Yesterday, I briefly listed out the online shops where you can purchase cosplay things such as costumes, wigs and shoes from. You can re-read the entry here. Today, I will briefly talk about Taobao Shopping.
Many people ask me where do I buy my cosplay stuff. I either order through costume commissions or order through Taobao. My previous entry pretty much highlights commissioners and ready to order shops that I have heard of and even ordered from. In this entry I will explain how Taobao cosplay shopping works.
TAOBAO is China Ebay or China Lelong and Mudah.my if you are familiar with these two. You can buy pretty much anything from here and I have bought few things from Taobao myself, not just cosplay-related things.
Clothes. Small furniture. Accessories.
Things about Taobao is that it is very cheap and limitless. If you want to buy just a cardigan, you will be looking at variety of options in terms of size, colors, materials, qualities and price. There are two ways you can buy things from Taobao.
ONE: self-purchase.
TWO: through Taobao Shopping Service, or Taobao SS.
Despite I know how to order my things from Taobao by myself, I prefer to use Taobao SS. It is because Taobao SS has more exposure to the Taobao sellers and they have taken all kinds of orders before.
One actually asks me before, is Taobao a shop.
The answer is NO. You can imagine Taobao like your school or college open day. Taobao provides shop lots for sellers to conduct business and allow both consumers and sellers to interact with one another. It's like that. Which means, there won't be just one shop that sells that particular things you are looking for, or they won't be any shop that sells what you want to buy. Self-purchase can be nerve-wrecking because you need to know what you want to buy in chinese words. That is why it is more preferable to have Taobao SS and have them do the search for you.
As you can see, you can only search items in Taobao using chinese letters. I usually will search items on my own rather than ask Taobao SS to do the search for me, unless I really have no idea what the character or series is called in Chinese.
Is Taobao seller can be trusted when it comes to quality? I can't give an exact answer. Cheap items do no mean the quality is bad and vice versa. When it comes to purchasing things from Taobao, you can't put 100% trust that the quality will match whatever they put on display. Which why your Taobao SS plays a major role here.
Most Taobao SS in cosplay community knows a thing or two about the shops in Taobao. You can ask from them if the shop you want to buy from has good review or has anyone ever purchased from the store.
Clicking one of the items on display will lead you to the 'item shelf', I called it. Notice the crowns on the right panel. That is the shop's reputation whereby the reputation goes from none to hearts to jewels to white crowns and lastly gold crowns. My recommendation is you buy from shops that have more than four white crowns onward. Of course, I am not saying you should trust the shop 100% even if the shop has golden crowns because the rating is not the assurance that the item you buy has the quality as the rating. It can be that the reputation goes for excellent service, fast respond and good quality of other items.
This is why, again, Taobao SS plays major role. Experienced cosplay Taobao SS can assist you with the searching, ordering and communicating with the shop owner.
I know few Taobao SS that have great knowledge and have been ordering thing from Taobao for quite some time. Feel free to drop them a message if you are interested to buy things from Taobao.
1. Nyan2Shoppu here!
2. Daijoubu COS Shoppu here!
3. SotKia's Taobao Personal Order here!
Many people ask me where do I buy my cosplay stuff. I either order through costume commissions or order through Taobao. My previous entry pretty much highlights commissioners and ready to order shops that I have heard of and even ordered from. In this entry I will explain how Taobao cosplay shopping works.
TAOBAO is China Ebay or China Lelong and Mudah.my if you are familiar with these two. You can buy pretty much anything from here and I have bought few things from Taobao myself, not just cosplay-related things.
Clothes. Small furniture. Accessories.
Things about Taobao is that it is very cheap and limitless. If you want to buy just a cardigan, you will be looking at variety of options in terms of size, colors, materials, qualities and price. There are two ways you can buy things from Taobao.
ONE: self-purchase.
TWO: through Taobao Shopping Service, or Taobao SS.
Despite I know how to order my things from Taobao by myself, I prefer to use Taobao SS. It is because Taobao SS has more exposure to the Taobao sellers and they have taken all kinds of orders before.
One actually asks me before, is Taobao a shop.
The answer is NO. You can imagine Taobao like your school or college open day. Taobao provides shop lots for sellers to conduct business and allow both consumers and sellers to interact with one another. It's like that. Which means, there won't be just one shop that sells that particular things you are looking for, or they won't be any shop that sells what you want to buy. Self-purchase can be nerve-wrecking because you need to know what you want to buy in chinese words. That is why it is more preferable to have Taobao SS and have them do the search for you.
As you can see, you can only search items in Taobao using chinese letters. I usually will search items on my own rather than ask Taobao SS to do the search for me, unless I really have no idea what the character or series is called in Chinese.
Is Taobao seller can be trusted when it comes to quality? I can't give an exact answer. Cheap items do no mean the quality is bad and vice versa. When it comes to purchasing things from Taobao, you can't put 100% trust that the quality will match whatever they put on display. Which why your Taobao SS plays a major role here.
Most Taobao SS in cosplay community knows a thing or two about the shops in Taobao. You can ask from them if the shop you want to buy from has good review or has anyone ever purchased from the store.
Clicking one of the items on display will lead you to the 'item shelf', I called it. Notice the crowns on the right panel. That is the shop's reputation whereby the reputation goes from none to hearts to jewels to white crowns and lastly gold crowns. My recommendation is you buy from shops that have more than four white crowns onward. Of course, I am not saying you should trust the shop 100% even if the shop has golden crowns because the rating is not the assurance that the item you buy has the quality as the rating. It can be that the reputation goes for excellent service, fast respond and good quality of other items.
This is why, again, Taobao SS plays major role. Experienced cosplay Taobao SS can assist you with the searching, ordering and communicating with the shop owner.
I know few Taobao SS that have great knowledge and have been ordering thing from Taobao for quite some time. Feel free to drop them a message if you are interested to buy things from Taobao.
1. Nyan2Shoppu here!
2. Daijoubu COS Shoppu here!
3. SotKia's Taobao Personal Order here!
Labels: cosplay, costume orders, taobao, tips on cosplay
