clips, 2 cute strawberry clips, and this......odd.....embroidery? ? ? it is a 2 way clip, its plush, there are carrots, i don’t know what else that’s suppose to be. I probably will not use it but It did give me a good chuckle so thank you to whoever these gifts came from. 

♡ TLDR Spreenow is easy to use and saved me a lot of money. I highly recommend their service. All the items I got were excellent, mostly 5 stars. I am very happy with and recommend everything I got as well as the shops they came from. I hope this review made using a SS a little less intimidating. If you want to start using spreenow to save some money on lolita, and you liked my review, please use my affiliate link to sign up :)

https://www.spreenow.com/category/c38854/

*this is not sponsored. I was not asked or paid to review spreenow or any of the items I purchased. Everything I reviewed I personally paid for except where mentioned. Using my affiliate link only allows me to purchase more lolita items from taobao for review. Thank you.

[starrysharks]

!!!? where dyou shop for clothes !!?

depop, taobao (use a shipping agent because its unavailable in most countries and the shipping costs get REALLY high, i would recommend pandabuy but it went under a few weeks ago 😭 i've heard good things about spreenow but haven't used it yet), mercari jp via buyee, cfierce, sixth dimension shop, and some local thrifts too! for shoes i have lots of wishlisted stuff from grape, mikio sakabe, new rock, and i like to hunt for buffalo, roxy and gordon jack on depop tho it can get a bit pricey :3

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Long post but there’s been a lot of confessions lately about not being able to use Taobao. As a regular Taobao user wanted to give some input as to why people are perceiving the attitude of “you just need to figure it out” from current Taobao users and also why you might not really be missing out on much/trade offs of using it vs dealers.

First off in my experience Taobao really isn’t something you can handhold because there really isn’t a cut and dry solution to everything. If someone did make a very detailed end all be all comprehensive Taobao guide it would likely be research paper size and 95% of it would be troubleshooting as in “Trying b, c or d when a isn’t working”. The kicker is after trying all that it still might not work for you for whatever reason or it may work one time but not every time. It’s why looking at a few Taobao guides online isn’t enough and why a lot of people are still very confused even after giving it a few genuine tries.

Even using proxies like Bhiner isn’t easy as there are many potential issues such as:

-proxies don’t translate pictures and sometimes sellers only put text and buying details on pictures;

-some words don’t translate well or translate from Chinese at all;

-you have to research the correct word or phrase to find what you are looking for in Chinese to search the site as you can’t search in English and searching in or browsing in the proxy gives funky results at times;

-not everything on the site is even available for purchase at the time you might want to buy; sometimes the link won’t work in the proxy and you need to convert it (there are mobile, desktop and international link versions);

- sometimes the proxy changes word selections to tiny ass pictures and you have to put everything in the cart in various combinations (think color, size, version) on the agent site just to see what it is;

Among many other issues that may arise including figuring out is this really a new artist/shop or a new recaster. There is a lot of do-it-yourself legwork that is involved even when you are familiar with to using the site.

So if you are looking for this “ah-ha” moment it’s never really going to come. I’ve been using it for over a year and have made over 50 purchases with agents. You are just over a period of time going to get better at troubleshooting and being scrappy/resourceful enough to find what you need when things aren’t working. Even knowing the name of the clothing or wig maker or having a picture for image searching I STILL often enough have to spend hours searching Twitter, Weibo, etc to find their Taobao due to their store being named something different than the name they go by or Taobao giving me generic reverse image results.

I wouldn’t call anyone stupid or lazy for not being able to figure it. However, before you even think you might be missing out on much there are trade offs/disadvantages to using Taobao and shopping agents over dealers that I’ve noticed.

Unless you like organizing GOs for friends or you make a lot of doll item purchases yourself monthly there’s no real savings/advantage in using Taobao. Nearly everything you could want on there you can get from agents/dealers like New Cl0ver, Alice, Me0w Marts, Spac3BJD, D0llection or Moonlight (Moonlight if you are really desperate). I’d say the only things you are missing out on are custom wig commissions and buying small random items for pennys like doll hairnets, face masks and wig caps.

Plus you still have layaway with dealers vs coming out of pocket $50-250 per outfit with a proxy/agent. Just a note though the Chinese selling process is typically deposit and final payment. Some agents allow you to do deposit only initially but I would not trust them reminding you when to pay (because not all artists send out payment reminders). If you don’t pay on time you lose your money and the item (it’s happened to a friend of mine using spreenow). Dealers like Moonlight and SpaceBJD will send emails when the final payment is due and other dealers like Alice and New Clover allow layaway.

Not to mention some of those dealers have free shipping over a certain amount. With shopping agents you have to buy enough items to make international shipping worth it and within a certain period as they all need to come in around the same time to avoid item storage charges. Overall the dealer markup (with the exception of Moonlight) pretty much evens out the international shipping cost if you were just to get that one item with a proxy/shopping agent.

Most importantly though you have someone who is more inclined to help if there are any quality issues when you buy from dealers. Most shopping agents things come as-is, they take pictures for verification/storage purposes only and no returns. Bhiner took literally a picture of sunglasses with a lens popped out and didn’t flag as an issue (granted it was $2 so I wasn’t about to fight them over it). They’re not as inclined to work through issues since they only get paid on orders made and have ZERO relationship with the artist. Some shopping agents like 42agent actually charge you more if they have to write you a ton of messages about your item or work through issues. Superbuy actually makes you manually type in to confirm “no refunds” before they confirm your order in a lot of cases, if you don’t agree they reject the order.

Finally most shopping agents if they end up refunding you for whatever reason the amount doesn’t go back into your PayPal, it will go into your wallet on their site and you will have to pay a fee to get them to transfer it back to your PayPal account. The expectation is you will buy more with them rather than just getting the refund. Bhiner doesn’t even accept PayPal on items over $350 (if you buy a doll,etc) you have to do a bank transfer to their Chinese bank account. Btw it took me 4 days to figure out back and forth with them as they kept giving me the wrong bank info and thankfully transferwise won’t let you send money unless they can verify the receiving account or I would have been out of $600.

Not saying all this to discourage anyone from learning how to use Taobao. But just to give a reality check on what using it is like in the day to day and it isn’t easy even for the people who do use it regularly. I still use dealers often too when I want layaway or when I’m not buying much at that time.

Overall just saying all this cause it really isn’t Taobao users not wanting to share info and gatekeep. I know of others, including myself, who are more than happy to find a link for you or even share them without being asked. However it would be way too much work for someone to write some comprehensive guide when it might not even work for you and we are over here stumbling around ourselves still. The blind leading the slightly less blind at that point. This is why people who know how to use Taobao are more inclined to help if they know you are able to do some legwork too.

~Anonymous

[treatheartcottontales-blog]

September Taobao order from Spreenow ! :3

[mintyliciousbjd]

Spreenow Question

So quick question for folks who have ordered via SpreeNow.

Do they offer airmail? Or is EMS their only shipping option to the USA? I’d like to order a doll wig but am nervous since international shipping isn’t calculated until after the agents receive the order to their warehouse. How much does international shipping typically cost with their services???

Many thanks for any help!