Hello, my name is Robynne and I'm a shopaholic. More specifically, an online shopaholic. Since arriving in Beijing nearly six years ago, I have come to depend almost exclusively on Taobao, Tmall, JD and the like for all my shopping, from Christmas gifts to everyday groceries. In the spirit of retail therapy, here is a roundup of all the online shopping-related news we brought you over the past year.
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How to create an account, order, and pay on delivery with JD.com
You may be put off from shopping online by the idea of creating an Alipay account, linking your cards, and all that other faff. But never fear! You can still stock up on useful household items and appliances on JD.com by selecting the "cash on delivery" options. Our handy guide shows you how. If you order early enough your delivery can even come on the same day. So, next time your friend is moaning about how his soggy jianbing and his life in China generally sucks, tell him: "That's very interesting and all but I'm sorry, I'm too excited for the delivery of my fan in three hours and its imminent cooling relief to give two damns."
How to search Taobao like a pro
The key to navigating Taobao is language skills. I’d love to delve more into this, but I’m too illiterate in Chinese to make claims here. But how did I learn to navigate Taobao without the ability to read Chinese characters? Well, I joined Taobao when Google Translate was still a possibility in China and translated entire pages until I didn’t need to anymore (that’s how much time I spent on the site). Unfortunately, even with VPN, translating the entire site with Google Translate is no longer an option. We came up with a few tips and tricks instead.
The secrets of Alibaba's Ode to Consumerism, Single's Day
Singles' Day (known in Chinese as 双11) may have started off as a simple celebration of singledom at Chinese universities in the 1990s, but since Tmall started using it as a marketing ploy a couple of year's ago, the "holiday" (we use the term loosely) has exploded into a rampant celebration of consumerism, with all the major online shopping platforms – Amazon, Jingdong etc. – getting involved. We showed you some tips on how to actual get hold of bargain's online on Single's Day (also applicable to other shopping festivals throughout the year).
Here are a few of the best things we bought online with our new skills in 2016:
- Cases of wine from Marks and Spencer before they pull out of China
- Hard-to-find healthy staples like avocado oil, coconut flour, and spelt flour from Guangzhou-based House Organic (有机e家)
- Good quality imported nuts and seeds from Taobao store EnjoyNature (悠享佳)
- Some very spooky rear window stickers
Before you go, since you're doing all this shopping online, be sure to read up on how to protect your hard-earned cash from unscrupulous sellers.
More stories by this author here.
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