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Q: What's the best way to use Taobao?
Is it best to use an agent, or AliExpress? If an agent, which is best to use (from personal experience)?
EDIT: I only want to sell, not buy. I am in Australia, and can't read Chinese.
10 years 32 weeks ago in Money & Banking - China
I know the answer! First, go to your local Chinese bank and get a friendly staff member to help you set up online banking. Just play the "I'm a helpless foreigner and dont know how to set this up by myself but i REALLY want to shop online" card. If you don't choose a bank full of unfriendly douches then you'll be ready to drop your savings in the cyberworld within 15 minutes. Now, with your online banking username and password memorized, you set up a Taobao account online. You can use either your cell phone or email account to register. It takes five minutes and if I can do it, so can you! And that's it! Start browsing and click on 'buy now' when you see something you want, choose the online banking payment method, enter the username and password you so easily remembered, enter the number on your online banking stick, click on send a code to your phone, enter the code and viola! The item will be on your way in hours/days. Happy Shopping!
it's best to use your chinese wife/gf, if you got one, or just do the research of the product you want by yourself. Even if you do not write/read chinese, with few tricks and a bit of time, you can sort out a research that takes you to the product you want. Then, pick 2-3 websites that have similar prices and high customer satisfaction level score, and ask one of your friends/colleagues to buy it for you. Pay them cash.
Set up Google translator as automatic web translator. You'll have additional fun with the meaningless translations coming from it.
I think the problem is not the actual shopping. As Lolitta writes, it's pretty simple, ask Google for instructions. The tricky part is when you find something on Taobao, do you pick on or the other, the reviews is, according to my wife, the secret to successful taobaoing.
Kaiwen:
I discussed this with my office secretary. We have taken to buying certain items of office accessories from Taobao instead of going to the local stationers. She insists that the secret is reading the reviews. I have a problem with this that has left me totally flummoxed. In absolutely no other circumstance would I believe any review or testimonial written by any Chinese and take it seriously. Why would Taobao be an exception to the rule? Are a majority of these reviews worth the time necessary to read them?
Traveler:
Agreed, Kaiwen. The seller is just as likely to be the one writing the good reviews.
Scandinavian:
Sure there will be faked reviews. But if you go through the ordering process, you only get to post a review once you've done a transaction. As the payment is through taobao, the individual shops would need to go through actual purchase and refunds to do so.
Now I am not saying this isn't blue eyed naivety. Of course the shops have their friends write positive reviews. We bought something that showed up broken. The shop was a little sluggish in responding, my wife wrote a cranky review and they asked if sending a replacement could make her change the review. So yeah, the reviews are "bought"
xinyuren:
In addition, the seller will offer something to the buyer if they change a bad review. I had this happen to me a few times. I buy most of the things for my apartment renovation on Taobao.
Selling on taobao is tough, when you start out you have a zero rating. Nobody will buy from you. My wife tells me you can pay taobao for some seller points and reviews which will help you get started, this is the Chinese way. If you prefer to be more legit I would recommend you find the kind of product you are looking to sell or similar and send the seller an email that you are an Australian exporter and would like to do business with them.
Here's an article about starting a business on Taobao. It's a little old but covers the basics. I know a couple of expats who set up their own Taobao businesses and it's tough going. You have to remember that there are probably thousands and thousands of people selling similar things and competing to have their shop and items appear high up in the search results. Knowing the correct keywords and doing everything possible to market your shop round the clock is vital for success: http://www.echinacities.com/news/Tips-to-Starting-a-Business-on-Chinas-T...
