✿ How to: Miyuukihime's Guide to Taobao ✿

Hello everybody!

So I thought today I'd do something different! I promised this year that I would get different content & even though it's been slow I'm getting there! 

If you have been in the J-fashion community for a while then you might be quite familiar with an online store called Taobao.







♡ Introduction to Taobao ♡


For those who aren't particularly sure of what it is, Taobao is an Chinese online store. Like eBay & Amazon, Taobao has many different sellers, all selling different products! You can get items such as clothes, accessories, jewellery, wigs, Cosplay, makeup & even electronics! They have so much variety, although I can't say whether the makeup & electronics are good quality, but that's where reviews come in handy! Replica's are also VERY common on taobao, so if you're not a fan of replicas then this sight may not be for you!

It may sound straight forward & you may actually be wondering as to why I'm telling you 'how' to order. Well in actual fact, people who don't live in China can't order as Taobao doesn't ship internationally & doesn't accept particular paying methods in which a lot of us would usually use ( like Paypal for example)!

So now you know a bit more information, I will get onto telling you how to actually order. 

Getting onto Taobao is pretty easy, you can just type in 'taobao' to your search engine & find it! ( or click the links I've provided above)!






Once you've typed it in or clicked the links then your page should look similar to this;

It's a pretty simple layout; like eBay, it has a easy to find search bar & many adverts! 

Please don't be intimidated by the Chinese! 

If you use Google chrome then you may already have the add on which allows you to automatically translate the page, but if not then you can actually get it here!

♡ Searching for Products ♡

Now onto searching for items! For this step Google Translate will be extremely useful!

On Google Translate make sure the first box is in the language you speak & that you translate it into Chinese! Like so;

I can't say that the translation will be correct, but they usually help! 

Other things I like to type in are 'Liz Lisa', 'Tralala', 'Ank Rouge', 'Amo', 'Katie', 'Zipper' & for Cosplay related things I usually put the Characters name & then Cos, for example - 'Sonico Cos'.

I'm pretty sure there is better ways to search for Cosplay, on the odd occasion when I find a particular item I like to copy & paste odd words in the name of the product to find related searches! 

You could also just go & find popular shops on toabao, one of my favourites is BoBon21!

If you want a really good list of shops then this page is really good ( it was updated in 2013 so be aware that some stores may not be there anymore).

The search page should look like this;

Here I've searched 'Liz Lisa' (just be aware that a lot of these items will be replicas). What I like about taobao is that it will have a lot of related suggestions at the top! So all you have to do now is search & pick out items you want! ( for this 'How to' I'm just going to use a random item, not one I'm going to buy ). 

So this is the item I 'chose', if you're interested then you can find the item here. As you can see, the layout is pretty straight forward, even if you can't translate what it means. 

This is the page translated! The information you need to pay attention to is the 'Price' (the big orange numbers) & the 'Seller Rating' (the crown icon towards the side). 

The price is actually in Chinese Yuan, you can convert it into your currency easily on google! So this in GBP is about £10.00! 

For the 'Seller Rating', once again it's like eBay, but instead of % it's done through icons. 

For example:

    

The Heart means the store feedback isn't that high & the Gold Crown means that is has quite a lot. 

As you can see this product has one , so is pretty reliable! 

Although, you can get stores which have several icons, instead of explaining this fully to you this page has a really good guide on the icons!

I'd avoid getting items with only a few hearts unless it has particularly good reviews! (which I'll speak about further down).

Of course you can see that the item has options! Usually they're in Size & Colour & are pretty easy to understand! 

The second half of the page provides more information about the product, so perhaps the measurements in cm's & they usually have more photos of the item!

If you want to find reviews on this product then you can actually click the tab at the top (with the 12 next to it) & translate the reviews! What's nice about some of the reviews is that they include photos! 

♡ Ordering ♡

So now the bit which is considered 'the hardest'. To order from taobao you will need a Shopping Service - technically a person in China who will order off of taobao for you & send it to you. This bit isn't as hard as it sounds, there are so many Shopping Services/ Agents (SS) on the internet! 

When I've ordered from taobao I've actually used two different agents. The first one being Taobaospree. 

This is the home page to Taobaospree! ( they're also the owners of the popular storenvy Spreepicky - use the code 'miyuukihime' to get 10% off of orders).

Now I'm not going too into this as this isn't the main agent I use! But this is one of the most popular agents I would say, but just down to preference, I'm not that keen on the whole ordering process. With this process you have to email the agent instead of a shopping basket process which most people are probably used to. As well as that they have separate payments, which means that you find out the price of shipping after you order the products, which for me isn't ideal! 

Although, like I said that's just preference. When I ordered with them they were so reliable & replied quickly! As well as that they have a 10% service fee which is pretty good, the lower the service fee the better. Others which I know to have an 8% service fee are Pruany & Taobaoring. Which I've also heard are quite reliable, but of course which agent you use is down to you! What you have to do is read reviews on certain agents & use the ones which you think you'll feel comfortable is. 

So what agent do I use? 

This is Buychina & for 90% of my taobao orders I've used this particular website. 

What I love about Buychina is it's basic 'add to cart' shopping system, like eBay & Amazon. 

It's so straight forward to use, like Taobao you have a search bar but as well as that you can copy & paste links from taobao into it & find the item, ready to buy!

So as you can see, this is the skirt from earlier. I just copied the URL at the top of the page & pasted it into the search bar. It's quite similar to the taobao product page, but instead all translated AND tells you the total including shipping! 

The only downside about Buychina is that they don't allow Paypal (hopefully one day they will). I have to get my friend Lauren to help me in this situation ( go visit her page ). But literally everytime I've ordered it's been a good experience. The ordering process is literally adding it to you cart & paying for it, once it's arrived at the SS's place they will actually send you photos of it before sending it directly to you! 

Also, just be aware that sometimes the Buychina website can go a little dodgy. For example the translations can be a little bad & sometimes certain items don't show up on their website! 

I've ordered my Sonico Wig & Headphones from taobao through Buychina! If you want a review on them then just ask! I'm also planning to order some more Cosplay items ( including Sonico outfits) from toabao, so if you want to see an update on that then please like my Facebook Page: 

✿ Miyuukihime ✿

So that's pretty much it, I really hope this helps! It's pretty straight forward once you order once or twice! 

If you have any questions don't be afraid to ask! 

Like I said, whichever agent you use is purely down to you! There is plenty of reviews around on the internet, you just have to have a good look! 

Thankyou ever so much for reading!