BUYING A GIFT - Need help

[Thomas Feronti]

I'm buying a gift for a friend from a Chinese website. I'm trying to figure out a few thing since I don't speak the language, but want to make sure the gift is perfect!

 

First off, here is the link to the website/specific item I want to buy:

http://www.citizen.com.cn/products/AT8110-11A.aspx

 

The few questions I have are:

1. Is this a real cite or a fake/scam website? The prices are cheaper so I'm not sure.

2. Does the website accept American credit cards?

3. It says this product is 4600 Yen. This confuses me for a couple reasons. I thought the Chinese currency was different? Trying to figure out why there is this discrepancy.

 

If you figure out anything else, let me know! Thanks in advance

 

[Publius]

Yes, that seems to be Citizen China's official website.

The basic unit of the Chinese currency is Yuan (CNY). It uses the same symbol (￥) as the Japanese Yen (JPY), but they are different currencies. (4600 CNY = 74124.40714 JPY = 661.11331 USD as of today according to https://www.fx-exchange.com/)

At the bottom of the "Buy Now" page, it says it accepts Alipay, WeChat Pay (both are digital wallets popular in China), and China UnionPay cards. I don't think they directly accept American cards. But if you have an Alipay or WeChat Pay account that is linked to an American card... really I'm not the expert. Wait for other forum members.

[889]

Are you in China and returning to the US? Then don't forget there may be customs duty on the watch.

 

If you aren't in China, then it's very possible Citizen won't ship outside of China. And if they do, there's customs duty possibly again.

 

Any warranty you get on the watch may be good only in Mainland China. Instructions and other materials will probably be in Chinese.

 

Makers of all sorts of goods sometimes make products for different markets with different specifications, but nonetheless use the same model number across all markets. That is, a Citizen watch with a certain model number for the Chinese market might possibly not be identical in all respects with the same model sold in the US. Very specifically, will the radio control feature work with US radio time frequencies?

 

Finally, am I missing something? Amazon US sells many models of the AT8110 (but not the -11A), and they sell for a lot lot less than the equivalent of ￥4140. This is actually what you'd expect. China is rarely a good place to find good discounts on so-called luxury items like fine watches.

[Thomas Feronti]

Perfect. You both answered a number of my questions!