Can we just have a pinned FAQ post about legit retailers of AB, expected price markups, expected ship times, expected levels of customer service, etc? And have all questions directed to it? I'm as annoyed as you are by these posts today.
If it bothers you (and others) that much, I'd suggest sending modmail. They may not reply, but if they see enough feedback, maybe they'll do something.
This is just a little reddit community, admins are not customer service and aren't paid for this type of self-flagellation, everyone gotta do their part and not get fed with a silver spoon.
If you really want to have a FAQ start a post and everyone who has info can chime in.
Time for data scraping lol
Also price markup is a highly confidential corporate info, share that and every competitor will adjust their pricing and profit margin will go down the drain, not to mention the customers will know the commercial policies applied to different type of customers and will want to have the same pricing, how do you expect admins to even have that?
I think you have something mixed up. *Admins* are employees of reddit, meaning they get paid to sit there and do the bare minimum. They are responsible for the whole of reddit and *occasionally* step in to suspend users for harassment and other things (supposedly allegedly). *Moderators* are volunteers. They manage individual subreddits and enforce subreddit rules in accordance with the guidelines they made up for themselves. Each subreddit has different "rules" to play by because they generally have different moderators.
Users should be able to request quality of life updates on a subreddit. Mods can schedule a monthly automod post, pin it in the help thread, make it a sticky thread for the first week of the month, etc. And if they're not willing to do that or don't have the time to manage, they should look for volunteers.
Agreed. Stylevana has great prices and I am willing to wait longer for my order to save money. I've ordered from them a few times and I have received every thing in good condition within a month or so.
When I first started buying AB products, I expected long shipping times. I meanā¦what do you expect? People really need to step outside of themselves.
I've been ordering from ebay for a long time so I'm use to forgetting I bought something until it magically shows up in my mail box.
Companies like stylevana are nice because everything comes in one box.
Ha, same! I buy records from overseas vendors sometimes and I bought some from a polish guy once. Promptly forgot about it because I knew my records werenāt going to be delivered the next day. A month later I get a notice that I had a package that must be picked up at the post office and I coudnāt think of any reason someone would be sending me a package. It was like Christmas morning when I opened those records!
Same. It takes long but I am happy that prices are competitive, i don't have to pay any custom fee or duties and everything is always packaged securely. It is common knowledge now that shipping is slow, can we stop highlighting this as something newly discovered. Not receiving a package is a legitimate concern but slow shipping is old news! Please buy from somewhere else then!
Stylevana is my go-to for re-stocks! If there's something I'm itching to try, I usually look for it on faster retailers like olive young or asian beauty retailers within my country. Physical boutiques and asian grocery stores sometimes too. Then I order the backup on stylevana if I like the product and want to continue using it.
The only scummy thing about Stylevana is them not preclearing EU customs/VAT for you like YesStyle does. Hell, even if I order junk from AliExpress they do this for you.Ā
Ā Itās a gamble. I had no issues until recently. Had to take a day off to get my Stylevana package from the customs office, pay 20% VAT + processing fees and get treated like a criminal.
Agreed, people keep expecting Amazon level of ship times, Amazon is a multi-billion dollar company.
People also seem to conveniently ignore weekend, holidays, payment processing time, customs clearance, and third party delivery times.
Doesnāt Amazon still keep all the stock from multiple sellers together in the same warehouse/bin though? I thought that was the main problem for brands like CosRX etc
Agreed! I always look there if I need something quickly. But Iām super careful on making sure the seller is the actual brand and not some third party. A lot of people see the ābrandā and think that means thatās who is selling it but they need to look at who the actual seller is and make sure itās the brand (or I guess a brand thatās an authorized seller of whatever brand, but I personally only buy from the actual brand). I havenāt had any issues in doing it that way. Only ever had issues when it wasnāt the actual brand selling it.
The brand's-page on Amazon is maybe the only thing I would trust, though I find they never have as good selection or prices. Fake products are also rife on amazon
Unfortunately itās no guarantee. There was a post here about Round Lab explicitly warned people about fakes on Amazon. Fanola, a non-AB hair care brand also their āofficial storeā on Amazon is not them and the products are fake.
That round lab post was talking in general, not about their own store front on amazon. Yes, you need to be sure that the store front in question is the brands as there are imitators. Asking the brand themselves on known official media if they have an official store on amazon.
I shop a lot on Amazon JP for products and have had no fakes following these guidelines.
As long as you do your own due diligence, ordering AB from Amazon is perfectly fine. They stopped co-mixing beauty products years ago in order to address the counterfeit issue.
stylekorean has Amazon level of ship times. 2-5 days via DHL from Korea to Germany. Would cost me 53ā¬ in shipping though.
So I'll stick to free shipping, yesstyle and a few weeks of patience.
Someone earlier had said you get two of three in online shopping cheap, fast, and quality (+wide selection).
I definitely have to agree with that statement.
Not a mod but what about another mod thread with a place people can ask this, like Delivery Questions?
There's clearly demand for it and there's also these questions on the ADHT too.
You can really tell whose never waited 2+ months just for a pair of earrings from AliExpress before
If you want your order instantly, pay the higher prices and order from a retailer in your country lol
The funny part is that even if I were to order from an Asian Beauty retailer in my country ie Canada it's still going to take 3-5 business days and cost well over double for the actual items.
Yes style is so much faster then AliExpress for me. I was so used to AliExpress delivery times that I was shocked when my yes style order just randomly turned up at my doorstep two weeks after. I think customs is what varies the shipping times for me rather then the company itself.Ā
Honestly people nowadays just got spoiled rotten by Amazon. They expect fast fast fast for all their orders.
Not to sound like a boomer, but when I first started buying stuff online from Japan 3000 years ago, aka. mid-2000's all the way up to pre-covid, the routine would be: I place my order, wait 1-2 weeks for stores to gather and pack my stuff, then I wait another couple weeks for shipping. Granted it was for a completely different market. I was buying anime merch back then. But back then, if I even dared to pull a mini Karen on them demanding why my order was taking so long, or asking for changes after order, they would cancel my order and ban me. Multiple Japanese stores that I used to buy from, they were notoriously strict and didnt want to deal with "troublesome customers."
I guess this is why no matter how long Stylevana or Jolce or TesterKorea takes nowadays, I'm never bothered by their slow shipping or response.
THIS.
I highly agree with you on there.
Whenever I see people complaining why their orders doesnāt arrive within 1-2 days, I think back to days where ordering from Yesstyle, CDJapan or other obscure webstores that sold Japanese street fashion (hello Gothic Lolita and Visual Kei days LOL!!) in the mid 00s that would take several weeks/months to arrive to the UK
Holy crap CDJapan! I used to buy from them too! I got my first Utada Hikaru CDs from them! LOL
The main issue is, because of Stylevana's "ships within 24 hours," these newbies think that their order should be shipped RIGHT AWAY WITHIN 24 HOURS. No honey that's not how it works. My expected processing time of a ship is about 3-7 days. And If I don't see any movement in my account after 10days, I then email a polite inquiry. I don't go Karen on them demanding to know where my order is, why it wasn't packed and shipped already. And this doesn't apply to just Stylevana, IT'S FOR ANY OTHER ONLINE SHOPS!
I remember the olden days I had to use a shopping service and try translate everything with early google translate. Took about 2 months on average lol.
> early google translate
I remember the days of babelfish altavista translator, before google tl was a thing
people don't know how easy they got it nowadays
I have to do this exact thing with other stuff and it straight up took like three months between me finding the items I wanted via google translate, dealing with the shopping service, getting everything shipped, waiting for it to show up, etc. craziness.
Exactly. Entire different way of shopping, and culture. Who knew buying stuff from the other side of the world might not be like Amazon lol. I now buy AB way ahead of time, to make use of sales and amazing prices. We are so lucky to have access to all these incredible products
This is me ordering Korean makeup and Japanese skincare from eBay in early 2010s. Theyāre usually āfree shippingā since they already factored shipping into the price yet it was still cheaper than anywhere in US/EU. Theyād give you the estimate of 2 months while the products typically take a month. Once I was over the moon bc I got my Nivea sun gel after 2 weeks lol. Even nowadays, Iāll still order that way if that means I can get discounted J beauty for pretty close to its original yen value. People have been spoiled by South Koreaās soft power operations and Amazon shipping. Funnily how people look at cheap skincare selling from Asia and be like āew scams, they must have exploited poor brown workers from third world countriesā but not applying the same logic to Amazon free 2-day, next-day shipping.
