If you've never purchased from AliExpress before, it can be confusing. I've seen many people say they are hesitant to buy from Hopen because of it. I hope this guide will make it easier for you to purchase what you want! I'm going to use mochi minky for this example. Hopen's store is at this link: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1724559 Their mochi minky is located at this link: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000058595483.html There are about 200 colors of mochi you can select from, however, there are only 45 items you can select from at the top. But you are able to buy any of the colors located in the description of the item. The images are not the best compared to what they look like in real life. I recommend contacting them to purchase a mochi swatch set. If you'd rather not do this, you can check out my color guide, but it is not comprehensive. When you hover over the square it will tell you which number it is. If the color you want is one of the 45, select it and click Add to Cart. If it's not, select any other color instead. You will tell the seller in the comments which color you actually want. (In some of their other listings, like their 1.5mm minky listing, they have a 'note for other color' option. But there is not this option for mochi). In this example, I do want color #202, but I also want a few other colors that aren't listed. So I am going to select color #202 and increase the quantity to 6. Then I will specify in the comments what I want. On AliExpress you are buying a little less than a yard and multiple quantities will come in one continuous cut. On their Amazon store it is pre-cut yards. If none of the 45 available selections are a color that I plan on actually buying, as a safe guard, I select a color I wouldn't mind receiving if Hopen makes a mistake. I have heard they can accidentally send you wrong colors and will not send you a replacement or refund. AliExpress customer service is very different from Amazon. Keep this in mind when purchasing from them! Now you can view your cart to check out. It should look something like this. You want to select the check box by Hopen's name to select all the items from them. Then your total+shipping will show up. I'm also buying their mochi stuffing. If you have applicable coupons they will show up in the Savings drop down menu to the right. I bought these items during the Black Friday sale, so I had a $10 off $100 coupon that I earned by playing the Money Hop game. Coupons are somewhat common on AliExpress, but mostly for small dollar amounts. They may pop up while you are browsing the website. On the app, you can play the farming game when you click on the 'Coins' icon in the main screen. Before and during big sales they will have games like Money Hop where you can also exchange points for coupons. You can't always exchange coins or points for coupons. It's only before and during big sales. Red Coupons are the coupons that are only available during big sales (I find this site handy for tracking when they will be). Any dates marked in red will be when you can redeem Red Coupons. The Red Coupons will often pop up BEFORE those dates, and they sell out. So it's handy to stalk the app before the sales to keep an eye on when the coupons pop up to be redeemed. Be careful buying on AliExpress before sales. Sometimes prices will increase to offset sale amounts, or increase before the sale to encourage you to buy during the sale. There are also invite codes for friends and also 'Coupon Pals' that can result in larger coupons, but I haven't explored either one of these yet myself. Another way you can save money on AliExpress is by using Rakuten (used to be eBates), which I find always has some amount cash back on the website. From here hit the Buy button. On this screen, you can double check your coupons by dropping down the two triangles on the right and browsing any available. My $10 is already selected and it's the one I want to use. If you have other coupons you can combine, select them here. There may also be store coupons beneath the Subtotal below your items. On the same screen, click the small notepad button to leave a message with Hopen for what colors you want. A pop-up box will come up and here you can type what you want. You can't see what I wrote in the image below, but here is what I put: Please send: 2x #202 2x #20 1x #49 1x #44 Keep these things in mind:
Copy the note you send them as you will use it again in a bit. Now, you can check out. I always use Paypal as they have buyer protection. AliExpress has also been giving out $3 coupons to people who check out with Paypal. Win-win! Follow the pop up and check out with Paypal as normal. When you finish, you'll get the success screen. Click "check my order" and it should bring up your order history. If you click past this stage, you can just pull up your order history under the 'Account' drop down in the top right of AliExpress next to the Cart icon. From here you can see the note you left on the mochi. Here you can click Contact Seller which will bring up a chat with Hopen. It should show your most recent order as the last conversation with them. From here you can "leave a note" and it will bring up another very limited box of 40 characters. Instead I just write a message directly to them reiterating the same note I left earlier. I also am lengthier and kinder in this area ("friend" seems to be the polite term to use here). I speak with Hopen semi-frequently, so don't feel obligated to say anything you are uncomfortable with! If you send the note outside of business hours for them you should receive this auto-response. Usually I receive an "ok" once they get the message.
Then, you are done! In my experience it takes about a month to get an order from Hopen to the US. They will split up orders into several packages. Sometimes the tracking is unhelpful. I did find this website which displays more info than other tracking websites, so maybe you will find it useful: www.17track.net/en Hope this guide was helpful! Happy shopping!
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