Based on my personal rating, the top 3 China-based online shopping sites to buy 2014 prom dresses are Lightinthebox.com, Milanoo.com and Amormoda.com. In particular, Milanoo.com is getting increasingly popular in the field of prom dresses or school formal dresses, standing out by superior designing, premium tailoring and competitive pricing.

Store Positioning

As a veteran fashion store, Milanoo.com provides customization service on all formal and semi-formal dresses it carries. I have been personally witnessing its rapid growth since it was founded years ago. In recent years, I notice that the site is steering its direction towards a more focused fashion shipping site, shadowing the less fashion-related products such as home and garden supplies or cosplay costumes while highlighting formal appeal like wedding dresses or prom dresses. From my point of view, it is a smart positioning for an international store. Be honest, I hate to see that more and more Chinese global shopping sites expand their product lines blindly by adding various un-related products to enlarge the catalogs and stocks. I believe that focusing makes a store more professional and dependable.

E-commerce Milieu

Thanks to the convenience brought by the development of e-commerce industry, now we can shop whatever with different stores located in different places regions or countries around the world. The days when we had to buy costly prom dresses at our local stores have completely gone. We can easily order a formal dress of our desire for a school prom at an online shop and get it custom-tailored by providing the correct sizing. Besides, making payment can be safely done online, too while speeded international shipping allows buyers to get a package from a foreign country in just a few days.

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If you are running a jewelry store and want to source such products from online Chinese suppliers, DHgate.com and Aliexpress.com are definitely the best choices. In China, there are countless online shops selling jewelry to international buyers but no one can exceed DHgate or Aliexpress in this field. Here are the major reasons why I strongly recommend buyers to use the two sites to source made-in-China fashion jewelry:

Super deals on wholesale jewelry at DHgate.com

1. Most China-base stores offer retail prices for the jewelry they carry, which are usually higher, while DHgate.com and Aliexpress.com are wholesale trading platforms where all products are offered with different wholesale prices based on order volume. Besides, since there are numerous sellers, suppliers or manufacturers selling jewelry at either site, they are more likely to set competitive prices for the same or similar styles in order to attract buyers.

2. The jewelry listed at the majority of Chinese shops tends to be very limited in terms of style options while at DHgate.com or Aliexpress.com, you can choose from tons of jewelry products to fill your inventory. The jewelry category of DHgate.com, for instance, includes around 800, 000 items!

3. DHgate.com and Aliexpress.com are the most famous wholesale international shopping sites for small and medium-sized merchants. As legitimate big companies, they are capable of providing better services to ensure you a safe and pleasant shopping experience. Compared to the small players in this industry, their incredibility is better tested. In addition, backed by powerful investors and technical teams, they are able to improve their service standards and shopping system and constantly.

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It is an undeniable fact that most buyers around the world choose to shop directly with Chinese online shops because the prices are unbeatable. Though some made-in-China products are truly made with superior quality, we usually won’t expect too much about the quality standards of the products offered by Chinese suppliers.

One of my American friends once commented, “I love buying from China simply because the quality is acceptable but the pricing is too low to resist. One good thing about shopping with Chinese sellers is: I can buy new stuff to replace the old ones easily. It is so amazing that even with a small budget I can refresh my wardrobe anytime I like.”

In addition to the highly competitive prices, there are tons of opportunities to further reduce your cost when trading with Chinese online shops. This post will introduce some useful tips to help you take advantage of such chances to save more on transactions with China-based shopping sites.

1. Search for valid coupon codes.

 This is definitely the most widely used approach to save cost. Some Chinese shopping sites may indicate the coupon codes on the homage banners or at the promotional pages while most won’t. The majority of Chinese shops usually choose to spread the coupon codes among their affiliates to help promoting their stores and products. For this reason, you may have to search Google for coupon codes released by the store. For example, if you want to shop with the electronic store Banggood.com, use the term “Banggood coupon codes” or the like to do the searching. Trust me, such effort is well worth as it can instantly help cut your cost to the minimum.

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About electronic gadget stores based in China

There are countless electronic gadget stores based in China since the country is the manufacturing hub of all kinds of consumer electronics. Also, as Shenzhen is the centre of electronic factories, the majority of such kind of online stores is located in or around the city.

When there are too many choices, it is extremely important for common buyers to separate the good from the bad. Internet is a key tool that can help people find useful information and to evaluate the authenticity, credibility as well as service standards of a store they never use before, though the information may not be totally dependable. However, it is never an easy task and it usually requires plenty of time and energy. For this reason, people tend to go for those recommended by authoritative third-parties first.

