A Guide To Taobao

What is Taobao? 

 Taobao is a large Chinese shopping website, similar to eBay featuring thousands and thousands of individual stores supplying a wide range of products including anime merchandise and Japanese street fashion. 

To buy from Taobao you will need a shopping service (SS) since Taobao only delivers within China. A few reliable and popular Shoping services used are: Taobaospree and Taobaonow, however there are many more options to choose from if you look around. 

To Alice

The currency used is Yuan (¥) The prices of the products tend to be low but remember you have to include shopping service fees and shipping fee's on-top. Also keep in mind, you might get charged customs if your order is over a certain amount.

Some products will have weird prices such as "999" or "9999", this is a way to say that the product is sold out or not yet available. 

Sizes: Most stores carry one sized clothes, sometimes S/M/L, but  measurements can vary a lot. Some helpful word you might see as part of measurements:

腰围 /中腰 : waist                                          

臀围 : hips                                                     

胸围 : bust                                                     

肩宽 : shoulder to shoulder length              

袖围 : sleeve cuff circumference

袖長 : sleeve length

衣长 : general length of item

It's also possible to view an item on either Buychina or Yoybuy where you copy and paste the taobao url into the url bar on the website. 

Taobao stores have feedback scores that start with hearts (The lowest) and go up to gold crowns (The highest).

At the top of every Taobao page will be an orange search bar where you can type in what you want to find and look through the "Babys" (AKA products) 

To Alice

Here's a quick guide through a few popular kawaii themed stores:

Gyaru

Luckynail Studio- Gyaru nails. There's also nails that can be good with Lolita and Fairy Kei. 
Bobon21- A Popular Hime styled brand. Perfect for the summer as well as selling coats. Clothing and accessories.
Enew- Cute wigs
Doudousz- Shoes
Maijiwigs- Casual wigs
Candy Rain- Similar style to Liz Lisa. Otome style. Clothes, shoes, outerwear and accessories.
Ayra- Onee-gyaru style
521feizhuliu- That brand you've seen allover Storenvy. 
Maykii- Hime Kaji and korean fashion styled 

Lolita:
An*tai*na- A popular shoe brand
Chess story- Sweet prints as well as a few casual Lolita items
Classical puppets- Classical lolita. They all so supply petticoats.
Dear Celine- Classical Lolita
Secret shop- Shoes and socks
Infanta- Classical and sweet clothing.
Ichigo15- Lolita punk and goth clothing

Others:

Tomybear "To Alice"- A personal favorite.
Binbinhly - Casual cute and Fairy Kei. 
Cream made- Fairy Kei,Spank,Mahou kei. 
Dearli- Mori, Cult and Dolly Kei. 
Forest girl- Otome and Mori Kei. 

Have you ever bought from Taobao? If so, how was your experience? We'd love to hear about it!

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