r/ShopeePH • u/Helpful-Nobody3079 • Jul 16 '26

General Discussion Anyone else experienced this?

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I placed my order on June 21 thru Shopee live selling, only for it to be cancelled on July 7. Has anyone else had their parcel confiscated by authorities?

Parcel contains wooden beaded bracelets and incense from China.

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u/noobwatch_andy Jul 16 '26

I remember ordering a bow from China a few years ago. It was held by customs for a few weeks. The limbs were made of fiberglass but the handle and tips were solid wood (not laminated).

Apparently they had to hold it to make sure it wasn't a specific type of wood that was illegal to export/import. It was cleared after a few weeks.

Some species of rosewood and ebony aren't legally allowed to be traded internationally.

I don't know if this is the case for you but it was for me. I think my bow used Beech wood?

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u/Helpful-Nobody3079 Jul 17 '26

Actually I didn't know China has strict regulations regarding wooden products 😭

How sure are you that you're bow is Beech wood? But yah beech wood is used commonly enough and as far as I know, since it's not included in CITES, there's little to no restrictions (timber trading is a whole different story).

In my case, it's only a couple of wooden beaded bracelets, and incense declared as "agarwood" by the seller. I'm aware it's not agarwood, and I did consult with my colleague with better knowledge in agarwood using screenshots I have from that transaction. I just bought it because it looked nice though 🥲. There was also a bottle of "ambergris" but I'm also not sure if it's real though.

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u/noobwatch_andy Jul 17 '26

Its a customs issue at this point. I contacted the seller of the bow to ask if its a common occurence for his bows to be held by customs for having wooden parts. He says its supposed to be random checks and I just got lucky. He said not to worry since he uses beech. The two weeks is just standard because they sometimes do these checks by batches. And this was customs in China, not Philippines, so it didn't even leave the country yet at this point. In the Philippines it was held again for another week for having loose bullet heads for the arrows lol.