What is 1688 and what are its advantages?
What is 1688?
The Global Leading Sourcing and Wholesale Platform
1688.com is a subsidiary of Alibaba, established in 1999 with the aim of promoting business-to-business (B2B) online markets. Although primarily designed for the domestic market in China, 1688.com gradually expanded its cross-border business by introducing global suppliers to the platform. It provides a new market for manufacturers and retailers interested in purchasing products on a global scale to enter a vast market.
How to Choose Between 1688, Taobao, and Tmall?
As of June 2020, the 1688.com website has 41 million active buyers, including approximately 920,000 paid members. Additionally, the platform has over 10 million enterprise stores, with approximately 150 million users visiting the website daily. Companies selling products on other platforms within the Alibaba Group, such as Alibaba.com and Tmall.com, outsource their products directly from the 1688.com platform.
Advantages of 1688
1.Rich variety of products: As a leading B2B e-commerce platform in China, 1688 has a massive supply of product information covering various industries and fields. Whether you need cosmetics, clothing, electronics, household items, food, machinery and equipment, or any other product, you can find relevant suppliers and products on 1688.
2.High-quality supplier resources: On 1688, you can find numerous high-quality suppliers who are usually large manufacturers or wholesalers with rich production experience, technical strength, and excellent product quality. Additionally, 1688 conducts strict audits and supervision of suppliers to ensure their legitimacy and credibility, making the products purchased by buyers more reliable and trustworthy.
3.Price advantage: 1688 is a wholesale e-commerce platform, where suppliers can provide more favorable prices to buyers by reducing costs through large-scale purchases. Moreover, the platform offers a series of price comparison tools and bidding systems, enabling buyers to compare quotes from different suppliers and select more favorable prices.
Price advantage means higher profit margins, which is undoubtedly good news for buyers. However, unfortunately, 1688’s advantages are challenging to leverage on international platforms because it is a B2B platform exclusively for mainland China’s Business man and suppliers/factories, supporting only online Chinese and customer service that is mainly in Chinese. Furthermore, 1688 only supports RMB payments, and most importantly, it cannot provide international logistics services, which means that they cannot deliver your goods to Africa if you order on the platform.
Fyoubuy can assist you throughout the entire process, including product selection, merchant selection advice, international logistics, and after-sales problem handling. During the entire process, you only need to enter our website and follow the instructions to place your order.How to use it? At Fyoubuy, we support English online customer service, multiple payment methods, and multiple currency payments.
(The figure shows the price quotations for the same dress on Amazom,ebay,Aliexpress,SHEIN,1688)