Alibaba is China’s – and by some measures the world biggest online commerce company. Alibaba attracts hundreds of millions of users all around the world, including Philippines. And the top 3 main websites of this company are Taobao ,1688 , tmall:
So what are the differences between these websites? This article will help you better understand these sites.
What’s 1688.com?
1688 is a B2B model website (Business to Business). This is where millions manufacturers who produce from industrial products to fashion products.
The product catalog here is seemingly endless. Whether it is construction material, or raw materials for other products is available. This is truly WORK OF THE WORLD.
The most noticeable feature on this website is the very affordable price tag. The more you buy, the better the price will be. Of course, since this is where you deal directly with the manufacturer, not at a store or an intermediate retailer anymore.
One more outstanding advantage is that you can talk to the manufacturer to tweak the product a bit according to your own wishes. For example materials, colors, logos… But remember to trade in large enough quantities.
The main drawback is that you have to buy at least a certain quantity. Very few of these stores above allow you to trade a quantity of 1 product. This makes many customers in Philippines have difficulty when initially wanting to buy test 1 product before deciding to import Chinese products from 1688 in large quantity.
What is Taobao.com?
Taobao is a website following the C2C model (Customer to Customer). Here retail dealers register to sell their products at their booths. The product catalog will mainly revolved around essential items for life such as fashion, mom and baby, phone equipment and accessories, gifts, cosmetic…
Here you can find a lot of unique and exotic products at affordable prices. The outstanding feature here is the very large rate of Free Ship, so you will also save quite a lot of China domestic shipping costs for your order.
What is Tmall.com?
T-mall is an e-commerce website operating under the B2C model (directly connecting businesses with consumers) with the booths of the world’s leading brands such as Lenovo, Nike, Adidas, Nokia,… or legit business. To open a store on T-mall, the seller needs to provide documents certifying the reliability and survival of the organization, the manufacturer or the registered trademarks. This helps to eliminate the risk of encountering fake goods, counterfeit goods, and poor reputable shops. Therefore, the items on T-mall are usually guaranteed and higher quality than Taobao.
On Taobao, sellers only need ID card to register to sell. Each month sellers only need to pay about 50 RMB store maintenance fee, 1000 RMB guarantee fee. However on T-mall, besides must-provided documents, the annual guarantee fee that the seller must pay is up to several tens of thousands of RMB; therefore, the product price on T-mall is also higher than the price on Taobao, but still much lower than the outside shops. Especially, on T-mall, there are often special discounts. You can often hunt for famous brands around the world with super reasonable prices here.
NOTE WHEN BUYING ON TAOBAO, 1688 TMALL
As websites that cater to the Chinese domestic market and those who are fluent in Chinese, you will have difficulty finding products. Besides, these websites do not have delivery service to Philippines so if you want to buy on these sites, it’s necessary to hire a logistic agent . This agent acts as a domestic customer in China to help you buy products and then transport them to Philippines at a reasonable cost.
One more thing, with the same product, on each website there will be many vendors offering different prices, so how to choose for yourself the most reputable supplier? Let’s find out more!
