Duty, weight,
and your money

What VayeX actually is

What do you do?

We buy things from Chinese marketplaces on your behalf and get them to your door. You paste a link, we quote it, and if you buy it we place the order, receive it at a warehouse in China, and ship it to you. You never make an agent account and never top up a balance. You never get a second bill.

Are you a shopping agent?

We do the job people use agents for, and we use agents to do part of it. The buying, the warehouse and the freight run through established forwarders — Kakobuy today, others as we add them. What you are paying us for is that you do not have to choose between them, hold a balance with them, or work out which shipping line to pick.

Which sites can I paste a link from?

Taobao, Weidian, 1688, Tmall and JD directly. You can also paste an agent link — Kakobuy, CNFans, Hoobuy, Sugargoo, Superbuy, Mulebuy, CSSBuy, LitBuy and a dozen more — and we read the listing behind it. Most people’s clipboard has an agent link in it, so that is the normal case, not the exception.

I already have an agent I like. What happens to them?

Nothing. Pasting their link here does not touch your account with them, cancel anything, or move your warehouse balance. We read the product ID out of the URL and price it ourselves — the agent’s own site never even gets a request from us. If our price is worse for a given item, buy it there. We would rather you check.

Which countries do you ship to?

The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom right now. Anywhere else, the site will tell you plainly that we don’t ship there yet rather than quoting a price we can’t honour. We add countries as we get real rate cards for them.

Money

How is my money handled?

You pay once, at checkout, by card through Stripe. We never see or store your card number. That payment covers the item, domestic shipping in China, international freight, customs where we can prepay it, and our fee — all of it, in one number.

When do you actually take the money?

We authorise the card at checkout and capture when we place the order with the seller. If an order is held for review, the authorisation exists but nothing has been taken; if we then can’t fulfil it, the authorisation is voided and no money moves at all. You would see a pending amount disappear rather than a refund arrive.

What is your fee?

It scales down as the order grows, from about 11% on small orders to 3% on large ones, applied in bands like tax brackets, with a $5 minimum so a very cheap order still covers the work it creates. On a typical order it is a few dollars. Every component is itemised on the product page — tap the info icon next to the fee and you get each line and what it is for.

Why does my quote expire?

A quote is good for 20 minutes. Exchange rates, seller prices and stock all move, and a price we cannot honour is worse than one that made you refresh. Nothing is lost when it expires — the page just re-prices.

Customs and duty

Do I pay import duty?

It is included in the price wherever we can prepay it, so nothing is owed when the parcel arrives. You can opt out at checkout and settle it yourself, in which case the courier will hold the parcel and email you a bill, usually with their own handling fee on top. On routes where prepaying isn’t possible yet, the page says so rather than pretending.

How do I actually pay the duty?

The courier emails or texts you a customs charge once the parcel lands, using the tracking number on your order — before delivery, not after. You pay it on their own website, they deliver within a day or two, and we are not involved: we will never ask you for duty.

Don’t leave it. Couriers hold a parcel for a limited window, often around two weeks, and then return or dispose of it. Their message can look like spam, which is how people lose parcels they have already paid for. If the amount looks wrong, or nothing arrives and tracking seems stuck, send us the tracking number and we’ll chase the carrier.

So how many separate payments am I making?

Two, on every order. You pay us once at checkout, and you pay the courier once for duty when it arrives. That second one is not a percentage of orders or an occasional surprise — the US ended duty-free entry for low-value parcels in 2026, so it applies to essentially every import, and we would rather you expected it than discovered it.

We are working on routes where duty is genuinely settled up front, which would make it one payment. Until a carrier confirms a specific route in writing, we will not claim it.

Is the duty figure exact?

No, and we won’t claim otherwise. The exact amount depends on the item’s customs classification, which a marketplace listing does not tell us. We estimate conservatively by category. Customs sets the final number.

Why is there duty at all? My last parcel had none.

The rule that let low-value parcels in duty-free ended in 2026 — it was suspended for every country and every transport mode. A $30 parcel is now dutiable exactly like a $3,000 one. Anyone telling you otherwise is quoting you a price that will grow at your door.

Comparing us with buying direct

Are you cheaper than using an agent myself?

Usually not on the sticker, and we would rather say so here than have you find out at checkout. Doing it yourself, with your own time and your own accounts, is the cheaper path in pure dollars.

Then why does your price look so much higher?

Because it is a different number, not a bigger one. An agent quotes you the item. The freight arrives as a second bill once the parcel is weighed, weeks later, and customs as a third when the courier reaches your door. Our price has all three in it already. Compare our total against their total and the gap is a few dollars of fee — compare it against their item price and it will look like we tripled it.

So what am I paying for?

The nine steps you don’t do, and the ones where being wrong costs money: picking a shipping line, guessing volumetric weight, judging QC photos, and finding out what customs wants. If that is worth a few dollars to you, we are worth using. If it isn’t, you already know how to do this yourself.

Shipping, weight and refunds

Why does the price mention weight I haven't been charged for?

Carriers bill the greater of a parcel’s real weight and its size-based “volumetric” weight, and we don’t know either until the item is in the warehouse. So we quote a ceiling — deliberately a little high — rather than a number that could turn out short.

What if it turns out heavier than you quoted?

Then we pay the difference, not you. The price we showed you is a ceiling — it can go down, and it never goes up. We quote before your parcel exists, so getting the estimate wrong is our risk to carry, not something to hand you as a second bill after you have already paid.

What happens if my parcel is lighter than quoted?

We refund the difference automatically, to the card you paid with, without you asking. The parcel is weighed in China before it flies, and if the real freight is less than what you paid, the gap comes back. It only moves one way: if it comes in heavier, we absorb that.

Can I keep the shoebox?

Yes, and you choose before you pay. The box is what the carrier measures, so keeping it costs real money — both prices are shown side by side on items that have one. Whatever you pick becomes the instruction the warehouse gets, so it is not a preference we might forget.

What if the seller cancels, or the item never arrives?

You get your money back. If we can’t buy it, the authorisation is voided or the payment refunded in full, including our fee — we didn’t do the job, so we don’t keep the money for it. If it is lost in transit we chase the carrier and refund you; that is our problem to have, not yours.

Can I see photos before it ships?

Yes. Ask for a check at checkout and we send warehouse photos and hold the parcel until you say go. If something is wrong with the item, that is the point at which it is cheap to fix.

Can I return something because I changed my mind?

Ask us. Get in touch and we’ll look at it — if the parcel hasn’t shipped yet there is usually something we can do, and that is the point at which it is cheapest to fix. Once it has crossed a border, sending it back to a Chinese seller often costs more than the item is worth, so what we can offer narrows. We would rather you asked than assumed the answer was no.

What if the item is faulty, or not what the listing showed?

That one is on us to sort out. Tell us and we take it up with the seller and put it right — a replacement or your money back. Photos help, which is another reason to ask for a check before it ships.

The words

Everything the people who already do this say to each other, in plain English.