Why use Taobao?

[apelly]

This thread just got pinged again, but rather then pollute that I thought I'd ask in a new one...

Why bother using Taobao? What do you get that is better than aliexpress? Or ebay?

Is it cheaper or something? Or better organised?

[wraper]

Often it is the only place where you can get something. Also, sometimes cost savings are very significant compared to Aliexpress or ebay.

[uncle_bob]

This thread just got pinged again, but rather then pollute that I thought I'd ask in a new one...

Why bother using Taobao? What do you get that is better than aliexpress? Or ebay?

Is it cheaper or something? Or better organised?

Hi

How to phrase this so as not to trip all over the place ....

eBay still has a lot of US roots. That makes it difficult for some sellers to deal with. Ailexpress is sort of an eBay clone with not quite all of the same roots, but enough of them that it still makes some sellers shy away. Not speaking Chinese, I have absolutely no idea how well either site does in anything other than English. There may be some issues there.

Taobao is about as close as you can get to the internal Chinese market and not travel over there. It's not as polished, at least not when viewed from outside China and trying to deal with it in English. It does let you get at a lot of items that do not show up on the other two.  In some (but not all) cases you can find items that are listed on the other two for less money on Taobao. All that said, there is a "hassle factor" digging things up and buying them there. I generally am willing to pay a 10% "eBay tax" to not have to deal with that.

Bob

[apelly]

Often it is the only place where you can get something. Also, sometimes cost savings are very significant compared to Aliexpress or ebay.

Fair enough.

Just for fun though; what's something you've only been able to find on Taobao? Sure, I often can't find the exact thing I'm looking for on ali, but man there's a lot of stuff.

OK. Just thought of something: Shorts for fat dudes. Checking now...

[uncle_bob]

Often it is the only place where you can get something. Also, sometimes cost savings are very significant compared to Aliexpress or ebay.

Fair enough.

Just for fun though; what's something you've only been able to find on Taobao? Sure, I often can't find the exact thing I'm looking for on ali, but man there's a lot of stuff.

OK. Just thought of something: Shorts for fat dudes. Checking now...

Hi

The range of surplus OCXO's on Taobao is much larger than on the other two. The same is true of boards with modern FPGA's on them.

Bob

[apelly]

The range of surplus OCXO's on Taobao is much larger than on the other two. The same is true of boards with modern FPGA's on them.

That's unexpected. And interesting.

I guess I'll add them to the usual suspects for cheap toys.

Thanks guys.

[uncle_bob]

The range of surplus OCXO's on Taobao is much larger than on the other two. The same is true of boards with modern FPGA's on them.

That's unexpected. And interesting.

I guess I'll add them to the usual suspects for cheap toys.

Thanks guys.

Hi

Be warned, the search process (for someone starting from English) is *painful*.

Bob

[apis]

I tried to figure out how to buy from Taobao, do most sellers ship abroad? I found a couple of bloggs in English that recommended using "agents", i.e. someone in Hong Kong, for example, that buys the item from Taobao for you and then forwards it to your adress. But the ones I found charged enough that it took away the economic benefit compared to E-bay or AliExpress. On Ebay you have better buyer-protection as well.

[sleemanj]

This thread just got pinged again, but rather then pollute that I thought I'd ask in a new one...

Why bother using Taobao? What do you get that is better than aliexpress? Or ebay?

Is it cheaper or something? Or better organised?

For me, I buy stuff *mostly* destined for resale locally.  While I do buy a lot off aliexpress as well, about once a month I buy a box load of stuff from various taobao vendors. 

It means I get one properly packed box filled with a few hundred dollars worth of junk valuable electronic components, via EMS rather than slow-boat, there's not usually much difference in price once the shipping and agent fees are accounted for, maybe a little cheaper on average. 

Compare that to getting 50 bags of loose stuff from various Aliexpress sellers, spread over a month or more, trying to keep track of what has arrived, what hasn't etc...

That said,  I'd say my monthly spend on stock is about 60% Taobao and 40% Aliexpress these days.

[dannyf]

When buy from such a source, re careful of high cost of low prices.

Otherwise, good luck.

[uncle_bob]

When buy from such a source, re careful of high cost of low prices.

Otherwise, good luck.

Hi

Indeed, never "invest" more than you can afford to loose in this case. From what I've seen (so far) the chances on junk are no worse on eBay. The recovery process is a bit easier there.

Bob

[edavid]

The range of surplus OCXO's on Taobao is much larger than on the other two.

How do you search for surplus OCXOs?  Entering "OCXO" only found new ones, not surplus.

[edpalmer42]

I suspect that Chinese-only speakers sell on Taobao to Chinese-English speakers who sell on ebay after a suitable markup.

edavid, try your search again.  I searched for OCXO and got 59 pages of results.  They were a mix of new and used with the used ones at the bottom of the price range.

[coppice]

The range of surplus OCXO's on Taobao is much larger than on the other two.

How do you search for surplus OCXOs?  Entering "OCXO" only found new ones, not surplus.

You really need to enter Chinese to get TaoBao to search in any reasonable way. Entering something in English might get you a couple of hits, where entering the same thing in Chinese will get you pages of hits. You could try using translate.google.com to cook up some Chinese phrases, and paste those into TaoBao's search box, but translations miss the mark more often than they hit it. Unfortunately, this forum won't accept Chinese characters, so I can't give you the relevant text for second hand, or used.

