[20] Buying Direct from China, Part 2 – Into the Thick of Things: Online Shopping at Taobao

In my first post on buying goods directly from China, we explored Lazada and AliExpress, both of which are English online platforms. Next, let’s have a look at shopping at Taobao, all in Chinese!

Fear not though, this post will still be written in English.

In fact, if I were to write it in the Chinese language, it might take forever. I’d likley struggle with the flow of things, choices of words, grammar even. Whew! Lucky thing we’re not going that way, lol 🙂

So, lighten up and get ready to dive straight into the very heart of Chinese online shopping.

At Taobao, that is.

Taobao: At the Heart of China — Now We’re Talking!

As if Lazada and AliExpress aren’t enough, we actually have a third option of buying direct from China.

We can follow how the local Chinese purchase their stuff, by shopping at Taobao. Sort of like “when in Rome, do what the Romans do”, if you get the drift.

This is as close as one can get to the Chinese marketplace from outside, short of making a trip there or taking up residency. Yes, with Taobao, we’ll be at the heart of China!

Beginning as sort of a challenge to eBay*, when the latter entered China in 2002, Alibaba launched Taobao to recapture the Chinese domestic market in a big way. This online market space is very lucrative, with an astounding 466 million active buyers recorded in Q2 of this year, as reported by statista.com here.

Taobao Reaches Further, Outside of China

As Taobao expanded, it eventually opened up to nearby countries which speak the Chinese language. Like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

Soon enough, people in Singapore were able to access Taobao to directly enjoy buying straight from China suppliers.

While many see Taobao as a C2C (consumer-to-consumer) marketplace, there are actually many entrepreneurs and small businesses operating in this online space. So to me, Taobao has a good mix of B2C and C2C catering to the expanded market.

Quite likely, those who aren’t so conversant in English set up shop at Taobao. Otherwise they could be on AliExpress (as well) to take advantage of demand from international (and mostly English-speaking) markets. And possibly do more business via drop shipping to these places.

I actually quizzed a supplier as to whether they have presence on AliExpress — the answer was negative. And they actually suggested I buy at AliExpress (from their competitors, for that matter) if that platform is more convenient for me.

I’m guessing their marketplace is so huge that there’s no shortage of business to keep everyone busy.

*Note: eBay eventually quit the Chinese market in 2006, shadowed by the tremendous success of Taobao. Also, though Taobao implements both fixed price and auction-based selling like eBay, auctions account for only a small percentage of overall transaction volume.

My First Experience Shopping at Taobao… and Why I Bought Direct from China

So, what did I buy as my first Taobao?

Watch the video, in which I shared my excitement in opening up my Taobao package. Yup, I made an unboxing video — my first ever 🙂 Do comment to let me know what you think.

Near the end of the video, I shared my Taobao shopping experience. There are a few tips and lessons to learn about there.

Shopping at Taobao — Challenge #1: It’s All in Chinese!

When you shop at Taobao, you first have to deal with reading and writing in Chinese.

I must say I suck at the language. My ‘O’ Levels grade for the Chinese language was merely an acceptable B4. Even so, I haven’t forgotten most of what I’d learned in those years of compulsory second-language lessons.

At the very least, I could still recognize many Chinese characters when I see them. However, through lack of writing them, I do encounter difficulty in recalling their strokes upfront.

But I do have a strong point up my sleeve, in the form of pinyin or the Romanization of Chinese. I can say I’m adept at writing in pinyin, so I could get away with writing Chinese text using the English alphabet. And doing all this with ease at the PC keyboard.

Armed with this, it wasn’t too messy for me to get in touch with Chinese suppliers. And with Taobao’s built-in chat function (called AliWangWang), buyers have a direct communication channel to each and every seller on their shopping platform.

That solves the basic problem of how to navigate and use the Taobao website and app, plus contacting suppliers to ask questions and sort out issues.

Shopping at Taobao — Challenge #2: Getting Them Out of China

The next big puzzle to confront me was about shipping stuff I bought back to Singapore.

Often, Taobao sellers provide free domestic shipping within China; at times, a small fee is charged for local delivery. With that, your purchases remain in China. Everything from there on is your responsibility.

Recognizing this missing link, and sensing the opportunity, Taobao now provides international shipping as a separate option during item purchase. If you are in a hurry, you can choose to ship purchases immediately to your Singapore address after paying for them.

Alternatively, if you have bought several items from different suppliers, you can use the option of consolidating all purchases to economize on shipping rates. Once your goods arrive at Taobao’s shipper, you can elect to combine different items into one or more larger parcels.

The shipper will repack your stuff into parcels as instructed before shipping them to Singapore. The only catch: there’s a time window within which your items must arrive to be in time for consolidation. Miss this and items already at the shipper will go out without waiting for the others.

There’s 3rd-Party Help Too

Third-party international shipping options are also available. These include using the overseas delivery services of Taobao agents, who would usually act as the buyer on your behalf. Or appointing your preferred shipper and arranging for Taobao sellers to deliver your goods to their prescribed locations in China.

For me, I opted to use Lazada’s global shipping services to get my items out of China and into Singapore. Their charges are reasonable amongst the 4 or 5 competitors who have operations in China and provide shipping to Singapore.

With Lazada’s help, I merely had to ensure the supplier deliver my purchases to Lazada’s China warehouse location. Once the goods got there, I received a notification to proceed with consolidating and shipping my order.

Within 5 days, the package arrived at my doorstep, delivered by Ninja Van.

Be Mindful of What You’ll Have to Pay For

Whichever way you go, bear in mind that there would be several separate charges to pay for when shopping at Taobao, viz:

• The items you’ve purchased
• Delivery fees within China, if there isn’t free shipping
• International shipping fees
• Credit card fees, usually at 3%, unless you have an AliPay account
• Agency fees, if you chose to use a Taobao agent to act for you

All things considered, Taobao shopping does look more complex for Singaporeans, compared to buying at AliExpress or Lazada. Still, I thought I’d give it a go, just to have a first-hand experience.

(And now being able to write about it and sharing what I know.)

For the record, the soldering iron station was available on AliExpress but cost more. And it wasn’t from the supplier which I wanted to buy from, which is a critical factor. I didn’t want to end up with a copycat product which may employ inferior electronic components.

And so, I jumped into the deep end — shopping at Taobao for the very first time 😉