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Taobao vs Mumu Living: Price Difference in Furnitures
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Over the weekend, we finally visited Mumu Living in JB! ✨ We have been curious about it for a while, especially since they are known for selling Taobao-style furniture with a huge showroom to explore. As someone who loves 奶油风 (soft neutral tones) and warm, woody themes, I wanted to see if it lived up to the hype. Walking into the showroom gave us very strong 小红书 XHS vibes 🤭 The furniture was modern, minimalist and very Muji-Japandi-Scandinavian chic🌿 
What We Loved • Seeing Furniture IRL: Buying furniture online always feels like a gamble. Colours might differ, quality can be hit-or-miss and sizes often turn out different than expected. • No Language Barriers: Shopping on Taobao is a challenge especially if you are not fluent in Chinese or aren’t familiar with the platform. Best part is no need to worry about translations or dealing with freight forwarders like on Taobao. • Convenience: They offer delivery and assembly so you don’t have to worry about finding a handyman or figuring out complicated instructions. Plus, they offer warranties. 
What are the cons? Compared to buying directly from Taobao, Mumu's prices are much higher because they include overhead costs (e.g., showroom, delivery and service). Although Taobao is much cheaper, but it has its own set of challenges: • Inconsistent Quality – What you see isn’t always what you get. • Shipping Woes – Long waits, customs, or damaged items can make the process frustrating. Talking about damaged items… you can scroll to the last picture to see a real-life bookshelf purchase from Taobao that really scarred our experience 🤯❌ • DIY Assembly – Not ideal for people who don’t want to spend hours building furniture. 
So how much is the difference in price compared to TB? References: • Rosella Wavey Bedside Table o Taobao: ~SGD 160 (excluding delivery + installation) o Mumu: RM 899 (~SGD 272 at a 3.3 exchange rate) • Vince Bookrack o Taobao: ~SGD 168 (excluding delivery + installation) o Mumu: RM 1,365 (~SGD 414 at a 3.3 exchange rate) 
Our Take Would we buy from Mumu? Honestly, probably not. As much as we loved the convenience and quality, our budget takes priority. We would rather put in a bit more effort shopping on Taobao: reading reviews, comparing sellers and hoping for smooth delivery than pay the premium for convenience. At the same time, we’re the kind of people who prefer to feel and test out furniture, so big-ticket items will always feel like a risk online. For a start, smaller items like shoe rack would probably be one of the items we will get if we were to buy from Taobao and slowly build confidence😆 Even though we didn’t make any purchases during our visit, we’re glad we checked out Mumu. It gave us ideas for our future space and reassured us that buying larger Taobao furniture is doable with some planning. For us, this was more of a see-see-look-look kind of trip, we feel Mumu was still worth stopping by if you have some time on your hands! 😊
4 August
