Taobao 淘寶網

[skylee]

I have heard about HK people using taobao for quite some time. There are different stories, about how cheap things can be, so cheap that small shops buy from taobao to resell here, how poor the quality of some products are, how difficult it is to make payment, etc.

Because I heard the stories from different people and at different time, they just don't seem to add up. My main concern is about payment, the types of card accepted and security. I buy things on line frequently and have bought flight tickets/ hotel accommodation on ctrip, but somehow taobao seems less reliable. (Probably it's just because I am unfamiliar with it.)

Anyways I have recently got a replacement laptop battery from taobao via a friend of my brothers. It is cheap (HKD165 including delivery), and it works well. But it seems incredibly lame that both my brother and I couldn't buy it ourselves as we don't know how to shop on taobao.

It seems quite difficult to navigate Taobao's website (tiny words and changing picutures). Then there is this Tmall (天貓) thing. I guess it is for high-end products? and then there is the Ali-express for overseas shoppers. And then there is Alipay 支付寶 (must I use it? can I register without a mainland phone number? does it accept international credit cards? can I pay via paypal instead?)

I guess what I want is a "Taobao for dummies outside Mainland China" guide, and sharing of experience.

Sorry about my idiotic/silly questions.

PS - [sortKey]=date&search_content=titles&search_app_filters[forums][noPreview]=1&search_app_filters[forums][pCount]=&search_app_filters[forums][pViews]=&search_app_filters[forums][sortKey]=date&search_app_filters[forums][sortDir]=0&search_app_filters[forums][searchInKey]=&search_term=taobao&search_app=forums&search_app_filters[forums][searchInKey]=&search_app_filters[forums][sortKey]=date&search_app_filters[forums][sortDir]=0"]Here are the threads with "taobao" in the title.

[Matty]

AliPay is like the Chinese version of PayPal, but instead of your email being your ID, it's your phone number.I

I don't know much about Taobao HK, except that I couldn't seem to log into it with my mainland account - yet if I'm already logged in I have no issues.

It's similar to ebay really, but you can communicate with the seller more easily and it's more based on set prices than bidding.

I bought my first clothing closet (some bad english there) just a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty happy about how it all worked.

The language barrier is the hard part to get around, especially when they force me to read traditional Chinese characters since I use a HK VPN.

Payment isn't hard if your bank account is set up for internet banking. You just transfer the cash to your AliPay, then buy the item via Taobao, then when you receive the item and are happy with it, confirm you got the item and are happy and it will release the cash to them. (Escrow style) You can give a rating at this point.

I just use my construction bank debit card.

Usually you get what you pay for, if it's too good to be true, it probably is, or... "fell off the back of a truck", or fell out of the pocket of a factory worker just before a small wad of cash fell in his/her pocket ;-]

Always check the 评价 - ratings. Though and of the successful sellers will call you up and convince most people to change a bad rating to a good rating, they're quite... insistant, but friendly

[skylee]

So the first hurdles are - (1) if I don't have a mainland phone number, can I set up an Alipay account? (The arrangement with ctrip is similar. As I don't have a mainland phone number, I was advised to use its English website where I could set up an account using an email address.) (2) Can I still use Taobao if I don't have a Mainland Chinese bank account or credit card?

[Matty]

I have no idea about your reference to Ctrip, isn't that some tourist company?

I'll be making the assumption you're living in Hong Kong at the moment.

I've only ever tried with my mainland account.

I assume since taobao has a HK version, that would accept HK cards and phone numbers, but I can't confirm.

You could simply go to taobao.com and try signing up for an account and see what details it wants from you, that would be the simplest method to find out straight away.

[Matty]

I just did some Googling too:

http://taobaofieldguide.com/advanced-tactics/buying-on-taobao-from-hong-kong

As of year 2010' date=' those who live in Hong Kong can pay by using prepaid credits bought from Circle K, 7-11 etc. Your order can be delivered to:

1. Your selected Circle K store

2. Taobao’s official ’store’ in Mong Kok

3. Your home

Prepaid credits: HKD 200, HKD 500, HKD 1000, HKD 2000 are the choices.

You buy them, and then go home, input the long number (I think 22 digits) in your account and can use that to pay for your products.

[/quote']

[skylee]

You could simply go to taobao.com and try signing up for an account and see what details it wants from you, that would be the simplest method to find out straight away.

Indeed.

I have just created a Taobao account. Apart from mainland mobile numbers, it also accepts email addresses as identification. I thought I could bypass providing a phone number, but taobao demanded one for sending me a one-time password for verification. It accepts phone numbers of HK, Taiwan, Macau, Korea and Japan. I don't know what will happen if you don't have a cell phone number of these places. The work flow is like this -> http://www.taobao.co...uyer_step01.php

And at the same time an Alipay account was created for me. I still have some doubts about payment by non-Mainland credit cards. It seems that unlike paypal I am not required to register a credit card in my Alipay account (and I can't anyways as I don't have a mainland card). Instead, I will have to provide the credit card information every time I make a purchase, which should not be a problem as long as it really works. The customer service has sent me this flow chart on payment using international credit cards. I guess it will work.

Next I think I will try to buy something from taobao. And the issue will be the delivery, I guess.

[skylee]

Regarding the info in #5, I have done some asking around, and have been told that the prepaid credit system will stop on 16 July 2012. This is the notice -> 充值服務停止服務通知

Which is probably a result of Taobao's acceptance of international credit cards (Visa, Master and JCB, except those issued in USA) -> http://www.taobao.co...d=&cm_id=&pm_id=

[janetang]

yeap. but for USA buyers, it is still a problem now.

[TheOneRing]

There's an international version of Taobao provided by Alibaba, it's called Aliexpress. Sellers on this site ship your packages to most countries in the world with no shipping charge or very low shipping charge. But compared to Taobao (or Tmall), Aliexpress has very few things to choose from, and the price is much higher, and it's generally more difficult to decide which seller is trustworthy because there aren't many feedbacks available for you. And shipping is most likely to be slow (2-3 weeks). I've ordered 3 times on this site, 2 of these purchases were not bad, but the other order, as I discovered later, costed me 3 times more than the price on Taobao.

Some of my friends told me there are several DAIGOU(代购) websites that will buy stuff on Taobao for you and then ship them to you. But the shipping and service fees are high. And you also need to read Chinese to be able to use these online agents.

[rayne]

Hi, I'm trying to open a Taobao account but after submitting my email, it takes me to a new page asking for my phone number. I live in Korea right now and it gives me the option of putting in my Korean cell phone. But I never receive any verification text message on my phone. I looked all over online and many guides to making a TB account says email verification only is ok but no matter what, it keeps redirecting me to the page where they want to verify my phone even after the email part. I also don't get any verification email.

 

Can anyone help?