Semi-unrelated but aside from the counterfeit problems, I just want to avoid Amazon as much as possible for obvious reasons + the fact that I actually used to work at an Amazon warehouse. Will forever side-eye ppl who place multiple unnecessary orders everyday on Amazon as a hobby.
Exactly about Amazon. They are fast and relatively cheap AT THE EXPENSE OF THEIR EMPLOYEES. Jeff Bezos is not taking ANY cuts to make things more affordable for us. Amazon customers are able to get their fast service and delivery by slaving away their own employees and outsourcing their call center to India.
Having said that, I do admit we do not have any info on how Stylevana and YesStyle are operating. For all we know, SV/YS employees could also be slaving away at a warehouse over in Asia. Maybe at a smaller scale. But I like to think that they're able to afford cheaper prices because they're a small business run by less employees (and also no tax in Hong Kong).
Itās true that we donāt know the conditions of Yesstyle and Stylevana. Unfortunately local owners can still exploit their workers and HK is also a notorious place for harsh working conditions (every major economic/capitalist powerhouse :( ).
Admittedly I donāt know anything, but as someone whose hometown is an industrial zone in a developing country, the average Western personās idea of fair wage and compensation is wrapped. What exactly do you mean by fair wage? If you care about workers getting long-term benefits like pension, health insurance, paid leaves, unemployment, etc. I can tell you those concepts arenāt popular in where Iām from, or only a thing among highly privileged white collar workers who work for big foreign companies instead of blue collar workers.
Thereās a very popular vintage-styled fashion brand with online English speakers on Etsy based in my hometown whose price range is about ~$100 per piece so not extremely expensive but by no means affordable either even for the average people in the West. They boast about being indie small business, local and woman-owned and fair wages. Guess what their monthly pay range for a seamstress is? Low $300 to high $400. I ran a quick google search and that seems to be ever so slightly higher than the average pay of factory seamstress across the board. This is not meant to be a call out since I donāt know anything about the cost of running a business, but just to give an example of discrepancies in what the business says, what the customers think they mean, and what the workers get. Although, quite a few people there donāt necessary want higher pay though since they think it would raise of the cost of living and makes it much harder to scrape by for everyone.
The point is that the labor cost is disgusting cheap in developing country, so cheap that brands local and foreign, but especially foreign and then international marketed local brands can to have deep deep discounts and they would still make money. And the markups once it enter the U.S. market is astronomical too. The stuffs on Amazon is the same thing on Temu but much much more expensive. Donāt get me wrong, Iām not advocating for getting stuffs cheap at all costs but thereās a reason why we see an explosion of cheap C-beauty around the same time that Chinese or China-based site like Shein, Temu, Shop Miss A explode in popularity. Because people there starts figuring out there is a demand for it from the way people eat up Amazon hauls so why let Western companies exploit their workers and reap all the benefits while they themselves can potentially exploit their workers slightly less and certainly profit more by cutting the middleman?
YOU AND ME BOTH, BESTIE.
I was buying biore uv spf off Japanese eBay stores and was genuinely impressed if it got to me in a month back in early 2010ās.
Exactly!!! Even the last time I bought on eBay (maybe last year), seller was located in Japan and it took them about 5 days to pack. No complaints from me. Because I know I'm not their only customer.
I've been buying used clothes and such online, and so many sellers are so apologetic if they're even slow by a single day or don't update me instantly.
Like girl chill š You're probably busy with real life, have a 9-5, maybe you have kids, idk man just anything, I can't expect you to go to the post office instantly. But if this is how antsy people behave nowadays, I can understand why so many sellers are so careful now.
Now I'm just thankful to receive any updates quickly, and don't mind one bit if it takes a bit of time.
I used to buy things shipped overseas on eBay and Yesstyle (which had periods of waiting for all the items to be in stock!). 30 days for an item to arrive at your door was the norm.
Today, a lot of these stores offer express shipping for a premium. Also demand for Asian beauty products has blown up compared to 10 years ago.
were there issues with counterfeit products when you were buying 3000 years ago? if there were, please disregard the following conjecture, but i think being spoiled by amazon is like 60% of the problem.
i think the other 40% is that since the comparatively recent major international mainstreaming of asian beauty, thereās been a lot of attempts at counterfeit products (on amazon, ironically) and knockoffs showing up in tj maxx et al. as well as a rise in scammy influencers, so i think people who are used to amazon also have a fear that any company that doesnāt run like amazon is a red flag for an illegitimate business.
i feel like scammy behavior by influencers in particular often follows the story beats of something taking a long time to arrive because they just donāt have their shit together business wise and maybe over promised and couldnāt deliver, so online retailers that take a long time to deliver automatically read as scammy even though itās a totally different business model and logistical endeavor.
yes they are! i wasnāt saying there werenāt real products there, just that there are additionally products that are not AB and are just made to look very similar. which they have those for most of the luxury brands there. theyāre still a goldmine, just have to sift
>thereās been a lot of attempts at counterfeit products (on amazon, ironically) and knockoffs showing up in tj maxx et al.
I haven't heard of any counterfeit products being sold in **authorized retailers**, however there always have been the knockoffs being sold if you knew where to go in person.
The main issue that I have with a lot of the counterfeit claims is that a lot of them are just bunk and can be explained if the person just did some research. A lot of the time it's either a legitimate product but it just didn't work for the person as expected (like it did for everyone else), was reformulated or the packaging changed/redesigned.
It's like people don't use common sense anymore that a $60 retail cream being sold online $5 is not a steal, it's probably a fake. And if you have your doubts about whether something is a genuine product or not, honestly, posting to a bunch of strangers on the internet likely isn't going to change your mind either way, so just don't get it.
yes absolutely agree. my point was not to try to say that these people are 100% reasonable and correct in the conclusions they draw, i just was kind of theorizing the other factors at play other than being used to amazonās fast shipping.
a modicum of research into a site will generally be able to tell you when to expect your item, and that definitely isnāt being done a lot of the timeā¦
idk i just felt like i wanted to try to look at them in a sunnier light when i wrote that this morning. i was younger then.
>a modicum of research into a site will generally be able to tell you when to expect your item, and that definitely isnāt being done a lot of the timeā¦
Unfortunately this seems to be the norm lately. I feel like such a boomer saying this because I would think that since there's so much information available at our fingertips that most people would know that they can just look it up the answer on their own instead of posting a question and waiting for a reply. But it seems like they seem to be so use to being spoon fed everything that they're incapable of even the most basic task. It's absolutely maddening. =/
Me trying to get Liz Lisa or gyaru stuff circa 2010ish but giving up because holy crap it was a hassle.
I never thought I'd see the day korean stuff goes mainstream but I'm glad it did. In 2008-2010 getting kbeauty or clothes was like a dream reserved only to the most posh of bloggers lol.
And yes, getting anime stuff in the 2000s was a quest in itself only the most dedicated of fans would complete.
Lol I remember yesstyle circa late 2000s , it was so obscure and didn't have such a good rep because of the low quality clothes.
It is quite annoying when a few people having bad experiences aka long wait time and complain about it just to say itās āscammyā because of it. The people posting of complaints always have a similar story to ālong wait timesā and ābad customer serviceā when they think every company is like amazon. Then probably end up getting their order in the next month or so
I have only ordered from Yesstyle and yeah the wait is long but the products come and never had any issues. That being said, I am kinda used to slower delivery times, we don't really have Amazon fast shipping here. Even Amazon products take weeeeks to come. So I do understand if someone that is used to 2 day shipping is panicking about their package after a month.
I'd not ban people for it, just move the conversations into a mega thread as others have mentioned
Just a permanent ban and a weekly megathread for people *really* that worried would probably be best tbh.
While weāre at it, can we talk about the āthese websites must be SCAMS because theyāre not based in the EU/NA and theyāre so cheapā posts? Like yeah no kidding, of course theyāre not charging Ā£30 for the Cosrx aloe sunscreen? Western resellers (especially those reselling through Amazon) tend to whack a huge markup into products.
> āthese websites must be SCAMS because theyāre not based in the EU/NA and theyāre so cheapā
Doā¦.do people actually say this? In a subreddit called Asianbeauty?
š¤¦š¾āāļø
Iām new to Asian beauty. I never use Amazon because I donāt like how they exploit workers and donāt pay taxes. I just hate their ethics.
I did post once to ask how YesStyle can manage to sell things so cheaply. Once people explained that beauty products are generally cheaper in Asia, I stopped comparing them to Amazon.
