Help
Help, terms and the vocabulary
Where to reach a human, what the jargon means, and the handful of terms that decide what happens when something goes wrong.
Support
Reaching a human, and when it is worth it
Support hours are published as 9:30 to 20:30, Monday to Saturday, China time. That matters more than it sounds: it means anything raised on a Saturday evening in Europe sits until Monday morning in Guangzhou, and the return window does not pause for it.
Three routes exist. The platform's own ticket system is the one that produces a written record attached to your order, which is the one you want for anything that might become a dispute. The published contact address handles account and access problems. The community channel is useful for pattern-matching against other people's experiences, and useless as a record.
- CNPublished contact and hours
[email protected]. Service times: 9:30 to 20:30, Monday to Saturday.
Privacy policy, checked October 2026
Put anything that matters in writing
Two clauses on this site make written records valuable out of proportion to the effort. The inspection treats anything unverifiable as already agreed between you and the seller, and the two official pages disagree about electronics. In both cases, a written answer naming your specific item is the only thing that moves you off the default.
Terms
Storage, and the terms with teeth
Free storage runs 120 days from arrival at the warehouse. By the standards of this market that is generous, and it is the main practical reason to use this agent if you buy across several weeks and ship once.
- CNThe storage window
Free storage lasts 120 days from arrival. Past that, a parcel with no shipping instruction or no reply can be treated as abandoned.
Storage policy, checked October 2026 Paraphrased; see the page for the full wording.
The end of that window is blunt. A parcel nobody has given instructions for can be treated as abandoned, and the policy reserves the right to deal with it without notifying you first. There is no published grace period and no published process for getting something back afterwards.
So the practical rule is to put a date in your own calendar at around day 90 rather than relying on a reminder that the policy does not promise. The return window, separately, is seven days from arrival and belongs to the seller, so a long storage stay burns it entirely.
Vocabulary
The terms that cost money when misread
Most of this vocabulary is assumed rather than explained. The entries below are the ones that cost money when misunderstood, which is not the same set that most glossaries bother with.
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| QC | Quality control. Here it means the appearance check and the photographs taken when your item reaches the warehouse. It is not a functional test. |
| Declared value | The value written on the customs paperwork. It drives the insurance premium, the payout, and how interested your own customs is in the parcel. |
| Volumetric weight | Length by width by height in centimetres divided by 5000. Express carriers bill on this or real weight, whichever is greater. |
| Commodity attributes | The eight tick boxes on the official calculator: brands, liquid, cosmetics, food, magnetic, watches, battery, powder. They change the quote and sometimes the available lines. |
| Consolidation | Combining several arrived items into one outgoing parcel. Saves on the per-parcel costs, and changes the volumetric figure. |
| GL and RL | Shorthand for grades of replica quality used in community discussion, not terms Basetao uses or recognises. No agent policy references them, and no inspection checks against them. |
| Remove packaging | An order option that reduces volume and, by the return policy's own wording, means the item is no longer in original condition. |
| Forwarding | Shipping on a parcel you had sent to the warehouse yourself, rather than one Basetao bought for you. It has its own, shorter refusal list. |
One of those entries is worth singling out. Grade shorthand like GL and RL circulates widely in community discussion, and no agent policy anywhere references it. No inspection checks a grade, no insurance pays on a grade, and asking support about one will not produce a useful answer. It describes a conversation between buyers, not a service anybody sells.
Questions
Frequently asked questions, with the exclusions left in
Eight questions that come up repeatedly, answered from the official pages with the exclusions left in.
- Does Basetao check whether something is genuine?
- No. The inspection is an appearance check, and for electronics it is explicitly limited to the outside of the item with no power-on test. Authenticity is not on the list of six things recorded. Separately, the prohibited items page bans counterfeit goods outright, so this is not a service the company offers in either direction.
- How long can an item sit in the warehouse?
- 120 days free from arrival. After that the policy allows a parcel with no shipping instruction to be treated as abandoned, without notifying you first.
- Can I return something after I see the photos?
- Usually within seven days of the parcel reaching the warehouse, and it is the seller who decides, not Basetao. You pay return shipping, and if you ticked remove packaging at order time the item is no longer in original condition.
- Why is the shipping quote higher than the weight suggests?
- Volumetric weight. Length by width by height in centimetres divided by 5000, and DHL, FedEx and Aramex bill on whichever is larger. Bulky light goods are the usual cause.
- Is insurance worth taking?
- It depends on which failure your line is prone to rather than on the value of the contents. Basic at 2% pays in full for breakage but only a third for loss. Full at 4% pays in full across the table. Functional faults in electronics are excluded from insurance regardless of level.
- What exchange rate does Basetao use?
- It is not published anywhere on the site. The only way to know is to measure it on a small order by comparing what you were charged against the interbank rate on the day. This is often the largest single cost in an order.
- Can I ship a phone or a laptop?
- The two official pages disagree. The parcel submission page refuses computers, laptops and phones outright; the prohibited items page treats mains-powered electronics as generally acceptable without lithium batteries. Ask in writing about your specific device before paying.
- Are the prohibited items rules the ones that apply to me?
- Only partly, and this catches people out. That page argues from US agencies and US law, while the parcel leaves China and arrives under your own country's import rules. Use it as a list of categories that cause trouble, not as a statement of the law where you live.
