Catshanghai

Taobao is a Chinese online auction service. Think of it as Ebay for China. My Chinese is far too limited comfortably to navigate the site enough to be able to buy things, but Taobao is a good site to go to find out how much things cost in China.

Simply enter the desired item and poll the most popular price points. If something is very cheap then it is probably too good to be true and noone wants to spend more than they have to. As the Buddha said, we need to follow the middle way. This should give you enough information to bid vendors down until their prices are similar to Taobao.

For example, I just searched Taobao to find out how much I should pay for an 8gb Iphone and prices ranged from 4000 to 5000 RMB.

Don’t just take Taobao’s word for it. Double check your prices with other sites and sources for more local information. In Shanghai, I often lurk around and post questions on Shanghaiexpat.com. If you can ignore the trolls and gossip mongers then you can find a friendly and well informed community who are willing to share all sorts of helpful advice including a n upto date confirmation of prices for overhyped gadgets. See Shanghaiexpat for more details.

Thanks to Barry from my ITGS class for this tip about price guaging using Taobao.