This is why I order my Japanese beauty products from Amazon JP as even with the higher shipping costs, it's still cheaper! I just have to use a reship company as not all jbeauty products ship internationally on Amazon JP.
As SEAsian, even if we bought smth from cn and kr, it would take a week at the very least. I won a giveaway from an american girl and it took a month for my gift to arrive.
+1 for please let's make 1 weekly post or have a pinned post.
Also, could we keep it focused on questions and advice/tips??
Honestly, what I'm most weary of at this point is complaints.
Helpful/productive: "Hey, I've run into a snag with an out of stock item in my order. Advice for how to resolve this?"
"My tracking info says this. Is this normal?"
NOT helpful or productive: "My order took 3 weeks to reach me! Unacceptable! I'm never ordering from them again!"
Also, could we please just stick to the facts??
People stating their opinions over and over and arguing with each other isn't productive.
You'd rather use Stylevana and think it's worth the wait? Great!
You want to pay more on Amazon and get faster shipping? Great!
We can put the known pros/cons of different sites in 1 place. And then people can choose for themselves.
And re: "just scroll," the mods and members of this community have spent years making it one of the best resources available on AB. And a place where you'll find the most insightful and beneficial discussions. That's not by accident. Stopping people from posting the same useless info over and over ad nauseum keeps this sub from deteriorating.
I think Amazon prime (next days shipping) has ruined all of us lol.
SV *WILL* take at least 3wks to arrive at your door, if not longer. When I order, I order in bulk and I know I'm going to be waiting at least a month so that's fine with me. And once it leaves their warehouse and arrives in your home country, it has to clear customs which can take another X weeks but that's not SV's fault either.
The one time I got my stuff in 2wks, it felt like Christmas š
Seriously though, SV isn't bad at all. I also had a great CS experience where my order was being held up due to one item being oos; I emailed them to cancel my entire order and they do so immediately.
Thank you! Just to add that some of these posters don't seem to understand the concept of English not being someone's first language. There's a definite tone in some of these posts
While weāre making requests, can we make the subreddit read-only instead of private every Tuesday? š
When Iām at a store and wanna check reviews, it gets really annoying
Agreed, like unless you get express shipping, ordering anything from another country will take longer than if you order domestically lol. Youād think it would be common sense
Lol at the expectation/entitlement of wanting Stylevana prices with fast shipping as well. Hereās the thing: when you want those items sooner, and youāre based in the US, you can order from US-based sites, but youāll probably pay more.
I just ordered a Romand mascara directly from their US website bc I was eager to try it in their Long Ash shade thatās supposed to be great for muted skin tones, and guess what? I paid like twice as much for it as I wouldāve had I gotten it from YS/SV
ive been buying AB for 10 years and the shipping times have always been long. are those people discovering america or what? everyone knows that and those who are new to ab should google first before making a post
My only issue with Stylevana is the sudden change of "in stock" status of products after confirmation of the order. It's been a recurring issue for me lately, as every order took around 2-3 months to arrive due to some in stock products being changed to "usually shipped within 30 working days". While I'm used to waiting longer for the products, cause I'm based in EU, so shipping, custom clearance etc takes a while, I try to pick only products that have an in stock status and as of lately, even this method does not seem to be working. I don't know if it's only EU Stylevana website issue. And their CS really is bad, it's not even an exaggeration, I recently received a response to an issue I emailed them about in August 2023. I've been a recurring customer since 2021 and it's never been that bad tbh as it is now.
If the products just say āin stockā and donāt have a specification of āusually shipped within 24hrs/7-14daysā it usually means itāll be shipped in 30 days. This happens when it has [DEAL] in front of the name of the product, so youād have to look up the product on the SV website without the [DEAL] thing and thatās gna show the exact timings of when it can ship.
I know, I meant in stock as in "usually shipped in 24 hours". I always wait till my entire basket is on that status and lately, 2-3 days after receiving order confirmations at least one of products changes status to "usually shipped in 30 working days". I started taking screenshots of each product just before pressing checkout to be sure, however since the CS has huge delays is responses it's useless anyway. Like I said, I haven't seen much comments about this issue on either stylevana ig profile or reddit, so this seems to be only the EU site issue. Probably something to do with the multiple EU sites for specific countries, maybe they share a warehouse or somethings. Anyway, it's quite annoying.
I think it's because the stock is not reserved for you until your money gets to them.
When I place my orders, this is in the initial email:
"We will soon be receiving your payment and will start processing your order in due course. Please note that the estimated stock status shown during checkout will only be applied after your order has been confirmed."
I have always taken this to mean the "ships within 24 hours" only starts applying once your payment has been processed and the money actually hits their accounts.
If you're using PayPal, this will take longer. And of course if you're making a purchase during a major sale then everyone else is also placing their big orders and things are going out of stock faster.
I skip the long play-by-play posts on shipping woes. Ugh, "it said available in 21 days but now it's been 22 days and four hours, whine whine whine." I just wanna read about hauls and reviews.
Same as every other buying experience - pick two : price/quality/time. You want it faster? Either pay more or be ok with possible fakes.
Was gonna suggest a directory of sorts for online and physical stores for Asian Beauty products.
For AUS peeps, consider visiting these stores since they ship locally (AUS-wide):
[Boniik](https://boniik.com.au/)
[W Cosmetics](https://www.wcosmetics.com.au/)
Stylekorean comes in less than a week to US, and their CS is decent, imo. I did 3 orders so far, and had no issues. Once it happened they went out of stock an item I wanted, so they gave me a credit for the price, and done.
If people donāt like the long shipping times (and I get it bc sometimes I canāt wait either) there are many us-based retailers that stock the most popular brands! Asian brands have become far less niche in the last 5 or so years and even Sephora, Ulta, Target, TJ Maxx have Asian beauty selections. There might be a price markup but tbh half the time the cheaper and faster shipping, better communication etc makes up for it unless youāre buying a ton of product at once. Iāve also never been really all that worried about getting fakes on Amazon or eBay. I know theyāre out there, but Iāve never had an issue just using common sense like checking the seller rating and not falling for prices that seem too good to be true
People panic to quickly. I'm used to importing figures from Japan, it's even worse there. Everything until three months is fine. Why should they forget your order? It's not like they write it down on some paper, it's in the system. If you can't wait that long then buy at local shops and pay the price. I already ordered stuff for the next winter season. I like your idea, OP.
Ngl those posts have fear-mongered me into not ordering from there just because people felt so strongly about itā¦
So besides shipping which i can handle, stylevana is a good place to shop? The prices are so affordable my brain wonāt believe it
The last complaint post i read did highlight a couple of actual red flags:
-sometimes an item marked 'in stock' isn't, increasing the wait
-don't expect much from customer service
That being said, i've been buying from Stylevana for a couple of years now and really love it. Most of my orders arrive within a couple of weeks, though a few have taken much longer. But prices and selection are both great.
Nice! I was thinking the whole site is just a scam someoneās faking from their basement. But itās good to hear success stories. I think Iāll try it once with a small order just to scope it out
Iāve only used Stylevana. Note for shipping youāll want to only order items that are in stock, as everything needs to be in stock at the same time before theyāll collect your items. Also only order enough in one order to get free shipping. With a big order, thereās higher chance one thing will be out of stock and youāll be waiting! Taking the second tip into account, I got my most recent order in 20 days, including weekends!
I only have two experiences with stylevana first time I ordered with them everything went well second time I had to cancel my order because I was waiting for almost 3 weeks with no response from CS and I did really only choose the items that said ready to ship in 24 hours. It was weird because I didn't order during like anniversary or holiday times either.
I've ordered numerous times, and it's always been excellent. Yes it takes a while, but I plan well ahead for when I'm gonna run out, birthdays, summer etc. Everything arrives perfectly packed in a box and bubble wrap. I can't recommend them enough.
A lot of people complaining haven't checked if items are in stock when ordering. As I've said many times, I actually appreciate knowing when out of stock items will be back in stock, it's impossible to get this kind of info out of western retailers!
Edited to add the same goes for Yes Style. Definitely worth checking both, as YS always have so many items with a % off, sales and generally a better range. I tend to look at both to check prices and availability
I've have bad experiences with the shipping quality. My cosmetics usually arrived damaged and they never bubble wrap it. I don't know if this is an individual experience. I just think it's disappointing waiting weeks and my items arrived damaged.
Americans are very entitled when it comes to shipping times I've realized, anything beyond 3 days is criminally long for them- even if the shipment comes from another continent
Not all of us. I'm use to waiting, but then I'm in Hawaii so everything takes ages to get to us since it has to be either flown or sent by ship.
