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Taobao shop - how to select the right item

Shopping on Taobao might seems difficult - as there is no english language - but on the other side you will found is not so hard at all. Here is step-to-step guide which help you buy anything on Taobao.com

You will need

1. Forwarding address in China - grab one on Tiptrans.com, it's free

2. Taobao account - check our guide, how to register on Taobao

 

Step by step guide: how to search on Taobao and don't get cheated

 

1. Log in

Click on 亲,请登录

 

Enter your user name (or phone number), password and slide from the left to the right. Than click on red button.

 

2. Search for your product

Even Taobao is not in English language many sellers still use english names for their products. You will be able to use english to search them. However, you will get much more results if you use Chinese language. Here is the trick - go to Google translator and translate your product name from English to Chinese Simplified. Use the result as a search term.

 

more filters can be used like described bellow

包邮 - free shipping
赠送退货运费险 - return shipping cost insurance (terms apply, better to ignore)
货到付款 - cash on delivery
海外商品 - non-China products
二手 - second hand (used products)
天猫 - tmall (show products only from tmall - risk-free shopping, but usually more expensive)
正品保障 - only genuine products
24小时内发货 - 24 hours shipping
7+天内退货 - can return even after 7 days (which is considered as a standard on Taobao, however, some products can't be returned)
旺旺在线 - alitalk online (chat)

If you happen to use Google Chrome we would suggest use this add on: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/currency-converter/mnphmlmibmjdhmkpcocncbgfcohehgbb - it allows you check exchange rates easily

 

3. Seller quality

Pay attention to small details, if something looks too good to be true usually it's not.

 

Carefully check, how many points Taobao seller earned. In China is even 10000 points considered as "not too much".

 

Comments - in this case there are no comments, so we wouldn't recommend to buy from this seller to avoid risk.

 

Shipping cost estimation

 

Product detail

 

Upper menu

 

4. Important - International Credit Card payments on Taobao

It's nice to have your dream product from Taobao just click away, but will you really be able pay for it? Please watch carefully the CREDIT CARD sign for the each product, this means you will be able use your VISA / MASTER CARD as payment method. This option is available for most of the items, but still not 100%. Also you can be sure tmall.com will let you pay by credit card (Tmall also belongs to Alibaba and it's very connected to Taobao, sometime you realize you are browsing their website instead of Taobao when you going throught the links)

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Continue reading - how to add your address to Taobao and how to pay for Taobao order.