You start by searching a product

Searching a product

There are several ways to search a product in Taobao - Through our site, or directly from Taobao’s web site.

Search box tool
To use our site search, you can use the “Search Taobao for…” tool located on the left of each page.
There is a dictionary as well to help you translate an item name to Chinese characters; it will show several multi meaning results.
You can copy one of them by marking with the mouse and paste it inside the search box.

Product Directory
Our product directory is an ever growing database for interesting products located in Taobao divided by categories.

Featured products
Products that we feel are interesting are located at the banners and beneath the Product Directory – don’t miss them.

Forum
Have a look or post your product request at our forums

Contact us
We will try our best to help find your requested item.

Search from Taobao’s website
go to :Taobao's website and enter your search terms in the wide search box.
Use the following techniques to maximize results.

1. Some products have English names and are easy searchable by entering an English product term.
2. You can use the product’s model number to find it for example writing:” IXUS 100 IS” will get you the canon IXUS digital camera.
3. To get more results you can use our translator tool (located on the left of each page) to find the Chinese characters of the item. Or use Google translator machine.

To understand the products pages layout on Taobao please go to Taobao Overview.

Found a product you wish to buy ? Great ! keep that page open .
Go to the Buy now section in our site (need to login) and Copy+Paste the product’s page URL address into the form.

We will check with the shop rather they have the product or not.
If the shop currently does not have the product we will contact you by mail and may suggest other shops.

If the shop has the product and it suits your request, we will then send you some details and costs to be paid later by PayPal
at the PayPal’s secured website.
This payment includes the product price + domestic shipping (Inside China) + our commission.
Upon receiving your payment we will order your product on your behalf.

Please know that:
Our service consists of two parts and thus 2 different payments:
a) To source the product and buy it on your behalf.
b) To ship the product to you by your chosen carrier.

Once we receive your chosen product we will let you know the precise weight of the parcel,
and the charge for the international shipping cost based on your chosen carrier.
Afterwards we will send the goods to you by the address you provide in your profile.
Please check that it is updated.

Don’t forget to let us know once you got your parcel! We just LOVE to hear it!

So how much we charge for providing you this great service?

Only 10% of the products value will be charge as our commission.
There is a minimum of 30¥ CNY (about US$ 4.4) per product kind.
Buy more kinds of products and get a discounted minimum commission.

For example:

1st Step:

Kate found beautiful shoes which in Taobao costs only CNY 248¥ (about US$ 36).
The inland shipping price is CNY 12¥ (about US$ 1.7).
Which means the product Worth CNY 260¥.

We charge Kate with a CNY 30¥ minimum commission and send a payment request via PayPal.

2nd Step:

Kate’s shoes arrived, we repackage it for a safer shipment and weight it to be 600 gram.
We now need to calculate the shipping.

Kate is from The United States so we check both our shipping agents to see which one is better
in terms of price vs. speed of delivery.

• HK agent shows a price of: CNY 115¥ add an extra fee of CNY 30¥ + CNY 4¥ per 1kg
  = CNY 149¥ for the shipment.
  It will take 7-14 days to deliver.
• China’s agent shows a price of: CNY 110¥ if we choose “United States Postal Service 3 days Delivery”
  add an extra fee of CNY 30¥ + CNY 4¥ per 1kg + 5.25% CST (China Service Tax) charge
  = CNY 152¥.
  It will take 3-6 days to deliver.

It is obvious that in this situation it is much better to choose the second option, for an extra CNY 3¥
we get a much faster delivery.
We ask kate to transfer the international delivery fee so we can send out her item.

Let’s see what we got…

Product price + inland shipping = CNY 260¥  (about US$ 38)
Commission = CNY 30¥ (about US$ 4.4)
International Shipping = CNY 152¥ (about US$ 22)

Total = CNY 442¥ (about US$ 65)

You can easily check any calculation by yourself by using our Shipping Tools.

* A fee of 4.1% will be charged by PayPal as Transaction Fees for Cross-Border Payments. The final net amount we receive will be equal to the total deposit amount deducted by the 4.1% fees. Thus, all PayPal fees applicable on Taobao Tube.com are for PayPal's beneficiary, not for Taobao Tube.com.

* Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer responsibility. Please check with your country customs office to determine what these additional costs will be prior to buying.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your item is not prohibited or restricted or registered as a brand in your country.
and you should check with the Customs and/or quarantine authority which should have informative websites.
We cannot and will not take any responsibility for an item being seized or taxed in your country’s customs.

To understand the Chinese Taobao layout please read here.