Toy-Links.com now features curated toys from taobao. We are expanding from a search engine and cInstead of restricting our site to brick toys from AliExpress we now feature all different kinds of toys from Taobao. Our mission remains the same: Find items from the cheapest sources in China, and present them to you, organized, in English and with the information to make an educated choice. We already added hundreds of items, different kinds from various popular brands.
We do not sell anything and are not affiliated with the sellers, so you can expect maximum transparency from us. We simply provide you with a search engine.
Ordering
Taobao items can be ordered through an agent, such as Wegobuy. A simple Guide can be found here on our sister site.
Taobao vs AliExpress
The difference from agent shipping to the AliExpress shipping you are probably used to is that an agent buys and processes the the items for you. The advantage here is that they do a quality inspection, which they are very good at, they spot the smallest irregularities. In case of irregularities, you can get an exchange or return them and get away for less than $1, instead of the item price + shipping. You also have a much better choice of shipping services and extra services, such as gift and safety wrapping. Deliveries are quick with absolutely trustworthy tracking, at least as long as you use one of our trusted agents.
In most cases you spend a small premium on the agents service, but it’s usually worth it.
One other advantage is also that taobao is made for the domestic Chinese C2C market. The items are priced so that Chinese parents, who usually have a much lower income, buy them for their kids. AliExpress is priced for foreigners.
Why we use AliExpress for Lepin and a taobao agent for other toys
This is actually not as complicated as it might seem at first, and really understandable when you look at it.
If all products were perfect, AliExpress would be better than agent shipping, because it’s cheaper and moves through less hands. But sadly, items come with defects, and if you only notice them when they get to you it’s a waste of money and time. So agents definitely have their place.
For toys like figures with fragile ears or stuffed animals that you don’t want to leak downs, an agent is a good choice because if anything goes wrong they will get you a replacement before it leaves the country.
For brick toys, that’s not really an option. Yes, they can count the brick bags or check if the box has any dents. But they can’t (and you probably don’t want them to) put together your whole set of blocks. It’s an option if you want gift wrapping for your lepin gift instance, but we can’t generally recommend it.
How to get to the taobao items
You can see them on the all items page by setting the marketplace filter to taobao.com or simply following this link.
If you’re looking for something more specific you can find taobao items through the main menu. Simply select them by theme, type or choose between different trading card games.