Image courtesy of Lightinthebox.com

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Made-in-China clothing and accessories are one of the most popular product lines in the Chinese foreign trade industry. For this reason, the number of international online fashion stores based in China is unbelievably big. For buyers, too many options sometimes could become a trouble as making a smart choice is not so easy. This post will introduce the best Chinese global shopping sites to buy various kinds of apparel of accessories by wholesale or retail.

Since apparel and accessories are a huge category, I think it could be more helpful if I list the stores by sub-categories of clothing and accessories. The following online trading companies are not necessarily professional fashion suppliers. Some may be comprehensive shops where you can buy varieties of products including fashion. Anyway, most of them focus on selling dresses, tops, bottoms, skirts, blouses and other types of clothes for men, women or kids. While most fashion shops also offer a limited range of fashion accessories such as shoes, scarves, jewelry and watches or handbags, some may not carry any accessories at all. Comparatively, it is the easiest to find clothing and accessories for women and kids from the online Chinese market while it is the toughest to find clothes or accessories for men or women of older ages.

Best stores to buy special occasion dresses

1. Lightinthebox.com: a NYSE listed comprehensive shop but focuses much more on women’s fashion; best known for high-quality and professionally designed wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, evening dresses, cocktail dresses, graduation dresses and any other types of formal or semi-formal dresses. It is also the one-stop shop for all sorts of wedding accessories like headpieces, wedding veils, wedding wraps, wedding shoes, wedding garters or wedding petticoats.

Image courtesy of Lightinthebox.com

2. Milanoo.com: a world renowned online fashion retailer offering all kinds of fashion stuff. Special occasion dresses are the backbone of the store but other fashion sub-categories and home and garden supplies are also their big revenue earners. Like Lightinthebox.com, they provide custom-tailored formal gowns or semi-formal gowns directly to customers all over the world.

3. Merledresses.com: a veteran online retailer of wedding dresses, party dresses, prom dresses, evening dresses and other special occasion dresses. Likewise, it carries a huge selection of wedding accessories and you can shop everything for a new bride there easily and on a friendly budget. Quality is one of the best rated natures of the dresses offered by this site. I am personally most attracted by the gorgeous styles available there – they tend to easily arouse people’s desire to purchase one home right away!

4. Didobridal.com: a Shenzhen-based fashion store with years of experience in offering special occasion dresses. They do not have their own designers and most dresses offered by them are inspired by world popular trends and tailored by factories or workshops in Suzhou, which have built long-term co-operative relationship with the shopping site. Wedding accessories and women’s lingerie (especially corsets and bustier) are also among their hot-sellers.

5. Amormoda.com: a professional special occasion gown supplier offering competitive prices and free shipping. Rare Chinese fashion stores provide free shipping on heavy items like formal gowns but Amormoda does. The style options at this site are also very impressive. It is a young store but enjoys good customer ratings all around the world.

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Now online cross-border trading has become a hot trend around the world. Thanks to the fast development of e-commerce, people at most corners of the world are able to shop directly with sellers or suppliers in other countries or regions on the Internet. This post will introduce all the basic knowledge you may need to start buying things straight from China-based online shops.

Security

When we try to use a foreign shopping website to purchase what we need, the first and foremost concern is always about security. Doing research to find out legitimate or trusted stores is only not necessary but extremely important. That would help you stay away from lots of hassles or troubles so never ignore this step.

Here we would suggest you evaluate the credibility of a Chinese website by the following means:

1. Read real customer reviews on the shopping website or in other third-party shopping review websites.

2. Refer to the opinions published by professional reviewers who are not working for the website but have a deep insight into the whole Chinese foreign trade industry.

3. Check if the website is protected by information protection service like Norton or McAfee, which can ensure that your credit card and other confidential information you input into the website won’t be seen or taken by other parties. Most websites using such service put a related-seal at the bottom of the homepage while some may not even if they do use an authoritative protection service, e.g. Aliexpress.com.

However, note that some may use a fake seal to cheat on website visitors while they actually do not use the service at all. You can try to click on the seal to see if it shows the related information stated by the service provider. Based on our research, if a Chinese website uses a security service to protect its website, it should be a bigger, safer or better site worth your trust. In practice, many Chinese websites are not protected by such service. If you are worried that your personal information may be stolen by unknown parties, you are encouraged to go for those under protection.

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