Taobao Shopping Tips For Those Who Can’t Read Mandarin (2024)

How to shop on Taobao

Many Singaporeans live by online shopping and it’s not hard to see why. Everything is a mere click away and there are so many quality products you can get at dirt cheap prices – especially on Taobao, a massive online marketplace based in China with just about anything and everything you could think of.

Taobao can be every shopaholic’s dream come true if you know how to use it, so here are some detailed tips to get you started on your online shopping journey – even if you can’t read Mandarin:

Table of Contents

How to shop on Taobao

Is there an English version of Taobao?

Unfortunately, for those who can’t read Mandarin or prefer not to, there is no English version of Taobao. If you’re on the desktop, you can try Google translating the page to help with your shopping.

The closest English alternative to Taobao is Alibaba, but prices can be slightly steeper there, and the variety of products is greatly reduced. The next best thing to shopping directly on Taobao, then, is using a buying service – these services will navigate the website on your behalf to purchase the items you want and ship them to you directly.

Alternatively, grab a friend who’s well-versed with the platform to help you out by describing to them exactly what you need.

1. How to create a Taobao account

Before you get carried away with adding heaps of items to your cart, you’ll want to create an account so that it’s easier to keep track of your purchases.

On the Taobao homepage, click on the characters 登录 (log in).

You’ll be led to the page below, and you’ll want to click on 免费注册 (free registration).

Click on the Google Translate’s pop-up “English” button at the top right-hand corner of the page and you can proceed to sign up with ease.

You can sign in with your username or email. Alternatively, you can press 手机号登录 (mobile number login) below the Facebook login button to sign in with your mobile number. If you’ve forgotten your password, press 忘记密码 (forgot password) and if you’ve forgotten your username, press 忘记会员名(forgot member name) both to the right of the mobile sign-in button.

2. How to shop in English on Taobao

One of the biggest obstacles many of us face when shopping on Taobao is the language barrier. We can’t search for anything or understand the reviews if we’re not proficient in Mandarin but here’s how to get around it.

First, make sure your region in Taobao is set to 新加坡 (Singapore) after signing in. You’ll find it in the top left corner of the page. If not, look for 全球 (Worldwide), click on it and change to 新加坡.

For basic page translation, try Google Chrome. Go to Settings, search Language and add Chinese (Simplified) to your language. Then, click on the additional settings on the right side and tick the box for “Offer to translate pages in this language”.

Now, Chrome will offer to translate all the Taobao pages you open up in Mandarin. The translation might be a tad wonky, but something is better than nothing.

Alternatively, if you need to understand the text in pictures, try using the Google Translate App on your phone to take a picture of the texts using your phone camera and have the app translate whatever’s in the picture directly.

3. Check out Taobao reviews to ensure your items are legit

As we all know, this is the most important part of online shopping. Reviews can either make or break your shopping experience because an honest complaint can save you from a really bad purchase.

Usually, I only shop at stores with at least 3 blue crowns and that means they’ve processed at least 100,000 successful transactions with positive feedback.

In this case, there will be a swamp of reviews for you to waddle through but don’t worry – you can filter the reviews and choose to view only comments with user-uploaded pictures of the product taken by buyers.

Click 评论 (comment) to look at the reviews, then click 图片 (picture) to view comments with product pictures taken by actual buyers. You can also look at the proportion of positive feedback (好评) to negative ones (差评) as well as the follow-up (追评) by the seller in response to certain comments or inquiries.

In this case, this particular product received 17 good reviews and 0 bad ones so it should be a rather decent purchase. But always remember that reviews should be taken with a pinch of salt.

4. Search optimisation on Taobao

To simply browse, you can mouse over any of the categories on the right, under 分类 (categories) to see what you’re interested in.

To look at what’s most popular, you can arrange the search results based on sales volume (销量). The higher the sales volume, the greater the number of successful transactions and reliability.

On the other hand, you can use image search to find a particular product you saw online elsewhere. Click on the camera icon on the main page’s search bar and you will be prompted to select a picture from your saved files. Taobao will then match it to a similar product sold on the website – just like how Google Images does its reverse image searches.

5. Getting the right size for clothes & shoes

Screenshot from: ezbuy.sg

Sizes in China tend to run smaller so it’d be better to get your exact measurements and match them directly to the measurements listed in the product description. I.e., even if you’re usually an M, you might want to check out the exact measurements for L first before hastily making a selection.

Many models in the often Photoshopped pictures on Taobao have insane proportions and what fits them might not fit us properly – I’ve since learnt not to estimate sizes based on pictures.

Just remember that it’s always better to go one size up when unsure because when altering, you can always take away excess material but not add on.

6. Decide on a shipping method: sea or air

After you’ve selected your items and the appropriate sizes, it’s time to cart out (结算). Multiple shipping prices under air and sea modes are available.

Image credit: Khoo Yong Hao

Sea vs air shipping

If you don’t mind the extra few cents and aren’t shipping anything bulky or heavy, choose air delivery instead of sea because it’s much faster. But bulky items like furniture or sensitive goods like electronics can only be shipped over via sea.

