Stationery Pal: Chinese Stationery for Less, Until You See the Shipping Costs

Stationery Pal is a stationery store based in New Territories, which is next to Hong Kong, but not quite in China yet (that's Shenzhen). Therefore, it is able to take advantage of the price differential between China and other continents. Unfortunately, it is a small company and does not have fulfillment power like Temu or Alibaba (Aliexpress), and therefore, the shipping costs are... shocking when you try to check out, no matter how many discount codes you were able to stack on. 

It's probably easier to show you my shopping cart as an example. There aren't that many items, really. 

• 2 stacks of loose leaf paper, A5 (100 sheets and 50 sheets, resp)
• 2 notebooks (A5, at least 100 sheets)
• 4 small fold-flat storage boxes (more like totes)
• 1 brush rest
• 3 small ink bottles
• 1 pen holder (for tying around notebooks)
• 1 micro tip gel pen
• 2 Sanrio "blind box" items

and the June Mystery Set (which is a random mix of stationeries, but will have many pens, pencils, highlighters, markers, erasers, correction tape, stickers, notebooks, and so on). 

The price may seem low, but with 2 discount codes, I was able to drop the total EVEN FURTHER From $38.xx to $32.49. 

However, here's the shipping cost shock: The shipping cost estimate for my order is $24.90.  

One becomes so used to "free shipping" offered by Amazon in the US and Temu from China, the actual shipping costs are just truly "shocking". They almost doubled the price of each item. Which means for the "fungible" items like spiral notebook, Stationery Pal does not **feel** competitive, unless you specifically want those Chinese Kokuyo Campus notebooks (which are NOT the same as the Japanese Kokuyo Campus notebooks!)

SIDENOTE: Kokuyo is a Japanese brand, but they have a branch in China licensed to locals, who has their own domain, kokuyo.cn. And they have a different product line than Kokuyo Japan... and because its priced to compete with Chinese domestic products, the prices are also MUCH cheaper than Japanese Kokuyo. Either it comes in a much larger pack, or the prices are much lower than the ones "made in Japan". 

What you need to do is search for the same items on Temu, and if it's available on Temu, order them on Temu instead, as Temu was often able to offer the same items for "almost" the same price, with free shipping to the US. 

I found the fold-flat storage boxes on Temu for just a few dimes more ($1.77 vs $1.40 here, which is more like $2.50 when you count shipping). 

As for the small ink bottles, generic cylindrical bottles with metal caps are like 10 for $3 (10 ml each) on Temu with free shipping. They don't look as good as the square ones, but they are also a SMALL fraction of the price. 

And only order those you can't find on Temu on Stationery Pal, AFTER factoring in shipping costs (rule of thumb: add 80%) to make sure it is still worth ordering there. You *may* find that your continental store (Amazon, Jetpens, etc.) actually have the item for competitive prices without waiting 8-12 days shipping. 

Crap I Ordered From China; i.e. Bargain Hunting Stationery and Fountain Pen Stuff

 My Aliexpress order is finally here... Only took them 8 days. 

Anyway, adding another fountain pen and and 2 bottles of ink to my collection, which currently consists of:

* Crappy Lamy Safari CLONE from Temu (with included black cart ink, at least 5 if not 10) (about $1.00)

* Jinhou X850 from Temu, black, about $1.50

* Platinum Preppy in see-through blue from Amazon (about $6?)  currently MIA (whole pen case is missing, just need to find it)

* Hero A11 "Black Forest" (new)

* Lamy Safari in Black with Black trim (genuine from Lamy store) (new)

As for ink, I currently have: 

* Banmi Dragon

* Banmi Dolphin

* Generic black cartridge (for the Safari clone)

* Noodler's Blue (was for the Preppy?)

* Karkos Black

* Karkos Blue

* A couple genuine Lamy T10 carts for the Safari, forgot which color(s). 

Ah, but I have the additional stuff coming in from Temu...

* A Jinhou 950 "Blue and White Porcelain" pen for $7.29

* A generic 0.7mm fountain pen with an "art tip" (fude nib?) for $1.59

* 20 more 3.4mm ink carts for $1.19

* 2 generic 3.4mm converters for $2.39 (converts fountain pens to use bottled ink instead of carts)

* A "retractable tip fountain pen 0.38 mm nib" for $1.59

And one more item from Amazon...

* Platinum Preppy M nib black  (I bought a converter from LONG time ago for the blue one, which is MIA)

Now I just need a converter for my Lamy Safari... :) Which is like $5 on Jetpens. I am also eyeing one of their closeout limited edition Safaris for $30... But that'll have to wait when I *do* have money. 

Don't have much in terms of paper, but I did buy a Rhodia A5 notebook at my local stationery store (Patrick and Co) for funsies. It was like $8. Most of my current fountain pen writing was in a diary I bought off Temu, nice paper, but it has a little bit of bleed through. 

This hobby can add up, but if you do a bit of bargain hunting on Temu and such, you'll get a LOT MORE for your money. I am of course NOT saying that these fountain pens are comparable to Japanese (Platinum, Pilot, Sailor), German (Lamy, etc.), muchless Italian (Visconti) craftsmanship, but they are also 1/10 or 1/100th the cost.  Platinum Preppy can be had for $6, but is plastic-y. You need to go up to something like Metropolitan to look less plastic-y. Lamy Safari is also plastic-y and starts at $30 (discounted) or $37 (official store), and you need Lamy AL or Lamy 2000 to get to metal body which costs significantly more. Visconti pens STARTS at $120 and goes up to THOUSANDS of bucks. 

That Hero A11 full metal black cost me less than $5. I think it was $4.25 or so on Aliexpress. 

I think I've wrote enough. Now I need some breakfast.