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How about tradetang.com? I've purchased there only once, but it went ok.

Lots of uninteresting stuff. Anything tempting is absolutely knock off. Many sellers are out to take your money and run. If you do find the one good supplier there, it won't be long before their competitors snitch them out to the authorities and thus an arrest ensues. Sometimes they turn over the supplier's customer list (with you on it) to the US fuzz.

Looks pretty, bites you in the hind end. Be careful or better yet be wise.

Err a silly question. Their price is in RMB?

RMB could refer to:
Renminbi, the currency of the People's Republic of China
Malaysian Ringgit is also sometimes referred to as RMB

The renminbi (sign: ¥; code: CNY) is the currency of the People's Republic of China whose principal unit is the yuan.

How does their payment system work? It seems like the buyer would have to have some credits in the account before purchasing?

Typically Western Union or bank transfer to escrow balance in advance?

Vic,

Snitching does not work in China. Corruption, bribery, nationalism. Every month or every other month, the Chinese conduct a 'publicity raid' usually after a G20 or G7 meeting. Hundreds of factories producing knock-off of various quality[ b to aaa], thousands of distributors and ten of thousands of wholesalers. By time it gets on Taoboa its in the hands of MILLIONS of retail sellers. Makes Ebay look like a toddler learning to walk. The world will never be the same when just 10% of the chinese approach the US per capita income. Last economist figure was 50million chinese at USA per capita income levels about a 1/3rd the way there by the sound of things.

I am finally going over next month. My relatives [ business people over your sideof the world ] go every 3 moths or so, $25-$100 for an interpretor that doubles and triples for other purposes. They buy office furniture that has a 600% price range for the same item. Price only has 'some' correlation to quality. Top quality is about 20% of the retail price in officeMAX

Wild West capitalism like only the chinese know how.

oh yea they are guys that will take your money and run :) for the newbies start online[alibaba], insist on paypal [lol], insist again on paypal, ..oh yea after the excuses still insist on paypal. Then order in custom clearable quantities for VERO and larger qty for non-vero.

All of the above is hours and hours of work.

taoboa is for advanced buyers but greenbean posted a a very good 'toaboa' service i intend on trying soon

Is going through a taobao agent the only way to buy stuff from taobao?
taobao seem to only accept payment via alipay and alipay doesn't accept credit card payment and they only accept their local china bank? And does the taobao seller shipped overseas? I find it hard to justify paying extra to taobao agent... anyone of you using a taobao agent?

Is anything on that site authentic? I would like to order some shoes from there and I see some sellers accept credit card. Would it be safe to pay them through credit card?

Can anyone help me confirm if the sellers are legit and translate their currency?

Only unbranded goods are authentic. Or those chinese products with chinese names.

Imagine literally a chinese version of eBay with no rules regarding copyright, vero, pakes, etc. and there you go. So my answer is if 90% of eBay is already full of trash, then TaoBao's authenticity percentage would be near 99% (not an exaggeration) for branded items. Of course there are unbranded items on there, but not really many foreigners enter TaoBao for unbranded items. Regardless, unless you get an 'agent' or friend that physically lives in China you have no way of guarding against scams (take money and go tactics).

:(

taobao & alibaba are somewhere you could buy most made in china bargain on these website, taobao is the chinese number one C2C and alibaba is the number one small B2B in the world. but you need to be careful much scam also in there!

Awesome!


And that's ture.Most of sellers in taobao wouldn't speak English well,and also in order to use the system you have to know chinese yourself as well as chinese currency payment method.Though you are qualified for all of these things,you will have to find a seller who would like to ship item to oversea.


Are there any works I could get here?:bounce:

There is a payment system works almost the same as paypal called zhifubao,www.alipay.com

But unfortunately.alipay only can be used by chinese cuz they have identity system that needs you to provide douments as Chinese ID card,bank account.etc..

Hi everybody, I am a chinese. If you guys need help on taobao, I can help. But stuff on taobao is not too cheap. If you get a large quantity, I can help you get it with a cheaper price. If you want, please let me know. :)