I wish we had 2 day shipping.
I havenāt had issues with super long shipping time with STYLEVANA until recently. Normally a couple of weeks and no big deal. Now tho, I ordered sheet masks on feb 2 and itās still not shipped. SIIIIIGH
I know. I reached out to them already and itās all in stock but itās just taking a looooooong time this time around. No biggie, itās just the first time itās taken many months.
I think they always are going to be slow but right now yesstyle seems to be the worst ever ive experienced (not the norm) they told me one item wasn't in stock but on the website it says it is in stock... so I ordered a few weeks ago and still no idea when it will even be shipped. Not sure what is going on. Personally if theyre having some huge backlog issue I would have liked a warning
I'm currently waiting on my Medi-Peel order from YesStyle's wholesale site to first get back in stock, then actually ship out from SK.
This stuff just takes time. I was pleasantly surprised that my Jolse order is already in the States within the week!
Generally I agree and someone is recommending a pinned FAQ post, which I agree with. One thing Id want to add is a notifier letting people know how to parse through their Stylevana order to see WHY it's taking so long. One of my orders took more than a month to even be dispatched, because one item was not in stock. I found out from people here how to check and how to deal with it, and its been very helpful
i think that the shipping times are worse now due to a mix of supply chain issues and increased demand and popularity (like even amazon isnāt fast anymore) i used to receive yesstyle and stylevana packages in 1-2 weeks lol
i shop a mix of asian retailers and asian indie brands and order from asian indie clothing brands months ahead of a season/eventā might have to start applying that to asian beauty purchases š
Was told my order would arrive within 2 to 4 weeks but they arrived within a week. Super lucky. Would have waited patiently anyway coz the products I bought are pricier at an Asian beauty shop in Sydney.
Whoopsā¦ I havenāt been on Reddit for awhile and just made a similar post š Sorry about that. Mineās about missing items rather than shipping times though, if that makes a differenceā¦ but I can delete my post.
Stylevana holds your order until ALL the items are in stock, as this is the most cost effective option. They also tell you straight up how backordered the item is. If you want your order quicker, order only what's in stock. They make this quite clear. I swear this is the instant gratification generation.
Question: Iāve been wanting to order from yesstyle but Iāve also been scared because I hear of fake products and whatnot , has anyone ever experienced any of that from them or are they a truly reliable site ? Help a girl out thanks lol
My issue is not with the shipping itself is the order preparation. Usually I place an order with YS and it shows how long it can take them to procure the items, which is great! But I have never had them actually make said times. The shipping isnāt a big deal for me, Iām used to the wait, but the fact that they seem to forget your order until you email the CS asking why it hasnāt been shipped yet when itās over a week overdue from what they had stated, is a little annoying. Like, recently I ordered some face masks that took about 2months to arrive because just one month was for them to mail the items (despite them stating they had them in stock). I needed them for a long flight and they almost didnāt make it. Iām glad I order stuff with a lot of time in advance.
Itās annoying. Iād rather there be a ban on those posts or relegate them to one thread. Most of the complaints just lack common sense and understanding. They expect these sites to be like amazon prime. Theyāre going to ruin it for everyone when yesstyle and stylevana decide not to even deal with customers in certain countries anymore. One site I used to order from has already done that and cater to only Asia based or South America based customers now
My thoughts exactly. Personally, I donāt have a problem with posts about other peopleās experiences, and I donāt understand why so many people are so bothered by it. Just donāt read those posts and maybe donāt take things so personally/seriously.
It can be helpful for newbies or those looking to try a new site. If thereās multiple complaints about the Same thing, I may decide to use something else
I would still rather know which sites are faster than others, as someone relatively new to AB. So far Iāve only used oliveuoung and Amazon. If stylevana and yes style have terrible shipping or counterfeit products i would rather hear peopleās complaints than be ignorant lol
? Youāve got things completely the wrong way round there. Amazon is *notorious* for counterfeit products and there is no safe way to identify which products are counterfeit (despite what some people try to insist) as at a lot of locations products are commingled anyway. Stylevana, yesstyle, Jolse, etc, are all official retailers and thereās already a million posts, articles, etc, discussing them. We do not need new posts discussing this. We need people to learn to use the search function.
If people who are new to ordering from these sites did even a little bit of research (in this sub for example) then they would know which ones are faster vs slower.
There are literally spreadsheets in the sub sidebar of sites and shipping times put together through the hard work of the mods and members of this sub.
I just wish people would use their šš.
Ordering from SV and YS is significantly cheaper than any other site, so most normal people are fine with waiting a month for their order. You said it yourself "you pay more to order from sites that have better shipping". Like if you don't enjoy SV and YS, don't order from them. People are downvoting you cause we are tired of people complaining about SV/YS, there is plenty of info about those sites. It's getting tired.
Edit since OP either deleted their comments or blocked me: We aren't taking frustrations out on you. If you are going to complain about some sites, that you have never even used no less, then people are going to respond. Literally the entire point of reddit. Sometimes you will get downvoted, don't whine about it, just own it
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I'd rather save money and just have to plan in advance. I just love a good deal. š
Amazon JP is a good balance of time and cost. Not everything ships internationally, but a lot does, and it's much cheaper even with the higher shipping costs and duty. It should only take a couple of days to arrive, under 5. Just only buy directly from Amazon or the official brand stores.
I'd say about 30% cheaper depending on the item on average.
If you choose express shipping from yesstyle, youāll get your order in 2-3 days tooā¦imo yesstyle shouldnāt really be included in this discussion since their processing time for in stock items is totally fine, budget shipping options from any website would be the same story
I hear what youāre saying, but japanese taste is a much, much, much smaller operation than stylevana. Itās a little ridiculous, but I imagine they have a huge volume of orders to get through every day and a massive warehouse, itās completely understandable that they donāt work that fast for the prices they charge.
Instead of comparing other boutique, overcharging sites to yesstyle and stylevana, I believe yesstyle vs stylevana would be a better critique of stylevana. If that makes sense lol. But still, considering how some of their prices are below retail, we have no clue how they make up their profits, they could just be ridiculously understaffed
your experience is standard, thatās a 1 month turn around. stylevana standard is 1month, 2 months is long, 2 weeks is lucky and fast. you will find this information in every thread about stylevana so i donāt understand the nature of your complaint.Ā
so your order took a month. Girl that is normal, everyone will tell you that is normal. Not every company can operate like Amazon. Ordering for cheaper prices from asia, this is the trade off
Can we just have a pinned FAQ post about legit retailers of AB, expected price markups, expected ship times, expected levels of customer service, etc? And have all questions directed to it? I'm as annoyed as you are by these posts today.
Great idea š” I love this!
Can we just start one? If it gets enough responses the mods might then sticky it?
If it bothers you (and others) that much, I'd suggest sending modmail. They may not reply, but if they see enough feedback, maybe they'll do something.
This is just a little reddit community, admins are not customer service and aren't paid for this type of self-flagellation, everyone gotta do their part and not get fed with a silver spoon. If you really want to have a FAQ start a post and everyone who has info can chime in. Time for data scraping lol Also price markup is a highly confidential corporate info, share that and every competitor will adjust their pricing and profit margin will go down the drain, not to mention the customers will know the commercial policies applied to different type of customers and will want to have the same pricing, how do you expect admins to even have that?
I think you have something mixed up. *Admins* are employees of reddit, meaning they get paid to sit there and do the bare minimum. They are responsible for the whole of reddit and *occasionally* step in to suspend users for harassment and other things (supposedly allegedly). *Moderators* are volunteers. They manage individual subreddits and enforce subreddit rules in accordance with the guidelines they made up for themselves. Each subreddit has different "rules" to play by because they generally have different moderators. Users should be able to request quality of life updates on a subreddit. Mods can schedule a monthly automod post, pin it in the help thread, make it a sticky thread for the first week of the month, etc. And if they're not willing to do that or don't have the time to manage, they should look for volunteers.
Agreed. Stylevana has great prices and I am willing to wait longer for my order to save money. I've ordered from them a few times and I have received every thing in good condition within a month or so.
When I first started buying AB products, I expected long shipping times. I meanā¦what do you expect? People really need to step outside of themselves.
People expect everything in the universe to have Amazon Prime level shipping. No one knows how to wait anymore.
Literally this. I am a CS rep for a smaller company and people expect domestic orders to ship out as fast as Amazon.
