How to Shop on Taobao

This is the TaoBao shop Silent love, it has loads of cute little items for your house and just like other shops it's dirt cheap! And it can all be yours with the help of this guide.

To make it easier i'll break it into points.

1. Translating the Site
2. Searching for specific things
3. Converting Currency
4. Finding an Agent
5. Breakdown of fees

Translating the Site

The first thing you might notice about the site is....it's completely in Chinese. And the easiest thing to do it just use Google Chrome! It auto translates for you, now you will get some weird translations but it gets the point across 

Large size women fat mm significantly thin suits Spring and Autumn Spring 1519 new models 2014 short jacket plus fertilizer to increase

and that's for a blazer! Ha.

Or you can copy and paste chunks of text into Google translate but who has the time for that? Seriously, just use Chrome.

Searching for Specific Things

The site is pretty normal and it has a search bar, but typing in English words doesn't give you the best results.

These are the results for searching Galaxy Shirt

And these are the results from 星空 T恤

A lot closer to what I was looking for. Now some awesome people already put together a spreadsheet for most keywords and I always keep a tab of it open when shopping. And for the few words they don't have listed I just go to translate and change it to Chinese. Looking at tumblrs and hauls is also a great way to find things that you like. Here are two that I check everyday.
plussizetaobao
     
          Obv. It has loads of cute plus sized things. And plus sized on Taobao is not always that big. Don't be put off by the words plus sized or xxxl, it's only about how well it fits your body. And the stuff is really really cute.(★^O^★)

and

taobao-finds

         This one just has stuff, lots and lots of cool stuff. I liked this one because it had a lot of tags on the side but they have disapeared, hopefully they bring it back but even if they don't it's still great stuff they find.

Converting Currency

Everything on the site is in Chinese Yuan and just typing it into our overlord Google will show you the current rate for conversion. But I downloaded an extension for Chrome called Currency Converter but it looks like it's available for other browsers. You just select each currency and wham! It does all the work. And it makes all the prices much more friendly.

Finding an Agent

There are sooo many reviews on all the different agents, and since most of them are just personal experiences you might still feel uneasy on just going by word of mouth. So this spreadsheet was vital for picking an agent. For me English capabilities and a cart system was really important, And once I chose one I went by reviews to find out how they do with real orders.

Breakdown of fees

The agent I used and everywhere I looked it seemed the same.

1. Item cost - How much the item actually cost
2. Domestic shipping - Cost of shipping the item to your agent, sometimes free
3. Agent fees - The % your agent takes for being your personal shopper
4. Shipping to you - Usually by weight 

Happy Shopping!

I hope this guide has helped you even a little bit and quelled some of your hesitations about ordering from the site.  And if you do end up ordering from Taobao be sure to share it with me!