The Purchase Process – a Closer Look
The Quick and Dirty Buying Guide will show you the basics of how to buy stuff. But if you are looking for some elaboration on those points, check this out.
Step 1: Buy It
Click on the big orange button in the middle of the page 立刻购买 (buy now).
The next screen allows you to confirm your order details including shipping address / method.
1. The Product
This is the product you want to buy, and the Seller who you are buying from.
2, 3 and 4. Shipping Address
Number 2 lists your current shipping addresses. Numbers 3 and 4 let you edit your shipping addresses, and add a new one. Make sure that all your shipping addresses are in Chinese, and are 100% accurate! If nobody is home while you are at work, you may consider adding your office address to the list.
5. Order Quantity
How many of these things do you want to buy? Defaults to one, (and displays the maximum available in parenthesis).
6. Shipping Options
This will show your shipping options including 平邮 regular mail, 快递 kuaidi and EMS.
Kuaidi companies deliver during the day and someone will have to be present to receive it. You can also add your office address if that is more convenient.
If you are clever, you can tell the Seller to have the kauidi company deliver it on the weekend. Or if you have an Ayi, you can have it delivered while she is at your home.
If you choose regular mail, you will have to go to the post office with your passport in order to claim your treasure. This is best used if you want to order several different things and don’t want to keep a lookout for multiple kuaidi deliveries. You can pick them all up together on the weekend.
EMS is just expensive and slow. Not recommended.
7. CAPTCHA Image
To make sure that you are a human.
8. Special Instructions
This is a good place to confirm what size or color you want. You can also request that the delivery take place at a certain time. For example, if your Ayi comes on Tuesday mornings, you can request that kuaidi should deliver then.
The little checkbox below #8 will let you place your order Anonymously. Perhaps useful if you buy something naughty?
9. Confirm Your Order
Don’t stress! This is not a payment confirmation, it is an order confirmation. No money is released yet. Even if you click this, you can still change your mind, and you won’t lose any money.
Clicking this Confirm button will take you to a payment screen. You can either pay right away, or come back to it later. I often make big purchases, and then find out that I have a small account balance. Then I remind myself to make a trip to the post office to recharge my Taobao account.
Clicking this button will also let the Seller know your details. So the Seller may contact you (by phone or SMS) with any inquiries (such as “what color do you want?” or “when are you going to pay up!?”).
If you do change your mind between now and the next step, the worst that can happen is if the Seller gives you some bad feedback, which is not a big deal as a buyer. The Seller can also still adjust the price, so if you have negotiated a better deal, that adjustment will always happen after this Confirm here.
I have been trying to make a slightly larger purchase (800-900 kuai). I have tried from 3 different sellers now and after 3-4 days it still hasn’t shipped and has this 买家已付款，等待卖家发货 in the alipay transactions listings. I understand this says (through Google translator) the Buyer must pay the seller before shipping. But as I understand the tao bao purchasing process, I don’t really understand how I do this. Can you offer any help? What do I do to get them to ship my product or is it just not available? None of the sellers have contacted me.
Hi SB, the google translation is not exactly correct, 买家已付款，等待卖家发货 means “the buyer has already paid, waiting for the seller to send out the goods”, so normally at this stage, you don’t have to do anything, just wait. However, it is not normal to wait for 4 days and still have no goods at hand. Check out if there’s any message that any of these sellers left in wangwang chat, just click any of the wangwang head beside the seller’s name, it will bring up a chat window. The messages from different sellers will pop out in different tabs with their user name as the tab title. if there’s no messages from any of them, usually it’s just they are out of stock. We suggest you go ahead apply for a refund following this guide.
Hello!
What happens if I’m not at home when the kuaidi delivery arrives? Does the package go back to the seller, or can I go somewhere to retrieve it? It seems that some seller only authorize kuaidi deliveries and not regular mail, and that is quite not convenient for me!
And thank you for your wonderful site, I am in the process of completing my first taobao buy and it is thanks to you!
Hi Julie, kuaidi’s job is to deliver the good to your hand. So if you’re not at home, the guy would usually call you with the number you left for contact, and set up a time that you’ll be at home, so that he can deliver again. but if you’re not at home most of the time like most of us do, well, we just input our office address for most of our purchases, as long as it’s not a very big item. the front desk will always be there to receive the product for you and inform you about it. =)
I made several orders today, including payment. Later the sellers called me to say that they did not have everything in stock. Will they adjust the amount owed on their end or will I need to go the refund route before the money is released to them?
Hi Cheryl, both seller and buyer can close the transaction, I’m not sure how sellers do it, but I’m sure they can. If they did, you’ll see the order status will be “交易关闭”(transaction closed). To be safer, you can also do this on your end following this guide
What if I bought an item but changed my mind?
Taobao has changed their screens, these screenshots don’t match the website now.
Comment on this important issue
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