Tutorial: How to Buy From Taobao
How Does TaobaoRing Work?
TaobaoRing is a company that purchases the items you desire from Taobao on your behalf. Once your items arrive, they ship them to you! TaobaoRing makes a small commission off of your purchase price for their involvement as a middleman. I have seen this rate be as high as 11% and as low as 5%.
Choose Your Items
Simply paste the URL of the item that you would like into the shopping service of your choice. There is usually a place for notes, so that you are able to choose a certain size and input your desired color.
2. Confirm Your Items
Once you submit your desired items to your shopping service, they will contact the sellers to ensure that the items are in stock. If the items are unavailable, your shopping service will keep you informed.
3. Complete Your First Payment
After the shopping service confirms that the items that you would like to buy are in stock, they will calculate the cost to purchase the items plus the shipping from the seller to their location. Once this calculation is complete, you will receive your first invoice for the cost and pay it through PayPal.
4. Purchase Items - Check - Photos of the Order
With your first invoice payment, your shopping service will order your purchases. Once all of your items arrive, the shopping service will take photographs of your order to confirm it is accurate.
5. Complete Your Second Payment
The second invoice that you will receive will be the cost to ship your order to you from the shopping service location, plus the service fee. The service fee is for the service that the shopping service has provided by acting as the middleman between you and the Taobao seller. The % service rate varies from shopping service to shopping service. Many times, the shopping service will have % sales!
6. Your Order Ships
Once your 2nd payment has been made, your shopping service will ship your order to you!
When searching for items on Taobao, you may find it useful to use the browser Google Chrome. Google Chrome has an easy translation option that will translate Chinese into the desired language of your choice in mere seconds! To do this, simply go to any one of your Taobao pages. At the very top of the web page, next to the URL online address, you will see a black box with a kanji symbol and the letter 'a'. It is to the left of the favorite URL star. This is Google Chrome's complete translation tool.
2. Add Your Items to TaobaoRing
3. Submit Your Order
After the staff contact the sellers, they can communicate the particulars about the items you selected. As you can see, they left me messages about the color of an item, the length of time needed in order to create many of the items I selected, if the seller does not sell to an agent and their shop is therefore not available to international buyers, and if the seller is not recommended.
This gives you the chance to edit your order. You can add additional items, remove items from your order, or split your items into two separate orders. I elected to do this for this particular order since some of the items required an extended period of time to create. It is very easy to customize!
Here’s a proof photo of a past order:
8. Pay Your 2nd Invoice
Once your order has been verified by photograph, the TaobaoRing staff will send you your second invoice. This invoice is the cost to ship the items from the TaobaoRing warehouse to your doorstep! You are welcome to choose any of the main worldwide shipping methods that you'd like. Usually, the less time that your order will take to reach you usually means the cost of the shipment will increase.
9. Track Your Order
With many of the tracking and shipment options that TaobaoRing provides, most of them include tracking. With this tracking or ID number, you can trace your parcel's journey as it migrates from China to your country's destination. I love to track the progress of my Taobao finds as they get closer!
10. Enjoy Your Items!
Congratulations! Take photos of your purchases, create an unboxing video, or just enjoy the splendor of your Taobao finds! Now, you can purchase whatever items you wish from Taobao with ease!
What are some of the items you are looking at on Taobao? If you have ordered from Taobao before, what are some of your favorite Taobao finds and brands? I would love to see some of your discoveries!