Taobao consolidated shipping to Singapore: big items, by the CBM

1Taobao Singapore shipping: what consolidation is, and when sea wins

Most Taobao shops only deliver inside China. Consolidation (集运, jiyun) gets around that: every order goes to one warehouse in China, and once they are all in, they leave the country together. Singapore shoppers use the word for two different things. One is small-parcel shipping by the kilo, for clothes and light household items; Taobao and the other platforms run their own versions of it. The other is bulky shipping by volume: your goods share a sea container with other importers' cargo, are cleared through Singapore Customs and are delivered to your address.

We do the second. Shiplet is a China to Singapore freight forwarder and a Registered Declaring Agent with Singapore Customs: our Foshan hub receives your orders, we ship them by sea LCL, lodge the import permit ourselves and deliver to your home or shop. The price is by volume with a 1 CBM minimum, and a shipment under 1 CBM is charged as 1 CBM. So the bigger the items and the more shops in the order, the better the value; a packed three-seater sofa is about 1.8 CBM on its own. The complete guide to shipping from China to Singapore compares every mode.

2How Taobao consolidated shipping to Singapore works, in five steps

1. Get an instant quote. Tell us on the quote request form what you are buying and roughly how many pieces, with sizes if you have them. The instant quote appears as you type, you get a reference number immediately, and the confirmed quote follows in writing within a few hours. Your booking confirmation carries a marking code (WHL/SHIPLET/ plus five characters) that belongs to this shipment only.
2. Use our hub address at checkout. Put the marking code in the recipient name field and copy the Chinese address below exactly as it is. Taobao, Tmall, 1688 and Pinduoduo all work the same way.
3. The sellers deliver to the hub. Small items come by domestic courier, so a shop with free shipping (包邮) costs you nothing to reach us. For big items sent by freight, ask the seller to deliver to our door, not to a depot for collection. A seller who will not deliver at all can be collected by our China domestic delivery service.
4. We receive, count and hold. Every package is counted against your order list as it arrives, and we tell you what is in and what is still on its way. The first 5 days of storage are free while the rest arrive.
5. We ship, clear and deliver; you pay on arrival. Once the last package is in, everything leaves as one shipment, 10–14 days hub to door. You pay when the cargo reaches Singapore, before we deliver it, by PayNow or bank transfer, with the GST on the same bill.

Rather not order and chase the sellers yourself? Our Taobao buying agent service orders and pays for you, from Taobao, JD, Douyin or Xiaohongshu, and checks each parcel at the hub while most sellers' seven-day return still applies.

3The hub address and the marking code

Couriers in China read the Chinese line, so copy it character for character. The recipient name is your marking code: on a courier parcel the label is often the only marking the hub sees, and the code is how we know the parcel is yours. The form also asks for a phone number: ask us for it on WhatsApp +65 8162 1037 or by email at info@empiricalmarine.com when you book, and we give it to you with your marking code.

• Receiving hours: Mon–Sat, 8:00am – 5:00pm, closed Sundays and public holidays. A delivery that arrives after closing comes back another day.
• Departures: Monday to Saturday. Cargo received on a working day leaves the next working day; the cut-off is 5:00pm the working day before.
• One code per shipment. Your next booking gets a new code, so book first, then put the new code on the next round of orders.
• Number the big pieces. For furniture sent by freight, ask the seller to write the code and a piece number (1/3, 2/3) on every package, so a missing piece shows up at the hub and not in your living room.

4What Taobao sea shipping to Singapore costs, by the CBM

Sea consolidation is S$82 per CBM, hub to door, with a minimum of 1 CBM: anything smaller is charged S$82. A CBM is a cubic metre: multiply each package's length, width and height in metres, then add the packages up. Orders from different shops and platforms are added together first and charged on the total, not per parcel. Weight only matters for heavy cargo: the charge is on the greater of the volume and the weight at 500 kg per CBM, and almost all furniture and household goods are charged on volume.

The last row is the point of consolidating. On their own, the twelve cartons pay the minimum; travelling with the sofa and the bed they pay for their own 0.96 CBM. Put the seller's packed sizes into the calculator below for the volume and an estimate, or use the full CBM calculator for a long list.

It is an all-in price with no hidden fees: the figure on the confirmed quote is the whole freight bill, and the only other number for your budget is the GST. Rates are indicative until they are on your confirmed quote, and nothing is booked or payable until you confirm. The sea freight guide explains each line.

5Taobao by sea or by air

Air freight is from S$6.50 per kg on chargeable weight, the greater of the actual weight and the volumetric weight (length × width × height in cm ÷ 6000), with a 10 kg minimum and 3–5 days hub to door. Air cargo goes to our Shenzhen air freight warehouse, not the Foshan hub, and we give you that address when you book. An air shipment valued below S$400 is not charged GST.

For bulky items, sea is far cheaper. The same 220 × 95 × 85 cm sofa has a volumetric weight of 220 × 95 × 85 ÷ 6000, about 296 kg, so by air it costs 296 times S$6.50; by sea it costs 1.78 times S$82. Air suits things that are urgent, small, valuable and over ten kilos, such as fittings for a shop that opens next week. The air freight guide and the transit times page help you choose.

6Waiting for other shops: free storage and packing

Furnish a flat on Taobao and a dozen shops ship at a dozen speeds. The hub holds your packages free for 5 days, then charges S$20 per CBM per day. The free days absorb normal gaps between sellers, so before paying, ask each shop when it ships and order from the slowest first. A pre-sale (预售) item that takes weeks is better booked as its own shipment than left to hold up the rest.

Your orders travel in the sellers' own packaging. At the hub we arrange them neatly together so they ship as one consignment, and that is part of the rate. Complete repacking into new packaging is available on request at extra cost, and so is crating for glass, marble and mirrors: tell us which pieces when you book and it goes on the confirmed quote. Because the packed size is what you pay for, ask sellers to pack tightly. We do not open packages to inspect the contents unless you ask. The furniture shipping guide covers packing piece by piece.

7Customs documents and GST on Taobao orders

Singapore Customs charges GST on the invoice value. A Taobao, Tmall, 1688 or Pinduoduo order screenshot is accepted as the invoice, as long as it clearly shows the seller, the item, the quantity and the amount paid. If a shipment holds more than 5 different items, we also need a packing list: each item, its quantity, the amount paid and the order number, plus package counts and sizes where the seller gives them. What a commercial invoice and packing list need to show sets out both.

GST is 9% of the CIF value (goods plus freight and insurance), not of the goods price alone. We lodge the import permit as a Registered Declaring Agent, pay the GST at clearance and pass it through at cost, and you pay it with the freight on arrival. By sea it applies whatever the amount; by air a shipment valued below S$400 pays none. Declare the real value: the amount on the screenshot is the declared value and also what a lost package is compensated at. The import GST calculator gives the figure in advance, and the GST and customs guide explains the rules.

8Delivery to an HDB flat, condo or shop

Delivery to your Singapore address is included, whether it is an HDB flat, a condo, a landed home or a shop, and we bring it into the home or unit, not just to the lobby. Stairs without a lift, a timed delivery slot and unpacking are special handling, outside the published price; tell us when you ask for a quote and we price them, so the amount you confirm is the amount you pay. Once the cargo is in Singapore and paid for, we deliver.

Ready to consolidate? Send the items, the shop links or the packed sizes you have through the quote request form, with sea LCL already selected. The instant quote appears as you type, you get a reference number immediately, and the confirmed quote follows in writing within a few hours. If you are restocking a business from several suppliers, the 1688 guide for businesses is written for you.