**AS OF 04-18-25, Taobao does not ship directly to the United States due to the current situation with tariffs, though other places such as Canada and the UK are not under any restrictions. This situation is rapidly evolving and will change over time.

Much like how Bilibili is basically Chinese YouTube, Taobao is basically Chinese Amazon. You can order a plethora of items here, whether it be clothing, furniture, accessories, CDs, and, for the sake of this guide, VSINGER merchandise and voicebanks. The most intimidating thing about Taobao is that it does not have an English interface. To get around this, downloading a screen translator app such as Google Translate to assist with the purchasing and shipping process is required.

There are three methods you can go about purchasing things through Taobao, ranked by their ease of use. We'll be showing the Intermediate method with this guide:
1. [EASY] Use a buying agent, such as Superbuy or Parcel Up, to purchase the items for you and ship them to you. Please check each website for their individual processes regarding placing orders and their pricing.
2. [INTERMEDIATE] Buying the items through Taobao yourself and having them directly shipped to you, or stored in their warehouse for consolidated shipping. The latter is only needed if you’re ordering from multiple different stores at once— it’ll combine the separate shipments into one large shipment.
3. [CHALLENGING] Buying the items through Taobao and using CAINIAO as your third party forwarder. CAINIAO forwarding works basically the same as Taobao’s consolidated shipping service, but has many extra steps to set up and involves downloading the CAINIAO app. The pro to this is that it can save you money when it comes to shipping.

Regardless of where you’re ordering from, Taobao’s website on PC doesn’t accept international credit cards and will ask you to make an Alipay account at checkout. However, if you use the app, you can pay via credit card or Apple Pay. The app is also much more responsive than the website, so we’ll using the app on this page.

To create a Taobao account, you’ll need to have a valid phone number and a valid passport. Your passport is used after signup to verify your account— without this, your account has a high likelihood of getting banned after your first purchase, and your items/refund money may not be given to you. Please see this post for more information and the steps to verify. If you don’t want to give Taobao your passport (though this is asking a lot by American standards, passports/ID are frequently used as verification for Chinese apps) or don’t have one, your only option is to use a buying agent.

How to create a Taobao account:

Step 1. Download the Taobao app. Just searching "Taobao" in the App Store/Play Store should pull it up.

Step 2. The terms and conditions will pop up when you first open the app— press the orange button to agree to them.

Step 3. Click the smiley face button on the bottom right of the screen, in the toolbar. You'll be asked to sign in or create an account. Click the text that says to create an account.

Step 4. Enter your phone number, making sure to select "+1" at the beginning. You'll receive an SMS with a verification code.

Step 5. Your account is created! Unlike with bilibili, personalizing it with a name/icon is unimportant, since only merchants will see this information (if you leave reviews, people will see it too, but it's unlikely you'll leave reviews, right?). As mentioned, please follow the aforementioned guide on verifying your account with your passport.

Now that you have an account, you can purchase goods! We'll only be linking to the official pages, but if you search any character names (洛天依, 乐正绫, etc) you'll find fanmade merch, too. We can't vouch for any fan storefront you might find, and encourage you to buy responsibly— a good rule of thumb is to avoid any storefronts with a rating lower than 4.5.

Official storefronts for VSINGER merchandise: VSINGER and Bilibili Goods.

You can also scan the QR codes for them below (open the images in new tab).

Once you have items in your cart, go to the checkout section. You'll be presented with two options for shipping:

Consolidated Shipping is when your items get sent to Taobao's warehouse, they get combined into one package, and then get shipped to you. This is only necessary to use if you're buying merchandise from two different stores. You'll be charged a fee to ship to the warehouse, and then an additional fee to combine your orders and ship it in one package.

Direct Shipping is when your items are shipped directly to you with no need to do anything at Taobao's warehouse. There are a few different speeds you can choose, and also some limits on packages if they're too big or too heavy. This shouldn't be a problem with VSINGER merchandise unless you're buying a LOT at once. You can click on each shipping option to review the details of each. "Air Frieght Economy" has the best value for time and money in our personal opinion.

Again, it is imparative you use a screen translator through this entire process so you can understand exactly what your order will entail. We can't provide a step-by-step guide because so much differs during the ordering process per-person.

The r/Taobao community usually provides good troubleshooting help, should you encounter any issues.

Have fun shopping!
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