Lifeboat front page › Sitting in storage, the page you are on now
Order stage three of four
Stage three: the goods are on a warehouse shelf
The goods exist and have been photographed, but they are in a building you cannot visit. Inspection photos become your main evidence, and the freight decision becomes yours to make.
Signs your goods reached the agent's shelf
You received inspection photos, an arrival message, or saw a weight next to the item. Freight has not been paid, or it has been paid but no international tracking number ever appeared. The goods exist, someone has photographed them, and they sit on a shelf in China under the agent's control.
What is exposed while goods sit on a shelf
The goods, and what you paid for them. The good news is that freight is usually not yet paid, so the second payment is still in your pocket. The bad news is that warehouse stock is the hardest thing to recover from an agent that has stopped answering: there is no seller left to ask, and payment providers may treat goods that were bought and delivered to the merchant differently from goods never bought. Ask your provider; do not assume either way.
Records worth keeping at this stage
- Every inspection photo, downloaded at full size, with the file dates left as they are.
- The weight shown for each item and the arrival date, if the site showed one.
- Any warehouse item number or storage ID.
- The freight quote if you requested one, and the receipt if you paid it.
- A list of which items were meant to travel together in one parcel.
- Your payment record for the goods, as at stage two.
Contact order while goods are in storage
- The agent, through every channel it ever used. Ask for the goods to be shipped and list the items by order number. If the agent is merely slow rather than gone, this is the message that gets the parcel moving.
- Your payment provider, about the goods payment. Explain that the goods reached the merchant but were never shipped to you, and attach the inspection photos. Ask what applies in that situation.
- Your payment provider again, about any freight you paid with no tracking number. Freight paid for a parcel that never received a number is a service not delivered, and it is a separate payment with its own record.
Paying freight on a site that half works
If the site comes back long enough to accept a freight payment, you face a real choice. Paying may get the goods out; it may also add a second sum to what you could lose. Three questions help. Has any parcel left the warehouse since the trouble began, by the account of anyone you trust? Does the freight quote come with a named carrier and route? Would losing the freight amount as well hurt more than losing the goods alone? If the answers are no, no and yes, waiting costs you little. Whatever you decide, screenshot the quote and the payment page.
Pandagoo at this stage, from the archive
Pandagoo's saved text promised 300 days of free storage after goods entered the warehouse, so storage fees were not what put goods at risk. Inspection photos were part of the service: a standard five for each item, three for each parcel leaving, and extra shots at no charge. Its customs note also says every package arriving at the warehouse was opened to check for prohibited items. If your photos show an opened package, that may be why.
Parcels were priced in two ways. With the system quote you paid an estimated freight first and the difference was settled afterwards; with the manual quote staff weighed the packed parcel and you paid after. If you paid a system quote and the parcel never shipped, both the payment and any refund of the difference should appear in your records; check the account balance figure in any screenshot you have.