I ordered via Paypal in the middle of the night in China, and by their morning the order status did change to 'received' (meaning, payment received by them). A few hours after that, on a Friday, its status changed again to posted, with a DHL tracking number. Unfortunately the tracking number didn't work all weekend until it finally worked on Monday, when it said the item had been picked up (I guess it was posted too late on the Friday). I'm now constantly checking the DHL site to see when it will be with me. It's taken a day to get from Hong Kong to London so far, which is pretty good!
I've never received any email from Hopebuy, even though I gave them a valid email address, but their response in their forum was ok.