We love Taobao. From portable chargers to Mona Lisa socks, Taobao is the place to find it cheap. BUT Taobao can also be confusing, so here’s 3 of our favourite hacks for shopping on Taobao!
1. How to find cheap dupes on Taobao
Sometimes we want things we can’t afford, but that’s not a problem anymore. Taobao’s ‘search by image’ function is amazing if you want cheap dupes for expensive stuff! Here’s a quick demo:
I found this cropped sweater on ASOS that looks kinda cute, but I didn’t want to spend $30 on a sweater when I’m always melting in this Singapore weather.
So I saved the image…
Went to Taobao > clicked on the ‘camera’ icon > uploaded my image
(this also works on Taobao’s mobile app)
And Taobao showed me everything similar to my image!
I browsed around and found this sweater that I liked. It has the same mustard colour and same cropped style I wanted but best of all, IT WAS 3 TIMES CHEAPER!!! The ASOS sweater was SGD30.17, but the Taobao sweater only cost around SGD10.17.
*** To use this function, you must change your region to ‘中国大陆’ ***
1. Click the ‘country’ option at the top left corner
2. Select ‘中国大陆’ (second option) and you will be redirected to the correct page
2. How to find the best stuff on Taobao
Taobao is huge and it takes time to find the best product. How many pages must I scroll through before I find the perfect pair of jeans??! Thankfully, I’ve found some tips to shop Taobao the smart way:
To discover cool products on Taobao, Taobao Hacks shares interesting stuff like “20 Taobao Products for People Who Were Not Build for Hot Weather” and “20 Taobao Products for the Incurably Lazy” (both describe me perfectly). They even indicate the price in SGD and ratings for quality, service and delivery!
To find good deals on Taobao, Tejia Taobao shares the best deals each day. My favourite section is ’10元包邮’, where everything costs ¥10 and below. Converting to SGD, this means that EVERYTHING HERE COSTS AROUND $2 OR LESS!!! It’s like Daiso in the comfort of your home.
I also love Taobao’s ‘find the same’ and ‘find similar’ functions, which will appear when you hover your cursor over a product. If you’re on Taobao’s mobile app, just press and hold on the item.
‘Find similar’ shows you similar products on Taobao, which is great when you want a quick glance of the various styles and options available.
‘Find the same’ shows you the exact same products out there, so you can easily find the cheapest or most reliable seller.
3. How to pay less on Taobao [Updated Mar 2019]
It’s no secret that you get charged extra 3% service fee when you pay by credit card. One solution is to use Internet Banking or ATM Fund Transfer to avoid those fees, but some days I get lazy and it feels too troublesome. I want something easier, something more convenient.
Enter RateX.
This Chrome extension automatically appears at the check out page to show you the lowest price out there. It will find the lowest exchange rates and remove service fees on Taobao, while you just sit back and watch the magic happen. I still can’t believe I managed to save $40.87!!!
For a step-to-step guide, check out this video!
*Updates: Payment for Taobao through RateX has been discontinued since Sept 2018. Save more on online shopping with RateX through automatically-applied promo codes, cashback, deals, exchange rates, and much more (details in our Ultimate Guide)! You do the shopping, let us get you the savings. Start saving with RateX today!
Happy shopping!
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Thank you very much! If there are any topics you would like us to cover in particular, do drop us a comment!:)