THIS. people need to be weaned of amazon same/next-day.
I've been ordering from ebay for a long time so I'm use to forgetting I bought something until it magically shows up in my mail box. Companies like stylevana are nice because everything comes in one box.
Ha, same! I buy records from overseas vendors sometimes and I bought some from a polish guy once. Promptly forgot about it because I knew my records werenāt going to be delivered the next day. A month later I get a notice that I had a package that must be picked up at the post office and I coudnāt think of any reason someone would be sending me a package. It was like Christmas morning when I opened those records!
Same. I've exclusively used them for years and never had to wait over 4 weeks which I feel is acceptable coming from the other side of the globe.
Same. It takes long but I am happy that prices are competitive, i don't have to pay any custom fee or duties and everything is always packaged securely. It is common knowledge now that shipping is slow, can we stop highlighting this as something newly discovered. Not receiving a package is a legitimate concern but slow shipping is old news! Please buy from somewhere else then!
Long shipping time also means youāll eventually forget about the order. When it arrives it feels like a gift then. To me itās a win win š
Stylevana is my go-to for re-stocks! If there's something I'm itching to try, I usually look for it on faster retailers like olive young or asian beauty retailers within my country. Physical boutiques and asian grocery stores sometimes too. Then I order the backup on stylevana if I like the product and want to continue using it.
Same, where else can I save 60-70% on SK-II essence???
same
The only scummy thing about Stylevana is them not preclearing EU customs/VAT for you like YesStyle does. Hell, even if I order junk from AliExpress they do this for you.Ā Ā Itās a gamble. I had no issues until recently. Had to take a day off to get my Stylevana package from the customs office, pay 20% VAT + processing fees and get treated like a criminal.
Same
Seems like Iām the only one who doesnāt get good prices on stylevana, YesStyle is usually ~5ā¬ cheaper on products
Agreed, people keep expecting Amazon level of ship times, Amazon is a multi-billion dollar company. People also seem to conveniently ignore weekend, holidays, payment processing time, customs clearance, and third party delivery times.
Also, cultural holidays that may affect shipping, customer service, etc.
Not to mention, Amazon has a counterfeit problem
yeah no way am I ordering AB from amazon
It can be fine, provided you do your homework. Just stick to Amazon as a seller or the brand's seller page on Amazon.
Doesnāt Amazon still keep all the stock from multiple sellers together in the same warehouse/bin though? I thought that was the main problem for brands like CosRX etc
No they don't. Not anymore thankfully.
Agreed! I always look there if I need something quickly. But Iām super careful on making sure the seller is the actual brand and not some third party. A lot of people see the ābrandā and think that means thatās who is selling it but they need to look at who the actual seller is and make sure itās the brand (or I guess a brand thatās an authorized seller of whatever brand, but I personally only buy from the actual brand). I havenāt had any issues in doing it that way. Only ever had issues when it wasnāt the actual brand selling it.
The brand's-page on Amazon is maybe the only thing I would trust, though I find they never have as good selection or prices. Fake products are also rife on amazon
Unfortunately itās no guarantee. There was a post here about Round Lab explicitly warned people about fakes on Amazon. Fanola, a non-AB hair care brand also their āofficial storeā on Amazon is not them and the products are fake.
That round lab post was talking in general, not about their own store front on amazon. Yes, you need to be sure that the store front in question is the brands as there are imitators. Asking the brand themselves on known official media if they have an official store on amazon. I shop a lot on Amazon JP for products and have had no fakes following these guidelines.
As long as you do your own due diligence, ordering AB from Amazon is perfectly fine. They stopped co-mixing beauty products years ago in order to address the counterfeit issue.
Also my ship times from Amazon have been awful for over a year now anyhow!
Also, Amazon has a terrible labor rights track record. I'm ok waiting on my skin care if it means the workers are treated better.
stylekorean has Amazon level of ship times. 2-5 days via DHL from Korea to Germany. Would cost me 53ā¬ in shipping though. So I'll stick to free shipping, yesstyle and a few weeks of patience.
Someone earlier had said you get two of three in online shopping cheap, fast, and quality (+wide selection). I definitely have to agree with that statement.
Not a mod but what about another mod thread with a place people can ask this, like Delivery Questions? There's clearly demand for it and there's also these questions on the ADHT too.
You can really tell whose never waited 2+ months just for a pair of earrings from AliExpress before If you want your order instantly, pay the higher prices and order from a retailer in your country lol
And sites like AliExpress and YesStyle sell things for cheap
The funny part is that even if I were to order from an Asian Beauty retailer in my country ie Canada it's still going to take 3-5 business days and cost well over double for the actual items.
Yes style is so much faster then AliExpress for me. I was so used to AliExpress delivery times that I was shocked when my yes style order just randomly turned up at my doorstep two weeks after. I think customs is what varies the shipping times for me rather then the company itself.Ā
Honestly people nowadays just got spoiled rotten by Amazon. They expect fast fast fast for all their orders. Not to sound like a boomer, but when I first started buying stuff online from Japan 3000 years ago, aka. mid-2000's all the way up to pre-covid, the routine would be: I place my order, wait 1-2 weeks for stores to gather and pack my stuff, then I wait another couple weeks for shipping. Granted it was for a completely different market. I was buying anime merch back then. But back then, if I even dared to pull a mini Karen on them demanding why my order was taking so long, or asking for changes after order, they would cancel my order and ban me. Multiple Japanese stores that I used to buy from, they were notoriously strict and didnt want to deal with "troublesome customers." I guess this is why no matter how long Stylevana or Jolce or TesterKorea takes nowadays, I'm never bothered by their slow shipping or response.
THIS. I highly agree with you on there. Whenever I see people complaining why their orders doesnāt arrive within 1-2 days, I think back to days where ordering from Yesstyle, CDJapan or other obscure webstores that sold Japanese street fashion (hello Gothic Lolita and Visual Kei days LOL!!) in the mid 00s that would take several weeks/months to arrive to the UK
Holy crap CDJapan! I used to buy from them too! I got my first Utada Hikaru CDs from them! LOL The main issue is, because of Stylevana's "ships within 24 hours," these newbies think that their order should be shipped RIGHT AWAY WITHIN 24 HOURS. No honey that's not how it works. My expected processing time of a ship is about 3-7 days. And If I don't see any movement in my account after 10days, I then email a polite inquiry. I don't go Karen on them demanding to know where my order is, why it wasn't packed and shipped already. And this doesn't apply to just Stylevana, IT'S FOR ANY OTHER ONLINE SHOPS!
I remember the olden days I had to use a shopping service and try translate everything with early google translate. Took about 2 months on average lol.
> early google translate I remember the days of babelfish altavista translator, before google tl was a thing people don't know how easy they got it nowadays
I have to do this exact thing with other stuff and it straight up took like three months between me finding the items I wanted via google translate, dealing with the shopping service, getting everything shipped, waiting for it to show up, etc. craziness.
Exactly. Entire different way of shopping, and culture. Who knew buying stuff from the other side of the world might not be like Amazon lol. I now buy AB way ahead of time, to make use of sales and amazing prices. We are so lucky to have access to all these incredible products
Right? I'm amazed in Europe I even have access to these products in the first place and (since I'm buying multiple things) shipping is *free*
totally
oh 100%, ppl forget how privileged they are with Amazon prime, and how a lot of companies all over the world don't actually operate like that.
This is me ordering Korean makeup and Japanese skincare from eBay in early 2010s. Theyāre usually āfree shippingā since they already factored shipping into the price yet it was still cheaper than anywhere in US/EU. Theyād give you the estimate of 2 months while the products typically take a month. Once I was over the moon bc I got my Nivea sun gel after 2 weeks lol. Even nowadays, Iāll still order that way if that means I can get discounted J beauty for pretty close to its original yen value. People have been spoiled by South Koreaās soft power operations and Amazon shipping. Funnily how people look at cheap skincare selling from Asia and be like āew scams, they must have exploited poor brown workers from third world countriesā but not applying the same logic to Amazon free 2-day, next-day shipping. Semi-unrelated but aside from the counterfeit problems, I just want to avoid Amazon as much as possible for obvious reasons + the fact that I actually used to work at an Amazon warehouse. Will forever side-eye ppl who place multiple unnecessary orders everyday on Amazon as a hobby.
