Buying on 1688 through an agentFrom product link to warehouse.
Follow the ordering process and check which links your agent reads, which need manual entry and what quantity to request.
From link to warehouse, step by step
Every stage below is one we found written down in an agent help page, not one we assumed. Where only one of the three documents describes a stage, we say which one.
- You find a product and copy its link. On this site that means opening a category on the browsing page and taking the link from the item you want.
- You paste it into the agent order form. This is the step that behaves differently per agent, and the rest of this page is about it.
- You confirm where it is going. The LoongBuy walkthrough makes confirming your country of delivery part of this step rather than something you set later, because what can legally leave China for your address affects what can be ordered at all.
- You pay, and the agent buys from the seller. The agent purchases in its own name, at a Chinese address. The seller never deals with you.
- The parcel reaches a warehouse and is inspected. How thoroughly depends on the platform the link came from, which is the subject of the checks page.
- You ask for it to be shipped. Shipping is a second, separate decision, with its own set of restrictions. Shipping and fees covers what the documents say about it.
Nothing in that list is unusual, and none of it is the reason a 1688 order goes wrong. The reasons sit in step two, step four and step five, and each of them has a sentence in somebody's help page that tells you so in advance.
What the order form reads, and what you type in yourself
Pasting a link only works if the form can fetch the page behind it. Each agent publishes its own list of sites it can do that for, and the lists do not agree. Below is what three of them say, with the wording that matters.
Read straight from the link
OrientDig names Taobao, Tmall, 1688 and Weidian in step one of its ordering guide. 1688 is on the list with no extra condition attached to it.
LoongBuy lists Taobao, Weidian, 1688 and Xianyu for pasting a link, and a shorter set for searching by keyword: Taobao, 1688 and Weidian.
Okeyhaul names Taobao, Tmall and 1688. Its English page adds that it also covers other major China shopping platforms, without naming them.
You fill it in by hand
OrientDig: DIY Orders, which it labels Method 4. The guide points you there for any link from a site outside its four. In practice that is the route for Xianyu, Pinduoduo and Yupoo, which the DIY section lists.
Okeyhaul: a manual form. Its help centre says that if a link cannot be read, you can enter the link, name, price and related details yourself.
The disagreement is real and worth keeping. Xianyu is a paste-it link on one agent and a hand-typed order on another. If you have a Xianyu link in the same basket as a 1688 one, that difference decides which agent is less work.
Not written down anywhere we looked
What happens to the warranty on a hand-typed order, where the agent never saw the listing page.
Which other platforms count as major China shopping platforms in the Okeyhaul sentence.
Whether a 1688 link that fails to load is a site problem or a seller who has blocked it.
A dashed lane means no agent we checked has written this down. It does not mean the answer is bad. It means you will not find it in their terms.
OrientDig, on what the order form accepts:
The original product link supports URLs from Chinese online shopping websites such as Taobao, Tmall, 1688, and Weidian. If your product link is from a site not listed above, please try using our 'DIY Orders' function (Method 4).
Quoted from Shopping assistant guidance, OrientDig, last modified 2025-06-30. We re-opened it on 2026-10-06 and the wording had not changed.
Okeyhaul is the interesting one, because its two language versions do not match. The English page says it is well supported for Taobao, Tmall, 1688 and other major platforms. The Chinese version of the same page is blunter: it says product scraping is currently supported for three sites only, Taobao, Tmall and 1688.
Okeyhaul, English version of its help centre:
So far, Okeyhaul is well supported TAOBAO, TMALL, 1688 and those major China online-shopping platform
Quoted from Okeyhaul help centre, Okeyhaul, last modified 2024-04-30. We re-opened it on 2026-10-06 and the wording had not changed.
We are not treating that as a contradiction to catch anyone out. Read together, the two versions tell you something useful: the firm list is three sites long, and the phrase about other major platforms is a courtesy rather than a commitment. If your link is from a fourth site, plan on the manual form.
Okeyhaul, on what to do when a link will not load:
If your link cannot be identified and crawled, you can manually fill in the link, name, price, and related information of the product
Quoted from Okeyhaul help centre, Okeyhaul, last modified 2024-04-30. We re-opened it on 2026-10-06 and the wording had not changed.
Before you paste
How to judge a 1688 listing before you paste it
A wholesale listing is written for a buyer who orders by the carton, in a language and a set of conventions aimed at that buyer. Three things on the page decide whether the order is even possible, and all three are visible before you commit.
The first is the minimum order. Suppliers set it, it is stated on the listing, and the agent will tell you to read it rather than read it for you. OrientDig puts that in the tips block on the ordering page itself.
Source excerpt
The second is variants. A single wholesale listing often carries a grid of sizes, colours and configurations at different prices, and the agent buys the one you specified. Vague instructions on a listing like that are how people end up with the wrong colourway and no case to make.
OrientDig, in the tips under the ordering step:
Also, keep in mind that most suppliers on 1688 have a minimum order requirement. Check the supplier's minimum order quantity before placing your order.
Quoted from Shopping assistant guidance, OrientDig, last modified 2025-06-30. We re-opened it on 2026-10-06 and the wording had not changed.
Note what that quotation does not contain: a number. We have not seen any agent publish a typical minimum, so this site does not print one. It varies by supplier, and the only reliable figure is the one on the listing in front of you.
The third is photographs. A listing with many detailed photos is not proof of a good product, but it is the only part of the page an inspection photo can later be compared against. If there is one blurry image, you have nothing to argue with when the parcel arrives.
Reliable sellers are not marked on any page you can read
Guides to ordering from China often promise to teach you how to spot a trustworthy seller. We are not going to, because nothing in the documents we read gives you a way to do it, and a method we invented would be worth exactly as much as a guess.
What the documents do tell you is more useful than it first looks. The agent that wrote the clause on the clause page declines to guarantee the quality of what it buys on your behalf and asks you to carefully select the commodities yourself. That is not an agent dodging work. It is an accurate statement about where the judgement sits, and it tells you the seller is being assessed by you and nobody else.
So the honest version of seller selection is a set of consequences, not signals.
- Nobody is vetting the seller on your behalf. Not the browsing site that showed you the product, and not the agent that buys it. Treat a first order from an unfamiliar supplier as a test.
- Confirm who answers your questions. The agent places the order. Ask its support team about unresolved listing details before paying if you cannot contact the supplier directly.
- A problem found after delivery has a short list of owners. With quality not guaranteed and after-sales described as limited, the practical answer is to keep first orders small enough that being wrong is affordable.
That is less satisfying than a checklist of green flags, and it is what the evidence supports. If you want the sentence this reasoning rests on, it is quoted in full on the clause page, with the address to read it at yourself.