[anothermachine]

Interesting to read your comment and dmoy's.

On the one hand, compared to Amazon.com, Taobao sounds like a horrible shopping experience. On the other hand, compared to a shuk (or whatever the Chinese equivalent is), it is a vast improvement.

Context is everything.

[westiseast]

with all due respect to Tsagadai, I disagree. Taobao is an excellent shopping experience and I've never been ripped off there (perhaps my wife is an expert taobao-ista, which helps).

(1) Shops are absolutely crap scared of a bad review. Shoppers avoid bad reviews like the plague, and there's normally so much competition that you can always find an alternative. The 1 time we gave a bad review, we had a call from the seller within 1 hour offering all manner of things for us to take it back.

(2) Delivery is excellent - next day courier services. Taobao practically revolutionised the postal service in China because the national postal system was so bad. So, 10RMB (around £1) can get you national, next-day delivery for most small items (eg. a small parcel).

(3) The mobile site is awesome, full stop.

(4) There's just so much choice. I can buy official, full price products from the brand (ie, not a reseller, but the actual company), or 2nd hand, or knockoffs. Most knockoffs are clearly marked as such.

(5) Safety - it's not a direct payment system per se, but an escrow service. If you aren't happy in any way with your product, you click a button and the seller gets nothing.

[Tsagadai]

Most of the time the experience is fantastic but like any shop you can get ripped off. I've been ripped off a few times on ebay and craigslist too. Certain product categories tend to attract scammers and I know many people who have never had a bad experience (other than getting things months late but that is usually caused by customs or courier services at either end). As always, until the product is working and in your hands you should be wary of the seller and take precautions to avoid becoming a mark.

Taobao has one factor that generally makes it better than ebay and most other online retailers and auction sites: it is the sole source of income for many companies that sell through it. Many Chinese manufacturers are only selling their products through the alibaba ecosystem so they really care about their reputation. That is why they get defensive or start offering all sorts of things to remove bad reviews, because it can shut down their whole revenue stream.

[BEIJINGSHOTS]

ive used both ebay, and taobao, and i have been ripped off once from taobao, compared to about 5 times on ebay. i am not including ebay the corporation themselves ripping me off. they froze my account, and took all my money. i've also talked to someone else who had her account frozen with about $10,000 in her account. ebay is now using the excuse of "security" to freeze your account. they say they want to protect your "online safety", but the truth is, they just want to take your money. many ebay employeees have come forward and exposed the dodgy practices of ebay. China will always come up with the better stuff because people are constantly criticising China, so they strive to be better. on the other hand, anyone criticising ebay, or amazon will be met immediately by 100 shills who say that ebay, and amazon are great. thats why ebay and amazon will never improve because instead of spending time to make themselves better, they are spending money hiring shills.

[roy_x]

There are a lot of stories about Shop-owners begging customers to change their bad review, and some shop-owners goes further trying to bribe Employees inside Taobao company (to cheat on the review system), last year Jack Ma (the boss) fired quite a few people because of this.

[grecy]

Makes me wish I could read/write/speak the language.

[guard-of-terra]

You don't need to because they want to sell to you and there are also third parties helping this happen.

There is aliexpress also which is in many languages.