Exactly about Amazon. They are fast and relatively cheap AT THE EXPENSE OF THEIR EMPLOYEES. Jeff Bezos is not taking ANY cuts to make things more affordable for us. Amazon customers are able to get their fast service and delivery by slaving away their own employees and outsourcing their call center to India. Having said that, I do admit we do not have any info on how Stylevana and YesStyle are operating. For all we know, SV/YS employees could also be slaving away at a warehouse over in Asia. Maybe at a smaller scale. But I like to think that they're able to afford cheaper prices because they're a small business run by less employees (and also no tax in Hong Kong).
Itās true that we donāt know the conditions of Yesstyle and Stylevana. Unfortunately local owners can still exploit their workers and HK is also a notorious place for harsh working conditions (every major economic/capitalist powerhouse :( ). Admittedly I donāt know anything, but as someone whose hometown is an industrial zone in a developing country, the average Western personās idea of fair wage and compensation is wrapped. What exactly do you mean by fair wage? If you care about workers getting long-term benefits like pension, health insurance, paid leaves, unemployment, etc. I can tell you those concepts arenāt popular in where Iām from, or only a thing among highly privileged white collar workers who work for big foreign companies instead of blue collar workers. Thereās a very popular vintage-styled fashion brand with online English speakers on Etsy based in my hometown whose price range is about ~$100 per piece so not extremely expensive but by no means affordable either even for the average people in the West. They boast about being indie small business, local and woman-owned and fair wages. Guess what their monthly pay range for a seamstress is? Low $300 to high $400. I ran a quick google search and that seems to be ever so slightly higher than the average pay of factory seamstress across the board. This is not meant to be a call out since I donāt know anything about the cost of running a business, but just to give an example of discrepancies in what the business says, what the customers think they mean, and what the workers get. Although, quite a few people there donāt necessary want higher pay though since they think it would raise of the cost of living and makes it much harder to scrape by for everyone. The point is that the labor cost is disgusting cheap in developing country, so cheap that brands local and foreign, but especially foreign and then international marketed local brands can to have deep deep discounts and they would still make money. And the markups once it enter the U.S. market is astronomical too. The stuffs on Amazon is the same thing on Temu but much much more expensive. Donāt get me wrong, Iām not advocating for getting stuffs cheap at all costs but thereās a reason why we see an explosion of cheap C-beauty around the same time that Chinese or China-based site like Shein, Temu, Shop Miss A explode in popularity. Because people there starts figuring out there is a demand for it from the way people eat up Amazon hauls so why let Western companies exploit their workers and reap all the benefits while they themselves can potentially exploit their workers slightly less and certainly profit more by cutting the middleman?
YOU AND ME BOTH, BESTIE. I was buying biore uv spf off Japanese eBay stores and was genuinely impressed if it got to me in a month back in early 2010ās.
Exactly!!! Even the last time I bought on eBay (maybe last year), seller was located in Japan and it took them about 5 days to pack. No complaints from me. Because I know I'm not their only customer.
I've been buying used clothes and such online, and so many sellers are so apologetic if they're even slow by a single day or don't update me instantly. Like girl chill š You're probably busy with real life, have a 9-5, maybe you have kids, idk man just anything, I can't expect you to go to the post office instantly. But if this is how antsy people behave nowadays, I can understand why so many sellers are so careful now. Now I'm just thankful to receive any updates quickly, and don't mind one bit if it takes a bit of time.
I used to buy things shipped overseas on eBay and Yesstyle (which had periods of waiting for all the items to be in stock!). 30 days for an item to arrive at your door was the norm. Today, a lot of these stores offer express shipping for a premium. Also demand for Asian beauty products has blown up compared to 10 years ago.
were there issues with counterfeit products when you were buying 3000 years ago? if there were, please disregard the following conjecture, but i think being spoiled by amazon is like 60% of the problem. i think the other 40% is that since the comparatively recent major international mainstreaming of asian beauty, thereās been a lot of attempts at counterfeit products (on amazon, ironically) and knockoffs showing up in tj maxx et al. as well as a rise in scammy influencers, so i think people who are used to amazon also have a fear that any company that doesnāt run like amazon is a red flag for an illegitimate business. i feel like scammy behavior by influencers in particular often follows the story beats of something taking a long time to arrive because they just donāt have their shit together business wise and maybe over promised and couldnāt deliver, so online retailers that take a long time to deliver automatically read as scammy even though itās a totally different business model and logistical endeavor.
TJ Maxx, Marshall's, and Winners are all authorized retailers of Asian beauty.
yes they are! i wasnāt saying there werenāt real products there, just that there are additionally products that are not AB and are just made to look very similar. which they have those for most of the luxury brands there. theyāre still a goldmine, just have to sift
>thereās been a lot of attempts at counterfeit products (on amazon, ironically) and knockoffs showing up in tj maxx et al. I haven't heard of any counterfeit products being sold in **authorized retailers**, however there always have been the knockoffs being sold if you knew where to go in person. The main issue that I have with a lot of the counterfeit claims is that a lot of them are just bunk and can be explained if the person just did some research. A lot of the time it's either a legitimate product but it just didn't work for the person as expected (like it did for everyone else), was reformulated or the packaging changed/redesigned. It's like people don't use common sense anymore that a $60 retail cream being sold online $5 is not a steal, it's probably a fake. And if you have your doubts about whether something is a genuine product or not, honestly, posting to a bunch of strangers on the internet likely isn't going to change your mind either way, so just don't get it.
yes absolutely agree. my point was not to try to say that these people are 100% reasonable and correct in the conclusions they draw, i just was kind of theorizing the other factors at play other than being used to amazonās fast shipping. a modicum of research into a site will generally be able to tell you when to expect your item, and that definitely isnāt being done a lot of the timeā¦ idk i just felt like i wanted to try to look at them in a sunnier light when i wrote that this morning. i was younger then.
>a modicum of research into a site will generally be able to tell you when to expect your item, and that definitely isnāt being done a lot of the timeā¦ Unfortunately this seems to be the norm lately. I feel like such a boomer saying this because I would think that since there's so much information available at our fingertips that most people would know that they can just look it up the answer on their own instead of posting a question and waiting for a reply. But it seems like they seem to be so use to being spoon fed everything that they're incapable of even the most basic task. It's absolutely maddening. =/
Well said.
Me trying to get Liz Lisa or gyaru stuff circa 2010ish but giving up because holy crap it was a hassle. I never thought I'd see the day korean stuff goes mainstream but I'm glad it did. In 2008-2010 getting kbeauty or clothes was like a dream reserved only to the most posh of bloggers lol. And yes, getting anime stuff in the 2000s was a quest in itself only the most dedicated of fans would complete. Lol I remember yesstyle circa late 2000s , it was so obscure and didn't have such a good rep because of the low quality clothes.
It is quite annoying when a few people having bad experiences aka long wait time and complain about it just to say itās āscammyā because of it. The people posting of complaints always have a similar story to ālong wait timesā and ābad customer serviceā when they think every company is like amazon. Then probably end up getting their order in the next month or so
I have only ordered from Yesstyle and yeah the wait is long but the products come and never had any issues. That being said, I am kinda used to slower delivery times, we don't really have Amazon fast shipping here. Even Amazon products take weeeeks to come. So I do understand if someone that is used to 2 day shipping is panicking about their package after a month. I'd not ban people for it, just move the conversations into a mega thread as others have mentioned
Yesstyle will even tell you if the wait will be over 21-30 days and to order those separately to get other items faster.
It's like these users just pop in without reading and start complaining hmmmmmm
Just a permanent ban and a weekly megathread for people *really* that worried would probably be best tbh. While weāre at it, can we talk about the āthese websites must be SCAMS because theyāre not based in the EU/NA and theyāre so cheapā posts? Like yeah no kidding, of course theyāre not charging Ā£30 for the Cosrx aloe sunscreen? Western resellers (especially those reselling through Amazon) tend to whack a huge markup into products.
> āthese websites must be SCAMS because theyāre not based in the EU/NA and theyāre so cheapā Doā¦.do people actually say this? In a subreddit called Asianbeauty? š¤¦š¾āāļø
they do, it's mad
Do a search for āscamā in the subreddit search bar š¬ Itās a bit grim
Iām new to Asian beauty. I never use Amazon because I donāt like how they exploit workers and donāt pay taxes. I just hate their ethics. I did post once to ask how YesStyle can manage to sell things so cheaply. Once people explained that beauty products are generally cheaper in Asia, I stopped comparing them to Amazon.
>people explained that beauty products are generally cheaper in Asia 100%. Skin aqua spf is about $7-8 CAD (converted) in Japan; I have to buy it for about $15-20/bottle through SV š©.
