Choosing well

Choose better, waste less

Most money lost in agent orders is lost before anything ships. This page covers reading a listing, writing a useful order note, checking QC photos and the mistakes worth avoiding.

See the five mistakes Pick a category

Reading a listing you cannot read

Most listings are in Chinese and the photos are doing the talking. Three habits get you most of the way.

Measurements beat sizes. Chinese sizing runs small and inconsistently, so find the size table in the listing images and compare centimetres against a garment you already own. Second, look at the review photos rather than the studio photos, because buyers post what the item looks like in a normal room. Third, if the listing has almost no sales history, treat the note on the catalogue entry as unverified rather than as a recommendation.

Use the message field, it is your only channel

You never speak to the seller. The message box on the ACBuy order page and the Order Inquiry thread are the whole relationship, so anything you assume will be understood needs writing down.

Useful things to write: which exact variant if the listing images are ambiguous, that you want the shoe box kept or removed, that a gift receipt should not be included, and that you want to be told before substitution rather than after. Anything you did not say is a thing the warehouse had to guess.

Close-up of the ACBuy leaving a message field, the platform disclaimer and the buy now button — The message box and the platform disclaimer, magnified from ACBuy's own guide image.

Avoidable

The five mistakes that cost the most

Ordering one item at a time. Each parcel pays its own first weight band and its own declaration fee. Two separate parcels a week apart is the most expensive way to buy two things. See consolidation.
Forgetting the storage clock. Free storage is 90 days from the Stored date, and it is per order, not per account. Accumulating slowly is fine as long as you know which order started the clock first.
Buying something rigid without measuring it. Any single side at 70 cm or more is packed alone, which quietly turns one parcel into two.
Assuming the deposit is the price. It is an estimate and it settles after packing, in either direction. Budget for the possibility of a shortfall.
Ignoring which platform the listing is on. A second hand listing on Xianyu carries a 10 CNY per item service fee that a Taobao listing does not. On a cheap item that is a real percentage.

What to actually look at in QC photos

ACBuy states that three free photos are usual, and the warehouse takes them under its own lighting rather than a studio's. That is a feature. It is the closest thing you get to seeing the item in a normal room.

Check the stitching where seams meet, the labels and any printed text, and the colour against the listing rather than against your memory. If something is wrong, raise it while the item is still in the warehouse. Once it has shipped, your options narrow sharply.

Close-up of an ACBuy warehouse row showing storage expiry, weight, size and the ordinary picture thumbnails — One warehouse row magnified: storage expiry, weight and size sit beside the ordinary picture thumbnails, with extra photos and video offered as paid services.

Before the link leaves your hands

How to judge a seller while you still can

Look at what the order form actually collects: a link, a product name, a specification and a free-text remark. Nothing about the seller travels with any of it. No rating, no dispute history, no shop age. Once you submit, the buyer in China is working from those four fields and nothing else, so every judgement about who you are buying from has to be made before you copy the URL.

Three signals are worth the minute they take. Sales volume on that exact listing rather than on the shop as a whole, because a busy shop can still be selling one bad item. Buyer photographs inside the reviews, which are the only pictures on the page the seller did not stage. And whether the listing publishes its own measurements: a seller who prints a size chart has agreed to be held to it, and one who does not has left themselves room.

The notice printed beside those fields is blunt about where the goods come from. They are other people's shops, and responsibility for what arrives stays in those shops. Take that at face value: picking who you buy from is the part of this job nobody does for you.

Source: ACBuy DIY order form, order form fields and the platform disclaimer. Checked 2026-10-09.

ACBuy's order form showing four fields, link, name, specifications and remark, beside a disclaimer panel about third-party platforms — Four fields and a remark box. That is the whole of what reaches the person who buys on your behalf.

Ask for the missing QC detail, then decide

Check quantity, colour, size label, visible construction and the measurement that matters to your fit. For a missing detail, name the photo or measurement you need, such as a heel-to-toe insole length. Confirm any photo charge before requesting it.

If the item differs from the order, keep the original listing and QC images and contact the agent while the seller’s return window remains open. Confirm eligibility, fees and domestic return postage before approving shipment.