I don’t think Taobao will ship internationally. I hear some people forward their orders through SF Express or some other third party.
I do recommend people to download the Taobao android app. I think the webpage is not fully featured if you connect from outside China. However, the app has the same experience even from a non-Chinese IP.
I suspect it is up to the individual sellers. Certain sellers will know better than others on how to ship internationally. There is also the barrier of payment since AliPay runs the show on Taobao.
Taobao is essentially just a platform that connects a bunch of sellers (oftentimes a manufacturer will have their own flagship store) with the rest of the population.
I bought a few lights on Takbao a few years ago. None of the sellers would ship to the US themselves. Right now I forget the name, but I used an intermediary. A company in China someplace that took delivery of the shipment from the Taobao seller and forwarded it to me in the US. The payment had to go through the intermediary as well. Of course there fees for both the money exchange and payment as well as handling and shipping. But in the end the total cost was acceptable and I got lights that were otherwise impossible to get.
Hey fogofwar, I saw your introduction on Reddit the other day. I didn’t recognize most of your lights, cool to see an unrepresented side of the hobby.
Are there any Chinese forums or review sites that you recommend? Even with Google translate, I haven’t been able to find a runtime graph for the jkk90, for example.
The first picture in my OP is Shenzhen, the rest are actually in Huizhou by the beach. A seaview Shenzhen house starts at 5 million USD or so. I’m not that rich.
Understandable. I imagine you find few people have very powerful flashlights and so disruptive people on the beach would be alarmed at the light, expecting it could be a security service. There is also something satisfying having such photon power in one’s hands.
Phones can have fairly decent LED lights for close task work, but a dedicated flashlight can make a huge difference. There are some 10180 cell flashlights around now too, that you barely feel in your pocket. Sofirn’s SC01 is a bit heavy, but wow, what lumens power for such a small light.
Groovy! I used my L17 once to blast some dumpster divers and illegal dumpers in my apartments once. I am a bit jealous that you are so close to the source. It would be cool if you could get us some of those SFT emitters off Taobao and send them to us. I’m sure you could get several buyers who would go in on that if you could get some. Nightwatch sells lights on there with those emitters, which we can’t get through sellers on AE or even Nealsgadgets.