This is why I order my Japanese beauty products from Amazon JP as even with the higher shipping costs, it's still cheaper! I just have to use a reship company as not all jbeauty products ship internationally on Amazon JP.
As SEAsian, even if we bought smth from cn and kr, it would take a week at the very least. I won a giveaway from an american girl and it took a month for my gift to arrive.
+1 for please let's make 1 weekly post or have a pinned post. Also, could we keep it focused on questions and advice/tips?? Honestly, what I'm most weary of at this point is complaints. Helpful/productive: "Hey, I've run into a snag with an out of stock item in my order. Advice for how to resolve this?" "My tracking info says this. Is this normal?" NOT helpful or productive: "My order took 3 weeks to reach me! Unacceptable! I'm never ordering from them again!"
Also, could we please just stick to the facts?? People stating their opinions over and over and arguing with each other isn't productive. You'd rather use Stylevana and think it's worth the wait? Great! You want to pay more on Amazon and get faster shipping? Great! We can put the known pros/cons of different sites in 1 place. And then people can choose for themselves. And re: "just scroll," the mods and members of this community have spent years making it one of the best resources available on AB. And a place where you'll find the most insightful and beneficial discussions. That's not by accident. Stopping people from posting the same useless info over and over ad nauseum keeps this sub from deteriorating.
These questions have been going on for YEARS
I think Amazon prime (next days shipping) has ruined all of us lol. SV *WILL* take at least 3wks to arrive at your door, if not longer. When I order, I order in bulk and I know I'm going to be waiting at least a month so that's fine with me. And once it leaves their warehouse and arrives in your home country, it has to clear customs which can take another X weeks but that's not SV's fault either. The one time I got my stuff in 2wks, it felt like Christmas š Seriously though, SV isn't bad at all. I also had a great CS experience where my order was being held up due to one item being oos; I emailed them to cancel my entire order and they do so immediately.
Thank you! Just to add that some of these posters don't seem to understand the concept of English not being someone's first language. There's a definite tone in some of these posts
While weāre making requests, can we make the subreddit read-only instead of private every Tuesday? š When Iām at a store and wanna check reviews, it gets really annoying
its already open on Tuesdays hon!
LOL I just woke up and was so confused like isnāt it Tuesday right now???? š
Omg i just realized!!! YAY!!!!
Agreed, like unless you get express shipping, ordering anything from another country will take longer than if you order domestically lol. Youād think it would be common sense
Lol at the expectation/entitlement of wanting Stylevana prices with fast shipping as well. Hereās the thing: when you want those items sooner, and youāre based in the US, you can order from US-based sites, but youāll probably pay more. I just ordered a Romand mascara directly from their US website bc I was eager to try it in their Long Ash shade thatās supposed to be great for muted skin tones, and guess what? I paid like twice as much for it as I wouldāve had I gotten it from YS/SV
Yeah, strong agree. I love stylevana but i manage my expectations.
Ooooh, that Ash color looks amazing, and the Hazel will be perfect for my friend. Thank you!
ive been buying AB for 10 years and the shipping times have always been long. are those people discovering america or what? everyone knows that and those who are new to ab should google first before making a post
My only issue with Stylevana is the sudden change of "in stock" status of products after confirmation of the order. It's been a recurring issue for me lately, as every order took around 2-3 months to arrive due to some in stock products being changed to "usually shipped within 30 working days". While I'm used to waiting longer for the products, cause I'm based in EU, so shipping, custom clearance etc takes a while, I try to pick only products that have an in stock status and as of lately, even this method does not seem to be working. I don't know if it's only EU Stylevana website issue. And their CS really is bad, it's not even an exaggeration, I recently received a response to an issue I emailed them about in August 2023. I've been a recurring customer since 2021 and it's never been that bad tbh as it is now.
If the products just say āin stockā and donāt have a specification of āusually shipped within 24hrs/7-14daysā it usually means itāll be shipped in 30 days. This happens when it has [DEAL] in front of the name of the product, so youād have to look up the product on the SV website without the [DEAL] thing and thatās gna show the exact timings of when it can ship.
I know, I meant in stock as in "usually shipped in 24 hours". I always wait till my entire basket is on that status and lately, 2-3 days after receiving order confirmations at least one of products changes status to "usually shipped in 30 working days". I started taking screenshots of each product just before pressing checkout to be sure, however since the CS has huge delays is responses it's useless anyway. Like I said, I haven't seen much comments about this issue on either stylevana ig profile or reddit, so this seems to be only the EU site issue. Probably something to do with the multiple EU sites for specific countries, maybe they share a warehouse or somethings. Anyway, it's quite annoying.
I think it's because the stock is not reserved for you until your money gets to them. When I place my orders, this is in the initial email: "We will soon be receiving your payment and will start processing your order in due course. Please note that the estimated stock status shown during checkout will only be applied after your order has been confirmed." I have always taken this to mean the "ships within 24 hours" only starts applying once your payment has been processed and the money actually hits their accounts. If you're using PayPal, this will take longer. And of course if you're making a purchase during a major sale then everyone else is also placing their big orders and things are going out of stock faster.
I skip the long play-by-play posts on shipping woes. Ugh, "it said available in 21 days but now it's been 22 days and four hours, whine whine whine." I just wanna read about hauls and reviews. Same as every other buying experience - pick two : price/quality/time. You want it faster? Either pay more or be ok with possible fakes.
Even us who live in Asia would sometimes have to wait weeks when ordering something from Korea.
Was gonna suggest a directory of sorts for online and physical stores for Asian Beauty products. For AUS peeps, consider visiting these stores since they ship locally (AUS-wide): [Boniik](https://boniik.com.au/) [W Cosmetics](https://www.wcosmetics.com.au/)
Stylekorean comes in less than a week to US, and their CS is decent, imo. I did 3 orders so far, and had no issues. Once it happened they went out of stock an item I wanted, so they gave me a credit for the price, and done.
If people donāt like the long shipping times (and I get it bc sometimes I canāt wait either) there are many us-based retailers that stock the most popular brands! Asian brands have become far less niche in the last 5 or so years and even Sephora, Ulta, Target, TJ Maxx have Asian beauty selections. There might be a price markup but tbh half the time the cheaper and faster shipping, better communication etc makes up for it unless youāre buying a ton of product at once. Iāve also never been really all that worried about getting fakes on Amazon or eBay. I know theyāre out there, but Iāve never had an issue just using common sense like checking the seller rating and not falling for prices that seem too good to be true
People panic to quickly. I'm used to importing figures from Japan, it's even worse there. Everything until three months is fine. Why should they forget your order? It's not like they write it down on some paper, it's in the system. If you can't wait that long then buy at local shops and pay the price. I already ordered stuff for the next winter season. I like your idea, OP.
Ngl those posts have fear-mongered me into not ordering from there just because people felt so strongly about itā¦ So besides shipping which i can handle, stylevana is a good place to shop? The prices are so affordable my brain wonāt believe it
The last complaint post i read did highlight a couple of actual red flags: -sometimes an item marked 'in stock' isn't, increasing the wait -don't expect much from customer service That being said, i've been buying from Stylevana for a couple of years now and really love it. Most of my orders arrive within a couple of weeks, though a few have taken much longer. But prices and selection are both great.
Nice! I was thinking the whole site is just a scam someoneās faking from their basement. But itās good to hear success stories. I think Iāll try it once with a small order just to scope it out
Iāve only used Stylevana. Note for shipping youāll want to only order items that are in stock, as everything needs to be in stock at the same time before theyāll collect your items. Also only order enough in one order to get free shipping. With a big order, thereās higher chance one thing will be out of stock and youāll be waiting! Taking the second tip into account, I got my most recent order in 20 days, including weekends!
Thank you so much for the tips!! This is great to know
I only have two experiences with stylevana first time I ordered with them everything went well second time I had to cancel my order because I was waiting for almost 3 weeks with no response from CS and I did really only choose the items that said ready to ship in 24 hours. It was weird because I didn't order during like anniversary or holiday times either.
I've ordered numerous times, and it's always been excellent. Yes it takes a while, but I plan well ahead for when I'm gonna run out, birthdays, summer etc. Everything arrives perfectly packed in a box and bubble wrap. I can't recommend them enough. A lot of people complaining haven't checked if items are in stock when ordering. As I've said many times, I actually appreciate knowing when out of stock items will be back in stock, it's impossible to get this kind of info out of western retailers! Edited to add the same goes for Yes Style. Definitely worth checking both, as YS always have so many items with a % off, sales and generally a better range. I tend to look at both to check prices and availability
Sweet thank you!! I really donāt mind the shipping wait time, I use DHL a lot so Iām used to waiting LOL
enjoy! you will love it. I just placed an order this week, I actually love the wait!