Save a few bucks by waiting for discounted shipping

Normally, your purchases will be charged with a delivery fee but occasionally, there are promotional events which will encourage you to go on a shopping spree.

You can predict when these promotional events will happen and some of the biggest ones are: during Singles’ Day (11.11), Valentine’s Day, before CNY, and Christmas.

Choose consolidated shipping to save more money

The most economical method would be 官方集运-经济海运 (consolidation of shipping by sea). This option sends all your goodies from different sellers to 1 warehouse before it’s packed, weighed, and shipped by sea. Consolidated air shipment is available as well, just pick the one that says 官方集运-标准空运 (consolidation of shipping by air).

For consolidated shipping, the process is usually as follows:

The seller ships out your items to the Taobao warehouse.
You will be notified when the items reach the warehouse. Once you’re ready to consolidate your items, click on the 待集运 (waiting to be consolidated) tab via your account page.
On the next page, click on either 经济海运 (sea shipping) or 表准空运 (air shipping). This will take you to the page where you can select which items to consolidate and ship.
After you’ve confirmed which items you want to ship, you’ll be prompted to make a 2nd payment. Once you’ve completed this step, your items will be on the way to you.

If you’d rather get it over and done with 1 swipe of your card, choose the adjacent options termed 官方直邮 – 海运 (official direct sea shipping) or 官方直邮空运 (official direct air shipping). It’s pricier for the sake of convenience as your items will be automatically consolidated and shipped out for you.

Image credit: Khoo Yong Hao

In-app, shopping under the PLUS tab or looking out for the PLUS indicator (满¥199 SG 包邮) gives you a way to get free shipping – hit a cart amount of ¥199 and you’ll just need to sit back at home and wait for the package to arrive to your doorstep.

Pro tip: Leading up to a sale day, Taobao releases a slew of promos, like vouchers for free shipping, and 每¥300减¥50 (¥50 discount for every ¥300) to knock even more dollars off your purchase.

7. Use an agent service to make purchasing easier

If you can’t read Mandarin, purchasing from Taobao directly might be rather challenging. When problems with your order occur, you’ll have to liaise with the sellers and not many of them understand English. And while there isn’t an actual English version of Taobao, the next best thing for those whose Chinese really CMI is agent services like SGshop and BuyandShip.

SGshop

For SGshop, all you have to do is copy the product link from Taobao and paste it directly into SGshop’s search bar. Then, an experienced agent will handle everything for a small fee. If anything goes wrong, the agent will liaise directly with the seller and settle everything for you.

Screenshots from: SGshop

Everything on the website is converted into SGD, making it more convenient than having to go back and forth between tabs to convert prices.

Only after all your items reach the warehouse in China do you get to choose how you like to receive or collect your parcel once it’s in Singapore. Plus on your first purchase, you can get a 50% off service fees with the code “WELCOME 50’

Collection

Once all your orders from different shops reach the warehouse in China, they will be shipped together as one package. You can opt for free self-collection from their warehouse in Ubi, Park N’ Parcel which allows you to collect your parcel from nearby malls, or have your packages delivered directly to your home for a fee starting from $4.90.

SGshop collection point
Address: 3 Ubi Avenue 3, #04-01 Crocodile House, Singapore 408857
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 9am-7pm | Sat 9am-4.30pm (Closed from 12pm-1pm, daily)
Contact: cs@sgshop.com

BuyandShip

Another alternative agent is BuyandShip. The first thing you have to do is choose one of their warehouses in China to ship your Taobao items to. You’ll use the address of the chosen warehouse as your shipping address on Taobao itself. You’ll also have to put in your name and BuyandShip member ID.

On the left is the address for the warehouse in Hong Kong, and on the right is where to put all your details in Taobao.
Screenshots from: Ariel Soh

Once your Taobao order is confirmed, you should receive an email to confirm your order. Using the details in the email, declare the shipment under “My Shipment” on BuyandShip’s website so that the warehouse knows to expect your delivery.

Collection

Once all your orders reach the selected warehouse, they will be shipped together as one package to your address in Singapore. Shipping is charged based on weight starting from S$8 for the first 1 pound, which is roughly 454g and $6 for every subsequent pound.

Take note that the shipping weight will always be rounded up to the next whole number, so we suggest setting aside a couple extra dollars for shipping.

Taobao tips & hacks

Admit it, once you venture into the world of Taobao shopping, it’s easy to get hooked. When sale periods like the 6.18 Summer sale on 18th June and 11.11 on 11th November roll around, you’ll be sure to find us hunched over our phones and snagging vouchers as they come.

Taobao gets plus points from me as it unlocks a whole new world of choices and prices you can’t usually get from local online shopping platforms. Whether it’s furniture needs or for a shopping spree, many people turn to Taobao – it’s high time you join in if you haven’t already.

Check out our other shopping guides:

Graphics by Nicole Ang.
Last updated by Shannon Lee & Ariel Soh on 30th October 2024.