Introduction to Taobao (淘宝)

You frequently hear about your friends or family talking about buying about Taobao, but when you ask them about how do you go about buying on Taobao, you don’t seem to understand what they’re saying. After reading this guide, you will (hopefully) know how to buy on Taobao. Feel free to leave comments if you’re unclear about anything in this guide.

What is TaoBao, and what is EZbuy?
If you’re one of those with friends talking about TaoBao, you would have almost certainly heard about EZbuy, and the terms EZbuy and TaoBao seems to be used very interchangeably by many. So, what’s the difference?

 1. TaoBao is fully in Chinese, but EZbuy is largely in English.
This makes ezbuy very appealing to many of us as we are more used to reading English. However most of the items that are on ezbuy are found in taobao and what ezbuy essentially does is it translates the listing into English. When you purchase an item using ezbuy’s ‘Buy-for-me’ or ‘ezbuy’, ezbuy’s personnel will go onto Taobao, purchase the items, then ship it to you. This brings us to the next difference: speed.

 2. Buying on Taobao is faster than ezbuy(usually)
As numerous people place orders on ezbuy, its personnel would need more time to purchase the item and it would most probably be faster buying on Taobao youself.

3. Taobao is cheaper than ezbuy
When you buy on Taobao yourself, there is no agent fee. Ezbuy’s exchange rate is also worse than other payment options in taobao, which I will get to in a later post.
4. ezbuy is NOT Taobao!!
ezbuy is only an agent, who buys items from different sellers on the platforms(such as Taobao) and resells it to you. Basically, it's a middleman so it's more expensive than buying on Taobao yourself.



Quick Links:




  1. Introducion to Taobao 
  2. Shopping on Taobao
  3. Taobao Shipping Options 
  4. Payment Options in Taobao 
  5. Other Tips 

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