Everyone can imagine that JadeShip lives from Taobao and Weidian hype, and that we want as many people buying as many items as possible.

But we also have a responsibility. That's why I decided to feature u/LazyPythonPlayz's "How to NOT Overspend on Reps" Guide as part of our Best of Reddit Series. It's very critical and the basically the opposite of what you'd expect from us. Enjoy!

bT from JadeShip

Hey, repfam! With the influx of members coming in from all sources, a lot don't know the intricacies and basic rules of buying reps. Even older and long-time members find themselves buying items they really don't need or want. In this short guide, I'll show you how to save money overall and not overspend on reps.

1. Convert yuan into your currency (USD, Sterling, AUD, Euro, etc.) using modified conversion rates.

A lot of users I see on this sub use the Google yuan to USD conversion but this may lead you to overspend on reps. Most people will be using a service like Paypal to convert their currency into yuan, which has fees that add up over a big haul. To incorporate this into your prices and estimates, calculate the conversion rate AFTER fees to get a more realistic estimate of the money you are spending. (JadeShip has made a post about this topic link)

EX 1: Google's ratio is about 1 USD per 6.49 yuan
With my agent, I've spent $209.88 for 1250 yuan
Therefore, 5.956 yuan per USD is the REAL ratio after fees. 

In a scalable example, if I spent $100, I'd get only 596 yuan vs. 649 yuan 
This is a HUGE difference and will add up over hauls.

2. With the new conversion rate, find how much you are actually spending on an item.

This is simpler than the other step and just involves division. Find the yuan price of the item, and divide it by the ratio you found above.

Ex 2: Branded Polo Shirt
Price: 248 yuan
My Ratio: 1 USD per 5.956 yuan
Price in USD 248/5.956 = $44.32 USD before shipping.

3. Finally, and arguably the most important, CALCULATE THE SHIPPING BEFOREHAND!!!

Moderators knows all too well the number of people who didn't think of the shipping beforehand and end up panicked because they don't have enough to actually ship out their goods. To prevent this, as well as overspending, I'll show you how to estimate an item's shipping and final price.

This has a bit more steps and will be a bit wordy, but the minute you take once you get the hang of it is definitely worth the potential money saved.

EX 3: Let's take a popular GMAN Essentials Hoodie, 238 yuan (ID: 635631568001)

Using past experience and common weights averages (which can be found in one of the starting guides), we can estimate this hoodie to be about 800g in weight.

Using the method above and my conversion rate, this hoodie is about $40 USD before shipping. In order to properly estimate how much this hoodie will ACTUALLY cost to receive in-hand, we need to calculate shipping to your country.

In order to calculate shipping, you'll need to get the $ per kg rate for your shipping from either your previous hauls or agent estimation. With my agent, I pay 145 yuan for the first 1kg, and then 70 yuan for the ones following it. With your own info you find, you can figure out how much you'll pay per gram or kg.

This is a more precise method, presented by u/LazyPythonPlayz.

We always calculate $20/kg as a rule of thumb, no matter the shipping service, agent or country. That way you won't be disappointed. But both are fine, depending on how detailed you want to be.

bT from JadeShip

Let's say you're planning to make an 8kg haul. With my rates, I'd be paying:

145 yuan + 7 * 70 yuan = 635 yuan 
Now that we have the yuan cost, we can find the yuan per gram ratio.
635 yuan / 8000g = 0.0793 yuan/gram. 
With this we can multiply this ratio to our estimated weight.
800g * 0.0793 yuan/gram = 63.44 yuan

This means it would cost 63.44 yuan to ship this hoodie which we were able to estimate before even buying it! Now, we can add that to the 238 yuan for a total of 301.44 yuan. And then do the final step and convert the yuan to our conversion rate.

301.44 yuan / 5.5956 yuan per USD = 53.87 USD 

In the end, we now know how much we're ACTUALLY spending, which can allow you to determine if its actually worth it to get an item. On the surface using google it would look like this hoodie was $36.70 USD, but instead almost $20 more. Would you be comfortable with spending 54 USD on this hoodie? You can ask yourself this for each item and spend your money SMARTER.

I hope this guide helped both newbies and veterans alike and wish the repfam the best!

Credits

This post was u/LazyPythonPlayz and is used with full permission. Thank you for allowing us to feature your post.