Low Tide help desk: words, contacts and finds sites

Where to go when something in an off-season order is unclear, the words that turn up along the way, and how to test any Spreadsheet site, this one included.

Which desk fixes which problem

A problem with an order, payment or parcel belongs with the agent you ordered through. Pandagoo’s own support cannot be reached while its site is down, and we cannot see or change any order.
A wrong fact, price or dead link on this site: write to [email protected] with the page address. We answer and log every correction with its date on the change log.
A listing problem such as a missing size: ask the seller through the agent’s order message before paying.
Not sure when to order? The Tide Table answers that in a minute.

Four routes from a problem to the right person: agent, this site, seller, planner — Who can actually fix what. We can only fix our own pages.

Off-season words and agent shorthand

Title words, trade terms and a few coinages of our own, each with a one-line meaning; ours are marked.

QC: Short for quality check. In practice, the photos the warehouse shoots on arrival; Pandagoo’s default was five per item.
GL / RL: Buyer shorthand once the photos are in: GL means the item may ship as it is, RL means it goes back to the seller.
Low run: Our term for the months when China’s sellers clear a kind of goods. Not a Pandagoo word.
Off-season label: The Chinese title word 反季. A sales tag for clearance stock, not a price promise.
Broken sizes: The Chinese 断码: clearance stock with gaps in the size run.
Rehearsal package: Pandagoo’s trial packing of stored items, so weight and size can be seen before the real parcel. Fee not archived.
Volume weight: Length times width times height over a line coefficient. Freight is charged on this or the scale weight, whichever is higher.
Declared value: What you tell customs the parcel is worth. Pandagoo’s form accepted 1 to 120 US dollars.
First tier: The lowest-quantity price step on a 1688 listing, often two or three pieces rather than one.
Jin: The Chinese 斤, half a kilogram, used in many size charts for body weight.
Haul: A batch of goods bought together and shipped in one parcel, or the video someone makes of unpacking it.
Spreadsheet: In this trade, a catalogue site of product picks grouped by category, like this one. It has nothing to do with office software.

Word cards for low run, off-season label and broken sizes with their Chinese originals — Three of the words, with the Chinese you will see in titles.

Testing a finds catalogue against the calendar

What makes a trustworthy Spreadsheet site? Four checks settle it, and we run them on ourselves too:

Dates on prices. A price without a reading date is a guess. Every card here carries the date it was read.
Five random links. Open five cards at random. If two or more are dead or lead to a different product, nobody is keeping the site.
Honesty about the agent. A site built around an agent should say plainly when that agent stops working. We say it on every page.
Season sense. For seasonal goods, a catalogue that pushes winter coats in November is selling at peak price. Look for one that tells you when to buy, not only what.

Four test cards for a finds site: dated prices, five random links, agent honesty, season sense — Four checks for any finds site. Run them on this one too.

Where to write to us

Low Tide is kept by a small editorial team that reads Chinese listings and builds catalogues for shopping-agent buyers. Write to [email protected]. We do not sell anything, take orders or hold parcels, and we cannot help with an order placed at any agent.

For anything else, start from the short answers or how this site is kept.

Envelope card listing what a useful correction includes: page address, what is wrong, a source and a date — What a useful correction contains.