Something You Must Know When Buying from 1688.com, Alibaba.cn

For small wholesale orders, you must have found 1688.com is really a good site for sourcing products with better prices. However, unlike Taobao.com and Tmall.com retail site, you must need to know the following when buying from 1688.com(Alibaba.cn):

1. Minimum Of Quantity(MOQ) Conditions:

1688.com is wholesale site not a retail site, so there will always be MOQ conditions defined for each product. If you want to buy products under the MOQ conditions, the 1688.com system will actually stop the order automatically. So, make sure your orders are meeting the MOQ conditions otherwise they are invalid. The following images shows the typical MOQ and price breaks for different quantities.

2. Not all stock information is accurate:

After you have placed an order in FreeShoppingChina.com(FSC) system, FSC purchasers will still need to confirm with the seller to see if the item is in stock. According to our experience, more than 90% stock information is all right, especially those shops with a bull head beside its name, which means a better company shop certificated by Alibaba Group. But there are still some shops with extremely low prices may run out of stock but keeping listing the items in stock, which causes confusion. So, not all orders can be purchased successfully.

3. Purchase Failure and Invalid Order:

As not all items' stock information is accurate and some of them are out of stock, there may be a purchase failure after you have placed an order. FSC purchasers will notify you by sending you a message telling you that the order is out of stock and the order will be moved to invalid list waiting for your cancellation. Of course if it's in stock, the order will be proceeded forward successfully. It's a little bit different from retail Tmall.com or Amazon.com which is with accurate stock. As it's wholesale, so usually you need to get accustomed to it. If it's invalid, you can just find another shop and submit a new order for the similar item, it's not big problem as there are so many suppliers.

Be Aware: If there is a purchase failure, it may take some days for us to cancel the orders with the seller on 1688.com and get the money back from seller. So the cancellation of the failed order can not be done immediately but need to wait for the seller to refund to us first. However, you don't need to worry too much as the deal is protected by 1688.com platform, it's just a matter of time. And in the meanwhile, if you want to change to other seller for the same item, you can submit a new order for it. And the old order will be left there for us to tracking the refund process with seller.

4. Domestic Shipping Cost Adjustment:

The domestic shipping means the shipping from supplier to FSC warehouse. Usually there will be domestic shipping cost adjustment for wholesale orders on 1688.com based on the total parcel weight. FSC's system fills the domestic shipping with the default amount 15CNY automatically as the minimum domestic shipping cost for every order on 1688.com because FSC system is not aware the detailed parcel weight nor final domestic shipping either when you place the order. But this does not mean the final domestic shipping is 15CNY. The final domestic shipping will be confirmed manually by FSC purchasers when FSC purchasers are placing the orders to 1688.com suppliers after you have submitted the orders with 1st payments. Once it's confirmed the domestic shipping cost is more than 15CNY, FSC purchaser will adjust the cost by deducting the difference from your account balance, along with a message sent to you telling you that the domestic shipping cost is adjusted and a charge record added into your Account History.

If you want to better estimate the total cost, you can estimate the total cost by adding the domestic shipping of about 8-15CNY/kg with your estimated weight. The detailed final price and cost usually depends on the supplier's shipping partner. So you can just estimate it here. However, usually you don't need to worry too much about the domestic shipping except your items are big and heavy.

5. Don't Buy Too Big or Too Heavy Item:

If you want to buy very big items like dinner tables, or machines which are in a big weight or volume, you must need to consider the high domestic shipping cost and international shipping cost. Except that you are having a cheap forwarder ready, we don't suggest you buy them.

6. Timing, Lead Time, Delays:

1688.com is a wholesale site, so don't expect the timing of retail order. Wholesale order usually requires a Lead Time which means the item may not be able to be shipped out right away. According to our experience, most order's lead times are in 1-5 days. A few orders lead time may be 5-7 days. Very few orders lead time can be 2-4 weeks. In busy season, the lead time may be 1-3 days longer in the most. Also, the domestic shipping may take another 3-5 days. Usually it will take more than a week for the items to arrive in FSC warehouse after you have placed the orders. Therefore, please make your purchase plan well by considering the lead time and set appropriate expectation on timing.

If you find the order has been kept as "Ordered" status(Which means the order was placed to suppliers on 1688.com already) for more than one week, you can contact our purchaser to try cancelling that order if you don't wait any longer. Our purchaser will help you cancel the order if the seller has not shipped out. However, if the order is already shipped out by the seller, we don't suggest you cancel it as it will bring losses according to the terms of Order Cancellation.

7. FSC(FreeShoppingChina.com) Warehouse Storage

As most orders to 1688.com take more than a week, FSC offers 3 months of free warehouse keeping your items, which is sufficient enough for most orders. We suggest users ship the items ASAP once all are arrived, instead of keeping them in our warehouse for too long time. If the items are kept in FSC warehouse for more than 3 months, 5% of the item value will be charged for warehouse fee every month starting at the 4th month. If the user's account balance is NOT sufficient for the warehouse fee and commission, the items/parcels will no longer be kept in FSC warehouse but being disposed after FSC's deducting the commission from account balance.

Based on the above, if you want to buy small qty like 1 pcs of item for self-use and want fast speed, it's better that you check on Tmall.com or Taobao.com for small retail orders. However, if you want to make small wholesale orders, you can always benefit from deals on 1688.com as it's the cheapest product source in China, as long as you plan your orders well.

Tags:Buy from 1688.com

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