Guide
How to buy from Taobao when you live outside China
Taobao is not hard to browse — it is hard to complete. Registration needs a mainland phone number, payment runs through Alipay, the fine print is in Chinese, and most sellers ship only within China. Below is the whole path, including the parts nobody mentions until something goes wrong.
1. Find the listing
Search on Taobao directly if you can read enough Chinese, or send us a photo and a description and we will locate it. Taobao's own image search is decent; the harder part is telling near-identical listings apart, which is where the seller rating, number of orders and buyer photos in the review section matter more than the header image.
2. Read the parts that are not in English
Three fields decide whether your order goes smoothly, and all three are Chinese-only: the SKU selector (size, colour, bundle), the domestic freight line, and the pre-sale notice. The size chart is almost always an image inside the gallery rather than text.
3. Pay, but pay for the right thing
The item price is only one of four costs: item, domestic freight inside China, international freight, and any import duty or tax at your end. An agent quote should show all four separately — if a quote is a single number with no breakdown, you cannot tell what you are actually being charged for. Ours is itemised, and the quote is held for 72 hours because freight rates and exchange rates move.
4. Consolidate before you ship
This is where the money is saved. International freight has a high fixed cost per parcel, so five small orders shipped together usually cost far less than five separate parcels. It is also the only chance to inspect everything while it is still cheap to fix: inside China, a wrong size can be exchanged; abroad, it cannot.
That is what the 90-day free storage window is for — you keep buying, everything piles up in one warehouse, and you ship once.
Four things that go wrong
The price you see excludes domestic freight
Chinese listings quote the item only. Shipping inside China is often free but not always, and it is added at checkout — sometimes per item, sometimes per order.
“预售” means pre-sale, not in stock
A pre-sale listing can take weeks before it even ships to the warehouse. It is written in Chinese on the product page and is the single most common cause of “where is my parcel” emails.
Sizes are not what you expect
Chinese sizing runs smaller than EU/US, and shoe sizes often use a different scale entirely. The size chart is in the image gallery, in Chinese. We check it before ordering if you ask.
“7-day no-reason return” only works inside China
Chinese consumer law gives a return window on many items — but only while the item is still in the country. Once it is abroad, that protection is gone. This is why inspection happens in our warehouse, not at your door.
Questions
- Can I buy a single item, or is there a minimum?
- One item is fine. There is no minimum order and no membership. Small orders are simply less efficient on shipping, which is why consolidation exists.
- Can you buy from 1688 or Weidian too?
- Yes — Taobao, Tmall, 1688 and Weidian. 1688 is the wholesale site, so many listings there have a minimum quantity; we will tell you if that is the case before ordering.
- What if the seller sends the wrong thing?
- We check it against what you ordered and send photos before it leaves the warehouse. If it is wrong and still inside China, we arrange an exchange or return with the seller.
- Do you declare the real value on customs paperwork?
- Yes. Declaring low values to reduce duty is the fastest way to get a parcel seized and a customer left with nothing. We declare the value you paid and let you decide whether the duty is acceptable before shipping.
Skip the hard parts
Paste the link. We handle the Chinese, the payment, the inspection and the export.