I don't really understand how anyone can make good use of TaoBao unless they can read Chinese. It must be an endless string of frustrations.

[coppice]

I suspect that Chinese-only speakers sell on Taobao to Chinese-English speakers who sell on ebay after a suitable markup.

Its mostly Chinese people selling to other Chinese people, with little thought about the world beyond China's borders. Some sellers target Chinese speakers in other countries, selling them things they might find hard to get locally, but that's a rather small activity.

[sleemanj]

I don't really understand how anyone can make good use of TaoBao unless they can read Chinese. It must be an endless string of frustrations.

I get by ok with Chrome set to auto-translate, particularly given the fact that many things in the electronics world have some "expected" characteristics it's not too hard to decipher even marginal translation.

I love I can say that so casually, "set to auto-translate", we are living in the future.

[edavid]

edavid, try your search again.  I searched for OCXO and got 59 pages of results.  They were a mix of new and used with the used ones at the bottom of the price range.

OK, here's my search results page:

https://list.tmall.com/search_product.htm?spm=a220m.1000858.0.0.Zl67mF&q=ocxo&sort=p&style=g&from=mallfp..pc_1_searchbutton&active=2&tmhkmain=0&type=pc

It's sorted by price, and there are no used oscillators on the first page.

What am I doing wrong?

[sleemanj]

OK, here's my search results page:

https://list.tmall.com/

Search on taobao.com

http://world.taobao.com/search/search.htm?_ksTS=1458015183730_52&spm=a21bp.7806943.20151106.1&_input_charset=utf-8&navigator=all&json=on&q=ocxo&callback=__jsonp_cb&cna=f2fOC8mjqTsCAcpOmxdPvQfS&abtest=_AB-LR517-LR854-LR895-PR517-PR854-PV895_2461

[edavid]

OK, here's my search results page:

https://list.tmall.com/

Search on taobao.com

http://world.taobao.com/search/search.htm?_ksTS=1458015183730_52&spm=a21bp.7806943.20151106.1&_input_charset=utf-8&navigator=all&json=on&q=ocxo&callback=__jsonp_cb&cna=f2fOC8mjqTsCAcpOmxdPvQfS&abtest=_AB-LR517-LR854-LR895-PR517-PR854-PV895_2461

Well, I tried, but when I used the search box at the top level taobao.com page, I somehow got redirected to tmall.com (in Chrome)   However, if I start from that results page, I can search for other things without being redirected, so I guess that will work.  Thanks.

[coppice]

OK, here's my search results page:

https://list.tmall.com/

Search on taobao.com

http://world.taobao.com/search/search.htm?_ksTS=1458015183730_52&spm=a21bp.7806943.20151106.1&_input_charset=utf-8&navigator=all&json=on&q=ocxo&callback=__jsonp_cb&cna=f2fOC8mjqTsCAcpOmxdPvQfS&abtest=_AB-LR517-LR854-LR895-PR517-PR854-PV895_2461

Well, I tried, but somehow got redirected to tmall.com (in Chrome)   However, if I start from that results page, I can search for other things without being redirected, so I guess that will work.  Thanks.

Tmall is where large sellers set up their own stores within the Taobao system, usually offering their full catalogue of products. Hence,  almost everything there is new.

[koalafan]

You can find the goods that you can not find at aliexprss or ebay..and some agent can collect the goods for you ,it help you save money to ship them together than you buy them at aliexpress one by one..

[amyk]

I don't really understand how anyone can make good use of TaoBao unless they can read Chinese. It must be an endless string of frustrations.

I get by ok with Chrome set to auto-translate, particularly given the fact that many things in the electronics world have some "expected" characteristics it's not too hard to decipher even marginal translation.

I love I can say that so casually, "set to auto-translate", we are living in the future.

With enough exposure, you'll start learning bits of Chinese, and some of the words even start to make sense. For example, voltage is literally the two characters "electron" and "pressure", current is "electron" and "flow" (as in a river flow), and resistance is "electron" and "oppose". That "electron" character (it also means "electric", "electricity", and similar concepts) will probably be the first thing you recognise, it's like a little quad-grid with a tail coming out of it.

[koalafan]

You always can find what you want at taobao...And the price wil cheaper than other places i have use cssbuy for 3 years

[gamalot]

I bought 2 TF-245 resistor networks on Taobao, the unit price of 70 RMB was a little bit expensive, but much better than nowhere to buy.

That's the reason why we call it omnipotent Taobao in China. 

[eas]

Chiming in late, but I found that a lot of the specialized boards and gadgets on ebay and AliExpress, things like the AVR transistor tester clones, USB testers, and more interesting little modules originate from small builders that have their own TaoBao shops.

I got pretty good at finding the shops by careful inspection of photos, google translate, google searches, and image searches. Having done so, I found even more stuff well before it showed up in listings on ebay. For example, I got some automated battery testers I found there by way of Franky long before they ever showed up on ebay, for less than they were selling on AliExpress (which didn't ship to my state at the time anyway).

More recently, I've tracked down some interesting modules on TaoBao that aren't available on AliExpress or Ebay.