Looking to order not more than $100 worth of semi-tat from overseas

September 17, 2009 12:39 PM

Can you suggest more sites like lovelyshoes.net? Rainbow totes, $7! I want to receive parcels of entertaining, extremely cheap goods. I don't mind reasonable minimums but I'm not a reseller.

Googling around for wholesale whatever is getting me nowhere. Where do hip boutiques get their goods?

Requirements:

Amazingly cheap

Reasonable minimum orders (lovelyshoes.net's is US$100) -- I am looking to do some Xmas shopping so might conceivably want five of something, but

Goods more interesting/nicer than what I can find in dollar stores -- I suppose I am looking for a good-sized city's Chinatown shops' level of "Ooh, how cute" and "I didn't know they made these"

I have only been able to find Chinese sites selling designer knock-offs, which is not what I'm looking for (though I do like $11 Marc Jacobs knockoffs) -- I don't want fake Louboutins -- or "wholesale" sites whose discounts are crap or whose merchandise is mostly nose hair trimmers. I suppose the perfect place would be like lovelyshoes.net but with Hello Kitty and toy robots and cashmere scarves thrown in the mix.

posted by kmennie to shopping (17 comments total)

Oriental Trading Company
posted by Science! at 12:50 PM on September 17

Yeah I was about to say Oriental Trading too but I'm ot sure if that's exactly right.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 12:50 PM on September 17

Reptile and I both use Deal Extreme for our grey-market shopping delight. "Why, yes, I do need a USB hub and 300 glowsticks!" More on the electronics, but there is a decent amount of consumer goods available.
posted by cobaltnine at 1:09 PM on September 17 [2 favorites]

Science!: "Oriental Trading Company"

I'm not sure that's what she's looking for...
posted by radioamy at 1:31 PM on September 17

The 15 Dollar Store?
posted by Night_owl at 1:35 PM on September 17

Lovelyshoes is a great find, and I'd love to see more of these, too. I'm tickled by some of the product names, like "T-pedicure popular spicy fish head sexy sandals."

I check ChinaVasion fairly often for great deals on Chinese goods, but they don't carry fashion. Kurtiworld has good prices on Indian skirts and kurtis, but there is a significant surcharge on orders nder $200.

Looking in my Shopping bookmarks folder I'm reminded that WholesaleCentral is a great place to find wholesale sources with no or small minimums for all kinds of goods.
posted by notashroom at 1:42 PM on September 17 [1 favorite]

American Science & Surplus.
posted by acridrabbit at 2:24 PM on September 17 [1 favorite]

Mostly apparel/accessories, but try the shops on this list.
posted by kerfuffles at 2:38 PM on September 17

I think Pearl River might fit the bill.
Oh how I loved the weird, cheap shit I bought there when I lived in NYC. In fact, it might be about time to replace my welcome cat who has recently taken a spill and lost an ear.
posted by deadcrow at 2:43 PM on September 17 [1 favorite]

Incredible, silly, weird techy/accessory/gadget sites who get too much of my toy budget:

Watch.Brando.com
SourcingMap
posted by soft and hardcore taters at 4:29 PM on September 17

Daiso! You can get 10 cute bento boxes for $18.80!
posted by vespabelle at 9:41 PM on September 17

DealExtreme is indeed amazingly cheap. Mainly electronics, yes, but some gifty cute trinkets too I believe and anyway it fits the bill for "entertaining, extremely cheap goods".
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:42 AM on September 18

Strapya World
posted by healthytext at 9:36 AM on September 18

More stuff:
GMarket has all kinds of cheap Asian goods with no minimums, but the site is crazy busy.

Wholesale-dress is ladies' apparel only, but great prices and no minimums. AsianFashion4U is similar, but with a 5 piece minimum.
posted by notashroom at 1:17 PM on September 23

I just came back to update: sadly, this has sucked so far. My dealextreme.com order has not even shipped after almost three weeks, with nary a word from them about the delay and no (quick...) response to my inquiry. Seems to be a recent but very common problem.

Lovelyshoes.net was tragic. They took nine days to even get the stuff in the post, pathetic given inflated shipping costs and terrible packaging. My "rainbow" bags...well, they're striped, but in unappealing shades -- white, yellow, gray, nothing at all like the picture. A blue bag arrived green. The FAQ claims "none of our fashions are irregulars or seconds" and "100% of our products are same as photos" but this is total bullshit. The photos of the Marc Jacobs knock-offs are clearly photos of what they were knocking off; the shoes I got are not the same, and complete junk. Another pair was sent in the wrong colour. Another purporting to be leather was vinyl. The final pair was leather, and I was pretty happy with the first one -- and then checked out the right shoe, and, oops. Major sewing flaws and a different kind of leather used for the decoration, just bizarre. Everything I ordered was bollocksed. CDN$200 was probably a bit much to risk on this. No response from lovelyshoes; PayPal dispute pending, wish me luck.

For the record: Lovelyshoes review -- see especially the pink shoes. Tedious video review with dodgy bags and unhappy girls.

Thanks for the replies, though. I may gamble a GMarket order if I can make it through enough of the site...
posted by kmennie at 6:23 AM on October 21

Thanks for the update. It seems DealExtreme has been slow since the Chinese holiday. It's worth watching to see whether the pattern continues.

The complaint about the product being different from the photos is one I've read about a number of the Asian wholesale fashion sites. Apparently it's common for them to use the photos from fashion magazines to represent their knockoff items, which may or may not look much like the original (as in the pink shoes with the polka-dotted bow on the review you linked).

For what it's worth, here are some inexpensive non-wholesale (AFAIK) fashion sites I've found/had sent to me, though I can't vouch for any as I haven't ordered from any of them yet. They don't exactly meet the original parameters, but maybe you'd have better luck with them.

http://www.susiesdeals.net/
http://www.599fashion.com/
http://www.juniortrends.com/
http://1015store.com/
http://15dollarstore.com/
http://store.buyhotcouture.com/
http://www.trendygirlstyles.com/
http://www.getheavenly.com/
http://www.brandlet.com/
http://www.gojane.com/
http://www.principalfashion.com/
http://www.forevertrendy.com/
http://www.cutesygirl.com/
http://stores.makemechic.com/
http://www.classiccloseouts.com/
http://www.amiclubwear.com/
http://shoeocean.com/
posted by notashroom at 8:04 AM on October 21

Regarding DealExtreme, the bad news is I have placed and received two orders with them and both contained partially defective items.

It was all iPhone stuff: some of it is excellent (and excellently cheap), but I have also received a pair of iPhone in-earphones that output sound just fine except the balance is off (one channel is louder) and more damningly, to me, the mic button doesn't work. That is, neither the mic nor the button. I've also got an FM dock that syncs fine but never transmits any radio, and only charges half of the time.

My guess is they have skimped majorly on per-unit quality control. So if you're not in a hurry to get what you want in working order and don't want to spend a pretty penny, I'd still recommend DE: the prices are ridiculously low, zero shipping fees, and the good news, they've so far offered to replace the defective units at no charge and without me having to send anything back.

If not, I'd look elsewhere first.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:31 PM on October 23