Online Shopping Reviews

Maykool Review: Safety & Scam, Product Range, Pricing, Service and More

Honestly, I had never heard of Maykool.com until I discovered the site in a third-party customer review forum last week. It was the amazing range of fashion products that aroused my interest into digging out some useful information about them just in case some individual fashion shoppers might want to buy things there.

Safety & Scam

After a quick tour to scanning the key sections of the shopping website, I got an impression that it should be run by some individual businessman or businesswoman who had worked for an export company for years before he/she decided to start his/her own business. I guess the team should be quite small – probably only 20 around employees.

Based on the Whois domain name registration record, the name Maykool.com was created in September, 2012, which implies that this site itself is still very young. Anyway, I am not sure whether the site owner was using another domain name to do the online business before adopting Maykool.com.

The Alexa website analysis shows that the site is ranked around 170, 000 globally. Based on my estimate, it should host 2,000 to 3000 visits each day. The traffic is not impressive at all compared to big shopping sites like Lightinthebox.com (read review). However, it at least proves that every day the site is visited by quite a number of visitors and chances are rare that it is a phishing site or any other types of illegal sites.

When I tried to use terms like “Maykool scams”, “Maykool negative reviews” or “Maykool complaints” to search Google to confirm the credibility of the website, I got few results. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that it is too perfect to be reviewed negatively against. I am more inclined to believe that the major reason for such phenomenon is because the users of the website are still very limited in terms of quantity.

Then I tried other keywords such as “Maykool” and “Maykool reviews” and this time I got closely related results, which are all positive or neutral. It seems the site is trying to make use of all kinds of social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest to enlarge their customer base. Such marketing efforts convince me that Maykool.com is led by someone quite familiar with the cross-border online trading industry and sensitive to the latest e-commerce marketing approaches.

Product Range

The site is all about women’s fashion, including dresses, swimsuits, shoes, clubwear, skirts, T-shirts, shirts & blouses, vests & basics, outerwear, sweaters, shorts & rompers, pants, lingerie and hosiery. Most of the fashionable pieces are for meant to create daily looks instead of special occasion looks. If you are looking for evening dresses, prom dresses, wedding dresses or other formal dresses, it is not the place; but if you are seeking affordable stylish outfits for common occasions, it may deserve a look.

Continue reading Maykool Review: Safety & Scam, Product Range, Pricing, Service and More

DHgate Scam?

“Is DHgate.com a scam website?”, “Is DHgate legit?”, “Is DHgate a trusted site?” — I noticed that some people were asking the same questions on the Internet. As always, safety is the biggest concern for online shopping, especially for cross-border online transactions. I hope my illustration below can help clear your doubts—if you are one of those who asked the question.

1. As an officially registered wholesale company based in Beijing, DHgate has been serving global buyers and sellers worldwide since 2004. A scam company can’t have been existing for such a long time.

2. By far, the page rank of DHgate’s website has grown to 6. As we know, Google will never credit an illegal website with such a high page rank. Also, when you search for “wholesale” or “China wholesale” in Google, you will see DHgate ranks top on the first search result page. This means Google has recognized the huge traffic and authenticity of DHgate—Google tends to place the most-matching websites with the search terms at the top of all related search results. Continue reading DHgate Scam?

Can I Trust to Buy Things from DHgate.com or Aliexpress.com?

One reader left a question at the comment box of one post talking about DHgate.com(read the detailed review) at my site, asking if the shopping site is trust to buy things she wants. She said she was reading bad things about them off the internet and as a result she was hesitated to make the shopping decision although she did see some really wonderful products of her great interest there.

Here is my reply to her comment：

“Hi there,

DHgate is a famous Chinese online transaction platform for Chinese sellers and global buyers. I personally have worked for that company and if you ask about my opinion about whether they are reliable or not, my answer is definitely “Yes.” However, you should note that the sellers vary significantly in terms of credibility and service standards at the site. You are encouraged to do research on the sellers you are interested in trading with as much as possible by checking their feedback score and customer reviews and also through the communications. Also, do remember to always use the site to trade with any seller there and never bypass the site to make deals with the sellers otherwise without the site’s protection system you are very likely to be ripped off.

At the same time, you should keep all related evidence just in case you encounter a dishonest seller. For instance, the communication record, the pictures of the items you receive from the seller, etc. If a dispute is incurred, never trust the seller and follow his or her suggestion to solve the problem. Many scam cases happen simply because the buyers believe that the sellers are really solving their problems and trust them to remove the negative feedback against the sellers in order to get a satisfactory solution to the dispute. In many cases, after you change the negative feedback, the seller just turns her or his back against you and never responds to your request again. My advice: always use the site for a solution by opening a dispute in time. If you do all this right, you can set assured that your money won’t be taken away by scammers.

Besides DHgate.com, you can also consider Aliexpress.com, another super popular Chinese online trading platform connecting suppliers and buyers. They also have lots of products at low prices to choose from. Likewise, you should use the same cautions when shopping such trading sites. You can simply use the two sites to compare prices and then make the best shopping decision.

Good luck with your shopping!

Danviews.com”

Continue reading Can I Trust to Buy Things from DHgate.com or Aliexpress.com?

China Wholesale Marketplaces You Should Know

As the world’s biggest manufacturing base, China leads the world in wholesale business and some China wholesale marketplaces stand out with their special charm. Here I would like to introduce some of the most famous China wholesale websites one by one. If you happen to be interested in sourcing bulk items from China, read on to find if there’s something helpful for you.

