The apps you need to import from China

Three apps do most of the work

You do not need twenty apps to buy from China. Almost everything you will do happens in three.

One to find the goods. One to read Chinese. One to talk to the people selling.

• 1688, to see what things really cost at wholesale.
• A translator with a camera, to read a Chinese page, a label or a box.
• WeChat, because that is where every supplier and every agent in China actually talks.

1688, for the wholesale price

1688 is China's domestic wholesale site. Its prices are what Chinese buyers pay, before anybody adds an export margin.

The app is Mandarin only, and it expects a Chinese phone number, a Chinese address and a Chinese payment method. You can still browse it, search it, and copy the link.

The link is the useful part. Send it to us and we buy the goods, check them and ship them. You never need the account.

Taobao, to buy one of something

Taobao is the retail side of the same company. Single pieces, no minimum order, prices above 1688 and far below what you pay at home.

It is the cheapest way to test an idea. Buy one, hold the quality in your hand, then order the carton on 1688 once you are sure.

Alibaba, to research in English

Alibaba is the export site. English, international payment, and sellers who expect to deal with foreigners.

It is the easiest place to see what exists and roughly what it is worth. Prices are higher, because many of the sellers are trading companies buying on 1688 themselves.

Use it to learn the market. Do not assume the first price you see there is the price.

WeChat, because that is where China talks

WeChat is not a chat app in China. It is the phone. Factories, agents and forwarders all live inside it, and plenty of them never open an email.

Install it before you need it. A supplier who ignores an email for four days answers a WeChat voice note in minutes.

Hold a message down and it will translate it. That is enough to follow a conversation. It is not enough to argue about a price.

A translator, and a camera that reads Chinese

Google Translate does two jobs you will use every week. It turns a product name into Chinese so you can search for it, and its camera reads a Chinese page, a label or a shipping mark while you point the phone at it.

Download the Chinese language pack inside the app. It then works with no data at all, which matters in a market.

Baidu Translate is better on trade words and product names. Keep both if your phone has the space.

Check every translation backwards. Turn your product into Chinese, then turn that Chinese back into English. If it comes back as something else, the word is wrong, and a search with it will be wrong too.

Search by picture, not by word

Google Lens, and the camera icon inside the 1688 and Taobao apps, will search for a product from a photograph.

This beats typing for anything whose name you do not know, which is most things. A screenshot somebody sent you on WhatsApp works. So does a photo of the item on a plain background.

It also tells you something about price. Photograph a product you saw on Alibaba, search it on 1688, and you often meet the factory behind the trading company.

Payment apps, and why you probably need none of them

Alipay and WeChat Pay are how everything is paid for inside China, and both now take foreign cards.

Buying from Nigeria, you usually need neither. You pay your agent in naira and the agent pays in RMB. That is the normal way this works, and it is safer for you, because the money passes through somebody you can reach.

If you are travelling to China, set one up before you fly. It is a slow thing to do standing in an airport.

What none of them will do

No app on this list will ship goods to Nigeria, clear them at the port, or tell you whether a factory is real.

1688 sellers deliver inside China only, and Taobao is the same. Nothing on these platforms carries export paperwork, and none of them inspect anything for you.

That gap is the whole reason an agent exists. The apps find the product. Somebody in China still has to buy it, check it, combine it and send it.

Watch your data

The Chinese apps are heavy and they play video by default. On a metered line they will finish a bundle in an afternoon.

Browse on wifi where you can, and turn off automatic video in the app settings if it offers you the choice.

And this app

Ours does the parts the Chinese apps cannot. Today's yuan rate, what air and sea freight cost per kilo and per cubic metre, how much space your cartons take, and what your goods will land at.

Send us a 1688 link from the Requests tab and we will price it and buy it.