Are you coming or not coming? We help you to be almost sure!

Introductory

As Christmas approaches, fewer and fewer dare to order gifts from distant lands for fear that they will not arrive on time. The biggest discounts of the year are due on Black Friday, but this day, it’s only barely four weeks before Christmas, so the fear is legitimate, but there are a few ways to get almost certain! We're trying to line them up now. Of course, we cannot guarantee that the domestic post office will be at the height of the situation (they did not perform poorly last year), but it is not only up to them, but also on us, whether the gift will be happy or annoyed on Christmas Eve.

In this article, we’ll cover the two major Chinese stores, Gearbest and Banggood, but of course what’s described can be understood for any web store, even a home one!

1. Start of shipping

This is the point that most people forget, they may not even know MUST pay attention to. Larger Chinese stores often sell hundreds of thousands of products. Obviously, not all of these are in stock at their place, a good portion of them are constantly arriving by suppliers, and the store is constantly sending them to customers, in the order of orders. In periods such as increased pre-holiday interest, the supplier may need more time, may not be able to bring enough items into the store, and in that case the start date of delivery will be further away from the time of purchase. In Chinese stores, it is better to indicate in how many days the delivery is expected to start. If, for example, the start of the delivery is set at 3-5 December, we should never assume the good, but rather count on the fifth!

2. Delivery time

This data is also very important, as it shows how many days our package will arrive from the start of delivery - not from the time of purchase. Here, too, a longer period is given, for example 10-15 working days. As at the beginning of the delivery, we assume a longer time here, if only because the workload of courier companies and post offices will increase significantly before Christmas, so let's be prepared for a worse eventuality!

3. warehouses

Chinese stores have many warehouses, which can be in China, Hong Kong, or even the EU. If we buy more products, we also pay attention to what warehouses each product comes to us from. At Gearbest, they also like to send the package, even if the ordered goods are in different warehouses. In this case, the products are first collected in one place and then mailed to us. Clearly, this is plenty of unnecessary time, so if possible, portages that aren’t in the same warehouse will be ordered as a separate package. This is only good because if one of the packages doesn't arrive on time, the others can still arrive.

4. Shipping method

In the stores mentioned in the introduction, Gearbest and Banggood, you can choose from several modes of delivery, from 5 to 6. These are expensive, but they are also free, and some promise relatively fast arrival. Before Christmas, however, it is possible that these fast shipping methods will be slow. Why?

Why we need to know that all products that come from outside the European Union above the legal threshold are considered to be subject to customs duties. Without going into more detail, it’s worth reckoning that for every package whose total value, including shipping, is over $ 40, we have to pay customs duties and, for larger values, even sales tax. There are two ways to customs. If you choose fast delivery, the courier company will pay customs, but if you choose a so-called duty-free delivery, the seller will arrange the customs procedure when the ordered products arrive in Europe.

In the former case, if the courier company is customs clearance, the customs procedure may take several weeks because of the large number of packages. However, if customs clearance is left to the seller's store, this will normally not take more than 1-2 days. In this way, the otherwise fast delivery can become slow before Christmas and the otherwise slower one can become faster.

In other words, the bottom line: If the total value of our package, including the shipping fee, is over 40 dollars, then choose the quasi-duty-free EU Priority Line delivery at the Banggood store, and the similar, but plain Priority Line mode at Gearbest. At the latter store, there may be several types of delivery methods under the Priority Line, all of which are "duty-free", at least from the point of view of us, the customers.

5. Package tracking

Although it does not affect your arrival time, it is a good idea to choose a registered mode of delivery, that is, your package will receive a sticker number and use this number to check where you are. This will be good before Christmas, just because we have a nicer arrival time and we can see from the package tracking number that the package will not arrive on time, we can arrange a replacement, even 1-2 days before the holiday.

Package information can usually be seen on the merchant's side, but we don't trust it because they often provide false information. I recommend the following page for tracking your package: https://www.1tracking.net/en

6. European warehouses

This tip is what essentially provides 100 percent security. Major Chinese traders maintain several warehouses within the EU. They are found in England (still EU), Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, France in most cases. Perhaps this should not be over-explained, the ordered package can arrive from EU warehouses in as little as 3-7 working days, as opposed to purchasing from China, which can take 3-4 weeks to complete. In addition, packages ordered from EU warehouses are 100 percent duty and VAT free! That is, if we want to go to tut, let’s try to pick from a stock of warehouses in the EU. The only bad news in the matter is that in these warehouses, although the selection has expanded dramatically in recent years, there are still far fewer goods to be found than in those in distant China.

We only have one thing left to show you how to find EU warehouses! This is simpler for banggood, where EU stores have a separate sub-page inside the store, you can find it here:

Banggood EU stock products

For Gearbest, the situation is not that simple, and we find products broken down by warehouse, so it can take longer to search. The list of warehouses is as follows:

Summary

The answer to the final question in this case will not be 42, because the question is different, just whether we can still buy on Black Friday in a Chinese store so that our package arrives for Christmas. The answer, as you may already think from the content of the article, is yes, but you have to pay attention to the details. Of course, we can’t guarantee that courier companies or the post office will bear the burden, but it’s encouraging that after the total collapse before last year, we haven’t heard of any serious complaints in the past year. Of course, this does not mean that the many millions of orders will not be lost, stuck in a package distributor, or similar misfortune, but they can unfortunately occur in domestic stores, especially if they do not only deliver from domestic warehouses, such as yet there are more, even among the great.

So, order, but wise, and if you're feeling overwhelmed with the package, you shouldn't risk it, going to a shop or mall, because a peaceful and joyful Christmas Eve is worth much more than the amount you spend on a Chinese order!