DHgate.com

As the world’s first transaction-based wholesale website, DHgate has been winning more and more applause from all over the world since its inception in 2004. It is all agreed that the innovative business model DHgate developed for wholesale trade is the most cost-effective solution to small and medium-sized businesses. The wholesale website does not charge any membership on its suppliers and buyers, but only charges a small sum of commission on each successful transaction (included in the item prices). By doing so, DHgate suppliers and buyers can reduce their cost to the minimum and do not have to take any risk of investing too much before getting any benefit.

Based in Beijing, DHgate was founded by an outstanding woman, Diane Wang, the previous CEO of Joyo.com, which had been acquired by Amazon.com a couple of years before she set up DHgate.com. DHgate now boasts over 400,000 Chinese suppliers and 2.1 million global buyers and facilitates thousands of online transactions each day. It has a responsive customer service team to handle any pre-sales or after-sales issue for its buyers and suppliers 7 days a week. Also, the wholesale marketplace has built cooperative relationships with some famous shipping carriers like UPS and some world class standard of payment service providers like PayPal. For more information, read DHgate Reviews or visit www.dhgate.com.

Continue reading China Wholesale Marketplaces You Should Know

DHgate Review: China Wholesale Site for Small Merchants

DHgate.com is a Beijing-based China wholesale website serving Chinese sellers and global buyers. If Alibaba is the forerunner of the first generation of e-commerce in China, DHgate is no doubt the founder and leader of the second generation. Unlike Alibaba, DHgate does not “sell information” to sellers and buyers, but “sells services” to both parties.

Target Clients & Wholesale Volume

As a transaction platform, DHgate targets mainly at small and medium-sized buyers from all over the world—wholesale quantity can be as low as 1 piece only. For some items offered on DHgate.com, you can get a very low wholesale price for a remarkably small order. If you are a business owner selling either online or offline to your customers, sourcing your items from DHgate.com can be a most economic choice as there you will find a lot of sellers offering the item you want at unbeatable wholesale prices. And the best thing is, you have many price options to choose from!

Buyer Protection—Escrow Service

Safety is always the first and foremost concern for online shopping. DHgate has an authoritative buyer protection system—Escrow. Every transaction on DHgate will be fully protected by this system. When a buyer places an order and makes the payment for it.

The payment will arrive in DHgate’s account not the seller’s account. DHgate will not release the payment to the seller until the buyer confirms that he/she has received the order and is happy with the order received. DHgate has been doing serious business since 2004 and its buyer protection system works quite smoothly. As a buyer, you can be confident that the money you pay to DHgate.com will meet your expectation. Otherwise, you can apply for a refund or return to protect your interest.

Sellers & Items

All sellers on DHgate.com are registered members. When they register, a professional team from DHgate will verify their qualifications through checking their business license and other legal certificates. Only verified sellers can become DHgate’s members and sell items on the China wholesale website. But like many other online wholesale website, fraudulent and scam sellers are a headache for DHgate. For years, DHgate has been trying hard to crack down fraudulent or scam sellers. And they always severely punish these sellers to maintain a good transaction environment. Continue reading DHgate Review: China Wholesale Site for Small Merchants

Myesoul Review: Another China-based Online Store of Clothing and Accessories

History & Background

Myesoul.com is another China-based online store offering a wide range of apparel and accessories for the global retail market. Their major customers are from USA and Europe, based on the traffic analysis of Alexa.com. Lolita dresses, cosplay & costumes, prom dresses, fashionable shoes for women, swimwear and baby dolls are among the hottest categories at the site, which makes it a similar site to Milanoo.com.

When you mention Myesould.com, rare people know this name as it is pretty new. But as a matter of fact, their business is not that new. According to my research, they were running their business using the other domain name Ftcline.com. For details, you can read the post here.

You may feel a little odd when you hear that the company changes their website name, but it actually is nothing weird for the Chinese stores. For instance, the electronic store Ahappydeal.com used Davismicro.com and Brandsdragon.com in the past and they are still selling the same products with the current domain name. Here I don’t want to explain too much why they are doing so this way. They might have violated the policies of the hosting service provider, be trying to acquire better organic search rankings or simply be attempting to get their branding more easily to be recognized or familiarized. For whatever reason, the key point is: they are truly a legitimate business entity and deserve our trust.

Legitimate or Not?

Although they indicated on their website that their office address is based in Hong Kong, I seriously doubt that their major operation is really located there. Many small Chinese suppliers play the same trick. That is, in order to win trust from global buyers, they disguised themselves as a Hong Kong supplier instead of a Mainland China supplier because Hong Kong enjoys a much better global reputation when it comes to business credibility. On the other hand, technically they are really Hong Kong businesses as they are officially registered in Hong Kong. Anyway, most of them in practice run their business in cities across the Mainland China such as Shenzhen.

I don’t think it a big deal if a shopping site like Myesoul.com does not reveal their office location in a honest way though it does slightly reduce my confidence in their legitimacy. Normally I would try to confirm the truth by communicating with their service people. If they insist that they are Hong Kong based without valid evidence, I would abandon using them immediately. However, if they confess that their orders are shipped from the Mainland China, I would applause for their honesty and put them into my “trusted Chinese stores” list after I also find other signals showing that they are legit. Continue reading Myesoul Review: Another China-based Online Store of Clothing and Accessories