The problem agents solve
Taobao, Weidian and 1688 are three of China's largest online marketplaces. Taobao is the giant general market, Weidian hosts many small independent sellers who sell through social apps, and 1688 is the wholesale side where factories list at trade prices. Most of their sellers only ship within China, accept Chinese payment methods and answer in Chinese. A shopping agent bridges that gap: it has a Chinese address, Chinese payment accounts and staff who handle sellers, and it sells you the service of buying, checking and shipping.
An agent turns a domestic Chinese market into one you can order from.
Where the money goes
| Payment | What it covers | Who receives it |
|---|---|---|
| First payment | Item price plus seller's postage to the warehouse, plus any service fee | Agent, which pays the seller |
| Optional extras | Extra photos, measurements, trial packing, insurance | Agent |
| Second payment | International shipping on your chosen line, sometimes with taxes included | Agent, which pays the logistics company |
| At delivery (some lines) | Import VAT, duty and the carrier's handling fee | Your country's carrier and customs |
Agents advertising a 0% fee still earn on shipping and the exchange rate. Neither model is a trick; it just means you compare the total, not one line.
Judge an agent by the total you pay to get the parcel home.
The warehouse and quality check
Every item lands at the agent's warehouse first. Staff photograph it, so you can see the real product before it leaves China, and you can ask for a return or exchange within a short window. Items wait in storage, free for a set period (90 days at Mulebuy, about 100 at Kakobuy), until you combine them into one parcel. The QC page explains how to read the photos and the warehouse page covers storage and trial packing.
QC photos are the only point where you see the item before it is too late to return.
Prefer not to open another agent account?
Send us a product link, an old Mulebuy link or a screenshot on WhatsApp. We reply with a price delivered to your country and send photos of the item before it leaves China. This is our own service, run separately from every agent on this site.
💬 Send a link on WhatsAppOn a computer? Scan the code with your phone camera.
Shipping lines and taxes
A shipping line is one delivery route to your country, with its own price per weight, time range and list of goods it refuses. Express lines are fast and expensive; economy lines are cheap and slow; tax-included lines collect your import taxes up front. In the EU, every parcel pays VAT, and since 1 July 2026 parcels up to €150 also pay €3 per item category. The import duty calculator does the arithmetic, and the city pages for Milan, Paris, Berlin, London and New York explain local rules.
Pick the line by its delivered total, including taxes.
Spreadsheets and agent links
A spreadsheet is a shared list of marketplace finds, usually with each link rewritten for one agent so it opens there directly. The rewriting is only a wrapper: inside every agent link is the marketplace item number. That is why spreadsheets survive agents. When Pandabuy, CNFans, ACBuy or Mulebuy stopped working, their links could still be turned back into listings with the link converter and opened elsewhere. The spreadsheets hub lists every agent and marketplace we cover.
Agents are wrappers around marketplace listings; the listings outlast them.
What happens when an agent fails
Agents close more often than shops do: raids, payment problems and plain business failure have taken several in two years. When one fails, three things are at risk in decreasing order: money in a wallet balance, paid items in the warehouse, and the account itself. Your saved links are not at risk. That suggests three habits for any agent: pay per order rather than topping up, ship soon after items arrive, and keep a copy of raw marketplace links. For a dated view of which agents work now, see the status board; for what happened at Mulebuy, see the status page.
Pay per order, ship promptly, keep raw links: the three habits that limit losses.
A worked example from link to doorstep
Say you want a hoodie from a Weidian seller and a pair of trainers from a Taobao shop, delivered to Milan. You paste both links into an agent, pick sizes from the sellers' charts and pay the item prices plus each seller's domestic postage. Over the next few days both items reach the agent's warehouse and photos appear. The trainers look right; the hoodie's size tag matches your order. You submit a parcel, ask for the shoe box to be removed, and choose a tax-included line to Italy. Because the parcel contains two item categories and is worth under €150, the line price includes €6 of EU duty and 22% IVA on goods, shipping and duty. About two to three weeks after dispatch, an Italian courier delivers it with nothing to pay at the door.
If the same order had gone through Mulebuy in September 2026, reviewers suggest it might have stopped at the warehouse stage. That is the only part of the flow that depends on the agent staying healthy, and it is why the habits above matter.
Two payments, one check, one parcel; the risky part is the time items spend with the agent.
Agents versus direct marketplaces
Not every Chinese shopping site needs an agent. AliExpress, DHgate, Temu, SHEIN and Hacoo sell to foreign buyers directly, ship to your address and handle payment themselves. Agents exist for Taobao, Weidian and 1688, which were built for Chinese buyers. The trade-off is choice versus convenience: the agent route opens a far larger catalogue and lets you inspect items before they leave China, while direct sites are simpler but offer no warehouse check. The marketplace pages on the spreadsheets hub explain each one.
Use an agent for Taobao, Weidian and 1688; buy direct from sites built for export.
Questions readers ask
Why can't I buy from Taobao directly?
Many sellers do not ship abroad, accept foreign payment or reply in English. Taobao's own international options cover only part of the catalogue.
How do agents make money?
Service fees (sometimes 0%), international shipping margins, exchange rates and paid extras such as additional photos or packing.
What happens to my links if an agent closes?
The products remain on Taobao, Weidian or 1688. Convert the links to the original listings and use another agent.
Are agents legal?
Yes. What can be restricted is what you import: trademark-infringing goods can be seized, and in Italy the buyer can be fined.