Chinavasion | China Gadgets BlogWholesale Electronics and the Gadget Business

It’s been a busy week at Chinavasion.

Not only did we collate all the reviews of Chinavasion products we gave resellers a big reason to buy in bulk with the The Great Customized Chinavasion Green Speaker Giveaway.

So without further ado lets look at some of the more common questions we saw this week.

I’m a reviewer, can you send me a free sample so that I can do a review for you?

Quite probably.

Here at Chinavasion we like to give people the chance to get real evidence of how good our gadgets actually are.

As a rule we like YouTube reviewers that we give samples to to have a view count of at least 1000 views per video, and blogs and websites to have an Alexa rank of 100,000 or less. If this is you then you can send an email to content@chinavasion.com

However, if you’re verging on this or think that we will be extra interested in your reviews please don’t hesitate to drop us an email at content@chinavasion.com and we will see if we can work something out.

I’m a Dropshipper. Why do my customers receive your invoice?

While we respect the fact more than anyone how important customer loyalty is to dropshippers an invoice is required by law when exporting products in China. It’s also required by the shipping companies for import customs purpose.

To get around this we use a name that is not Chinavasion’s and will not lead customers back to Chinavasion.

If your customers do ask you why your name isn’t on the invoice you can simply tell them it is your Chinese partner or your Chinese warehouse.

In most cases we have shipping experts who can complete invoices in such a way that they are optimized for fast and trouble free customs clearance.

You’ve always got the latest gadgets. What products should I watch out for in the near future?

Everybody likes WiFi touchscreen phones so much that we thought we’d release one that’s so sensitive that it earns the name Ultra Touch. Seriously, try it out…. you’d think it was on Ecstasy.

Product Review

Intelligent Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Wireless IP Camera [CVOA-G182]

Oh look, it’s Wall-E’s indoor cousin.

To say the Intelligent Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Wireless IP Camera had created a little bit of interest would be the understatement of the year.

This robot vacuum is definitely an appliance with attitude!

• Is it really that easy to use?
  Yes it is! Just like painting, preparation is the key to using this product properly.
  
  
• So how do I prepare my vacuum cleaner?
  Simple, read the included detailed manual carefully, then it takes mere minutes to setup
  
  
• Will the robot carpet cleaner work on all home flooring types?
  Yes, but long threaded, heavy shag carpet will be difficult for the CVOA-G182 since it is only raised 22mm from the ground.
  
  

For a bigger list of questions visit the Chinavasion FAQ page or to ask your own question leave a comment to this blog (provided you don’t mind the whole world knowing about it).

We’ll answer them here and, if they’re good enough we may even re-publish them in a future Friday FAQ.

Don’t you hate it, when you finally build up momentum for a product, it’s selling well and then, after you have sold a whole batch, it appears to have disappeared from your supplier’s shelves?

So do we.

To remedy this one of the very clever programmers, who has a little bit of a thing for XML, had a brainwave. Why not use RSS?

So a RSS feed was duly set up solely for stock updates, so that no matter if something went off for a few weeks, or permanently, or came back, you knew immediately.

But what exactly is a RSS feed? And why, should you, as ecommerce operators and eBay resellers care?

RSS simply stands for “Really Simple Syndication”.

What does it do? Simple, it tells you each time that a websites updates its page without you having to go to the site.

There are two parts to the RSS feed, the feed itsef and the reader. To learn more about how they work there’s a quick explanation at this page Getting Chinavasion Stock Updates by Email or RSS. But, unless you’re a regular blog reader, or you’ve got a whole raft of sites you want to keep in contact with you’re not going to want an extra device/site to visit every day just for one service.

Thankfully there is a way to get the RSS feed sent directly to your email.

Here’s how…

For Those With Gmail

Go into settings and click on the setting that says labs. You know the labs features, it’s the thing that allows you to supercharge your Gmail with all those fancy gadgets that Google Engineers have been working on.

Go down to the gadget labeled Add any gadget by URL Click Enable and then select “Save Changes”.

Go back to settings and go to the menu “Gadgets” copy this URL http://gad.getpla.net/feed/reader.xml and paste it into the box like so:

You should see a box like the one below and you should be able to go back to your inbox:

Once you’re in your inbox you’ll probably notice that the feed reader has the CNN RSS in there by default. To change that hold your mouse over the left hand side of the frame and click on the spanner that appears on the side:

Paste the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/chinavasion/Stock-Update into the space that appears and then hit OK.

For Those Without Gmail

Go to feedmyinbox.com/ paste the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/chinavasion/Stock-Update into the “Website or Feed URL” section Paste your email address into the “Your Email Address” section. Hit enter.

But what about when you’re on the road? Would you like to be informed then?

Thankfully that’s possible with a tool called Twitter.

Updates Through Twitter

You must have heard of Twitter before. It’s a microblogging service which limits posts to 140 characters. This makes it good for people to keep each other updated on current events, share links and that is all.

Setting up and using a Twitter account is easy and it has and advantage over RSS feeds in that tweets can be delivered directly to your cell phone as a SMS making sure you never miss any important developments.

There are two ways to set up your cell phone so it can get tweets.

The first is through Twitter. If you didn’t do it at the sign up stage then all you need to do is to go into settings, select the mobile option, put your details into the boxes and hit verify. You should receive a message from twitter and you’ll be ready to go.

But what happens if your country isn’t on the list? (China isn’t, and neither is Hong Kong or a lot of other places)Then all you need to do is to take the following steps:

1. Send the message START to the correct phone number To get that number paste this link into your browser help.twitter.com/entries/14226-what-are-the-twitter-phone-numbers-short-and-long-codes
2. Twitter will send you a message asking you to reply with your username, or sign up
3. Send your username

That’s it. Now, providing you live in a country that has a two-way code you should be able to receive twitter updates on your mobile phone.

Now all that is needed to do is to follow our Twitter stock update and you will know exacty what is going on, even if you are away from the computer.

So, what’s the next step? The next step is to check out our Twitter stock update or RSS stock updates and ensure that you are always in the loop.

How would you like to get a pair of speakers on your desk customized by the very talented artists that created these wonderful works:

For one lucky customer this might well be the reality.

You may remember the last time we had a competition.

For the 350th video we held the The 350th Chinavasion YouTube Video Treasure Hunt (Yarr) we were overwhelmed with entries and ended up sending out a whole lot of swag.

This time it’s a one time only offer because our very talented artist charges by the hour.

So, the first person to buy 15 pieces or more of the Green Speaker Set (that’s 30 speakers in total), will win an extra set customized by our very special resident artist.

If that person is you, you can send us your favorite picture, our very talented artist will sketch it onto the speakers and send it to you with your order.

Now that’s not something to be taken lightly.

So resellers, don’t delay. Get your order in now for our very cool Green Speaker Set and you might be the lucky one to take away set that has not only been thrown in for free but has been decorated as well.