Shipping Chinese bike parts/frames to hotel in Shanghai

[oliverracing]

I'm visiting Shanghai with work at the end of March and then flying directly on to a trip where I'm meeting a group of mates to do a two week bikepacking trip in Turkey.

My plan had been to buy a 29er 120mm FS chinese carbon frame in the coming month, aslong with a fair few chinese components, and build it up before going and get a mate to bring it out with him as he's renting a bike locally, but now timings have changed slighlty it's looking like I'm going to have 3-5 days (depending on when the work gets finished) to kill in china so was thinking of getting the frame/most of the components delivered locally to the hotel in Shanghai and build up in the hotel before giving it a shakedown locally and sourcing any other bits there and then flying on to China.

I'm not sure if there's any local tax I'd need to pay to do this, but if not it's a massive saving on post and import duty as I believe inporting used bikes to the UK is free now, especially via suitases? The main issue is logistically has anyone got any experience with getting parts/post delivered direct in advance to chinese (decent) hotels?

If it all doesn't work out, worse case I can rent a bike locally for not to rediculous an amount but I'd like to avoid needing to do that if possible.

[jfcb]

Personally I wouldn't mind asking a hotel to store some goods on your name. I've done it in the past and they are willing to do so, especially the more 'fancy' hotels. It might also depend on how many packages you're talking about. If they know they can expect 5 packages vs randomly arriving 15 packages which also just might get lost.
The main point you'll need to think through is the preparation: what components will you buy/ship and what will you take with you. Especially for the assembly nowadays you must not forget some special tools like assembly grease, cable cutters, hydraulic oil, olive oil insertion tool, fork pump (if going with a suspension fork) etc.. not even talking if you want to go tubeless. It might be better to have find a local bike shop in Shanghai who is willing to assemble your bike in a couple of days.

[Serge_K]

i like complicated projects like that.
afaik, it will be your bike, used (even if you've only ridden 1km), so you can bring it back in your luggage w/o declaring it.
if the hotel is good, you can ship a parcel there, but if it becomes several parcels, and some are oversized, and they will have to sit on it for weeks, and so on, then make sure to call them and agree, as it really isn't their job.
Alternatively, i know a transporter in shanghai, he should still have 10 chains for me and a bunch of gizmos. he aggregated a dozen shipments for us last year and shipped us a few boxes. i can't say i like him, but he's not unreliable. information does get lost in translation, but if you get him to repeat things very specifically, you can assume he understood. he handled the move from china to europe of a friend, so he's a pro, he's not just some guy. but shanghai is big, so idk how convenient it'd be for you to use him. DM me if you want his details.