News

You Can No Longer Buy Taobao Stuff From Ezbuy Anymore

2017-12-19 , 3:45 pm

Don’t cry, friends. Online shopping is far from over.

There are still other sites where you can buy from, like JD.com (Jing Dong) and Mogujie which are equally popular China e-commerce sites.

But here’s the story behind the drama.

What happened?

I’m not sure if you followed the saga between Ezbuy and Taobao’s parent, the Alibaba group last week but here’s a short summary:

Ezbuy and Alibaba group was found entangled in a ‘war of words’ where the Chinese giant was accused of bullying a small player.

In return, the Chinese company rebutted by labelling Ezbuy’s act of creating accounts to buy items from Taobao and reselling them an act of “scalping”.

‘Scalping’ is usually used as a trading strategy that attempts to make more profits on small price changes.

But I believe in this context, it refers to Ezbuy reselling Taobao’s goods at a large or quick profit.

The buay-songness (unhappiness) between the duo thus led to a massive backlog of orders placed on Ezbuy for Taobao purchases on 11.11 – Singles Day.

Those who were waiting for the parcels to come home, you have your answer now.

But good news for all because the backlog has already been cleared, according to an e-mail that Ezbuy sent to its users. Did you receive it? if not, please contact them here.

But they managed to resolve the issue

Ezbuy’s side of the story

Ezbuy has worked hard to deal with the backlog so a round of applause for them. At least they bothered to write an essay on their Facebook Page to address this issue:

Here’s a TL: DR of the entire essay:

They apologised for the inconvenience caused by the recent delays over the past few weeks, and because it was so bad, they had to come out and clarify.

At first, they were not able to place orders through many of their purchasing accounts on 4 November, their 11.11 campaign launch date.

They had to recruit 40 new customer service officers (CSOs) and hundreds of purchasing agents including small companies and individuals to resolve the backlog orders.

4 November 2017:

161 purchasing accounts on Taobao began to have issues while checking out the items in the e-shopping cart, with the following error message: “As there are overwhelming customers checking out, kindly try again later”.

They attempted to check with Taobao CSOs and were subsequently told their accounts display “abnormal activities” and were suspended.

8 November 2017:

They set up 210 new purchasing accounts but faced the same technical restrictions.

They announced on their website that they are unable to continue their “buy-for-me” service for Taobao.

11 November 2017:

Their 2 main warehouses in China, specifically in Jia Xing and Dong Guan were blocked on the Taobao system.

Their purchasing agent and ‘Ship-For-Me’ customers who were using their own Taobao accounts who had indicated similar shipping addresses were unable to check out as well.

Attempts to clarify this with Taobao CSOs were told that it was “a bug that requires 5-7 days to solve”.

They sourced for new warehouses.

13 November 2017:

Another 200 purchasing accounts which directed orders to their new warehouses were facing restrictions.

Taobao asked purchasing agents if they were buying on behalf of ezbuy, and they were told that the new warehouses were engaging in “abnormal” activities.

14-30 November 2017:

They sourced for four new warehouses but two of the warehouses faced the same issue.

Ezbuy proceeded to update Today on the process of their backlog.

1 to 3 Dec 2017:

More purchasing accounts blocked with more than 300 purchasing accounts facing technical restrictions.

They clarified that while things were difficult, they have tirelessly worked to fulfil their promise to the customers before coming out with their story.

Their “buy-for-me” services were extended to other popular China e-commerce sites like JD.com (Jing Dong), Mogujie, as well as their own Sellers as an alternative.

In addition, they are also encouraging shoppers to shop from their Korea, USA, Taiwan and Singapore marketplaces as well.

They promise to strive harder for their valuable customers.

Yup, I told you it was an essay.

Anyhow, I know those who are affected must be extremely upset and angry because I feel the same whenever my parcels are late but bad things happen. Since it’s solved now, let go and let live? 🙂

If your answer is no, you won’t forgive them for the sin they’ve committed, go ahead. We respect your decision.

ezbuy is now officially saying “kthxbye” to Taobao

According to The Straits Times, ezbuy confirmed that they’re no longer going to offer its Buy-For-Me services with Taobao. That means they’re not going to source for more warehouses (or addresses), but instead, encourage others to use their Buy-For-Me services in other platforms.

Just a year ago, ezbuy seems like a startup that every entrepreneur hoped to emulate: they raised USD$20m in funding, and aim to be the best global shopping site in Southeast Asia.

If you’re still interested to buy stuff from Taobao, there are still several agents in Singapore, but let’s face it: they could be operating on borrowed time.

Since you’re here, why not watch a video about an NTU student who went all out to impress his crush, only to end up in…tragedy? Here, watch it and do remember to share it (and also subscribe to Goody Feed YouTube channel)!

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com