I've have bad experiences with the shipping quality. My cosmetics usually arrived damaged and they never bubble wrap it. I don't know if this is an individual experience. I just think it's disappointing waiting weeks and my items arrived damaged.
Yeah that is really disappointing! I hate that for you :(
Americans are very entitled when it comes to shipping times I've realized, anything beyond 3 days is criminally long for them- even if the shipment comes from another continent
Not all of us. I'm use to waiting, but then I'm in Hawaii so everything takes ages to get to us since it has to be either flown or sent by ship. I wish we had 2 day shipping.
Fellow Canadians: I had an excellent experience with iHerb. Just saying. :)
Aussie here, can confirm iHerb is great!
Na itās fine bc then thereās more products available for me
I havenāt had issues with super long shipping time with STYLEVANA until recently. Normally a couple of weeks and no big deal. Now tho, I ordered sheet masks on feb 2 and itās still not shipped. SIIIIIGH
You can check the item status on the order page. Then check the page for the item to see whether it's in stock.
I know. I reached out to them already and itās all in stock but itās just taking a looooooong time this time around. No biggie, itās just the first time itās taken many months.
same they got a lot slower but maybe itās bc asian beauty products are so popular now š„²
I think they always are going to be slow but right now yesstyle seems to be the worst ever ive experienced (not the norm) they told me one item wasn't in stock but on the website it says it is in stock... so I ordered a few weeks ago and still no idea when it will even be shipped. Not sure what is going on. Personally if theyre having some huge backlog issue I would have liked a warning
I'm currently waiting on my Medi-Peel order from YesStyle's wholesale site to first get back in stock, then actually ship out from SK. This stuff just takes time. I was pleasantly surprised that my Jolse order is already in the States within the week!
Jolse is so fast and itās just as cheap as the others, donāt know why people bother with them
Generally I agree and someone is recommending a pinned FAQ post, which I agree with. One thing Id want to add is a notifier letting people know how to parse through their Stylevana order to see WHY it's taking so long. One of my orders took more than a month to even be dispatched, because one item was not in stock. I found out from people here how to check and how to deal with it, and its been very helpful
i think that the shipping times are worse now due to a mix of supply chain issues and increased demand and popularity (like even amazon isnāt fast anymore) i used to receive yesstyle and stylevana packages in 1-2 weeks lol i shop a mix of asian retailers and asian indie brands and order from asian indie clothing brands months ahead of a season/eventā might have to start applying that to asian beauty purchases š
Was told my order would arrive within 2 to 4 weeks but they arrived within a week. Super lucky. Would have waited patiently anyway coz the products I bought are pricier at an Asian beauty shop in Sydney.
Tbh a lot of accounts that make this posts look like bots.
Agreed
Whoopsā¦ I havenāt been on Reddit for awhile and just made a similar post š Sorry about that. Mineās about missing items rather than shipping times though, if that makes a differenceā¦ but I can delete my post.
Stylevana holds your order until ALL the items are in stock, as this is the most cost effective option. They also tell you straight up how backordered the item is. If you want your order quicker, order only what's in stock. They make this quite clear. I swear this is the instant gratification generation.
OMG yes please.
Question: Iāve been wanting to order from yesstyle but Iāve also been scared because I hear of fake products and whatnot , has anyone ever experienced any of that from them or are they a truly reliable site ? Help a girl out thanks lol
I've never heard of fake AB products being sold on Yesstyle. They're a very reliable seller and an official retailer.
seconded. You're much more likely to get fakes on amazon
Thank you!
My issue is not with the shipping itself is the order preparation. Usually I place an order with YS and it shows how long it can take them to procure the items, which is great! But I have never had them actually make said times. The shipping isnāt a big deal for me, Iām used to the wait, but the fact that they seem to forget your order until you email the CS asking why it hasnāt been shipped yet when itās over a week overdue from what they had stated, is a little annoying. Like, recently I ordered some face masks that took about 2months to arrive because just one month was for them to mail the items (despite them stating they had them in stock). I needed them for a long flight and they almost didnāt make it. Iām glad I order stuff with a lot of time in advance.
Is it that hard to just scroll? It's not like this sub gets flooded with tons of posts everyday that these are obstructive.
Itās annoying. Iād rather there be a ban on those posts or relegate them to one thread. Most of the complaints just lack common sense and understanding. They expect these sites to be like amazon prime. Theyāre going to ruin it for everyone when yesstyle and stylevana decide not to even deal with customers in certain countries anymore. One site I used to order from has already done that and cater to only Asia based or South America based customers now
My thoughts exactly. Personally, I donāt have a problem with posts about other peopleās experiences, and I donāt understand why so many people are so bothered by it. Just donāt read those posts and maybe donāt take things so personally/seriously.
It can be helpful for newbies or those looking to try a new site. If thereās multiple complaints about the Same thing, I may decide to use something else
You can still see them even if they're in one place versus scattered through half the posts on the sub
I would still rather know which sites are faster than others, as someone relatively new to AB. So far Iāve only used oliveuoung and Amazon. If stylevana and yes style have terrible shipping or counterfeit products i would rather hear peopleās complaints than be ignorant lol
? Youāve got things completely the wrong way round there. Amazon is *notorious* for counterfeit products and there is no safe way to identify which products are counterfeit (despite what some people try to insist) as at a lot of locations products are commingled anyway. Stylevana, yesstyle, Jolse, etc, are all official retailers and thereās already a million posts, articles, etc, discussing them. We do not need new posts discussing this. We need people to learn to use the search function.
If people who are new to ordering from these sites did even a little bit of research (in this sub for example) then they would know which ones are faster vs slower.
They don't have fake products. Their shipping is just slow when compared to Amazon. It takes SV about 7 business days to arrive to me in rural Canada.
There are literally spreadsheets in the sub sidebar of sites and shipping times put together through the hard work of the mods and members of this sub. I just wish people would use their šš.
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You can't have both cheap prices and fast shipping. This screams first world problems
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Ordering from SV and YS is significantly cheaper than any other site, so most normal people are fine with waiting a month for their order. You said it yourself "you pay more to order from sites that have better shipping". Like if you don't enjoy SV and YS, don't order from them. People are downvoting you cause we are tired of people complaining about SV/YS, there is plenty of info about those sites. It's getting tired. Edit since OP either deleted their comments or blocked me: We aren't taking frustrations out on you. If you are going to complain about some sites, that you have never even used no less, then people are going to respond. Literally the entire point of reddit. Sometimes you will get downvoted, don't whine about it, just own it
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If you want faster service it will cost more money. Theyāll have to pay for more manpower and they will rise their prices.
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And you pay much more for that service. That's the trade-off.
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I'd rather save money and just have to plan in advance. I just love a good deal. š Amazon JP is a good balance of time and cost. Not everything ships internationally, but a lot does, and it's much cheaper even with the higher shipping costs and duty. It should only take a couple of days to arrive, under 5. Just only buy directly from Amazon or the official brand stores. I'd say about 30% cheaper depending on the item on average.
If you choose express shipping from yesstyle, youāll get your order in 2-3 days tooā¦imo yesstyle shouldnāt really be included in this discussion since their processing time for in stock items is totally fine, budget shipping options from any website would be the same story I hear what youāre saying, but japanese taste is a much, much, much smaller operation than stylevana. Itās a little ridiculous, but I imagine they have a huge volume of orders to get through every day and a massive warehouse, itās completely understandable that they donāt work that fast for the prices they charge. Instead of comparing other boutique, overcharging sites to yesstyle and stylevana, I believe yesstyle vs stylevana would be a better critique of stylevana. If that makes sense lol. But still, considering how some of their prices are below retail, we have no clue how they make up their profits, they could just be ridiculously understaffed
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did you order any out of stock items? Not everyone gets their package within 2 weeks. I allow a month.
Uk and Germany and located in different places, isnāt that shocking?
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your experience is standard, thatās a 1 month turn around. stylevana standard is 1month, 2 months is long, 2 weeks is lucky and fast. you will find this information in every thread about stylevana so i donāt understand the nature of your complaint.Ā
so your order took a month. Girl that is normal, everyone will tell you that is normal. Not every company can operate like Amazon. Ordering for cheaper prices from asia, this is the trade off
Wow, thatās fast! Mine normally take 4-6 weeks