From a listing in Chinese to a parcel at your door.
Taobao, Tmall and 1688 don't ship abroad, so a purchasing-agent ecosystem grew up to do it for them: companies that buy on your behalf, photograph what arrives, merge everything into one parcel and freight it internationally. It is a genuinely good system once you understand its eight steps and the two pieces of maths that decide what you pay.
The eight steps
What happens, in order, and how long each step realistically takes.
You find the listing
Discovery happens on Lantern: Taobao, Tmall and 1688 listings submitted by members, with community ratings, QC photos from previous buyers and price history, so you can judge a product before committing. The marketplaces themselves are in Chinese and do not ship internationally, which is why every step after this one exists.
A purchasing agent buys it for you
You hand the listing to a purchasing agent (pasting the link, or clicking through from Lantern) and pay the item price plus any domestic shipping. The agent's buying team places the order in CNY like any local customer, handling seller messages, sizing notes and out-of-stock substitutions.
The seller ships to the agent's warehouse
Domestic shipping inside China is fast and cheap: a few yuan, and often free above roughly ¥150. Each seller ships separately to the agent's warehouse. Nothing international has happened yet, and no real freight money has been spent.
Warehouse check-in and QC photos
The warehouse weighs and measures each parcel and photographs the actual item: measurements against the size chart, fabric, stitching, hardware, any defects. This evidence layer is most of what you are paying an agent for, and the same photos are the backbone of Lantern's QC galleries.
You review the photos and decide
Accept, return, exchange, or ask for more photos. This is the only point in the pipeline where a mistake is cheap to fix: returning a wrong item to the seller costs a few yuan of domestic shipping instead of an international round trip that usually costs more than the item.
Consolidation into one parcel
Once everything you want has arrived, the warehouse packs all of it into a single box: stripping seller packaging, adding protection where it matters and vacuum-compressing apparel. One parcel means one handling fee, one per-parcel minimum and one customs entry instead of five.
International freight and customs
You pick a shipping line by price, speed and what it accepts; the parcel is billed on chargeable weight. Typical door-to-door times: 7-14 days to Western Europe, 8-16 to North America, 4-9 within Asia-Pacific. Import VAT and duties, where they apply, are yours to pay.
Delivery, and reporting back
A local courier handles the last leg. The reviews, real all-in totals, delivery times and owner photos that members post back to Lantern are what keep the next buyer's estimates honest; the whole evidence loop depends on this step.
The two pieces of maths
Chargeable weight
Freight is billed on the greater of actual and volumetric weight.
Volumetric weight is length × width × height in centimetres, divided by roughly 5,000. A titanium multitool weighs 300 g in a tiny box, so it bills as 300 g. A 900 g down jacket in its original 40 × 30 × 15 cm box computes to 18,000 ÷ 5,000 = 3.6 kg volumetric, so you would pay for four times its real weight.
This is why the repack step matters. Vacuum-compressed into a 40 × 30 × 6 cm package, the same jacket bills at about 1.4 kg. Dense goods (tools, ceramics packed tight) are cheap to ship for their weight; light bulky ones are not, until the warehouse squeezes the air out. Lantern's estimates approximate this per category, which is why a home item and a garment of the same weight can quote differently.
Why consolidation saves money
One parcel beats three, every time, and here is the arithmetic.
Every parcel to Western Europe carries a flat ≈¥18 handling component plus ≈¥42 per kilogram at baseline, and carriers round each parcel up to the next 100 g. Ship three 0.5 kg items separately and you pay that flat fee three times: about ¥117. Merge them into one 1.5 kg box and it is ¥81, a 31% saving before the repack has even removed any packaging weight.
The saving grows with item count, which is why experienced buyers order from several sellers, let everything gather in the warehouse (agents hold items free for 45-180 days) and ship once. Community hauls show what this looks like on real orders.
What QC actually catches, and what it can't
Warehouse photos are the best consumer protection in this model. They are not magic.
QC catches
- The wrong item, colour or size shipped by the seller
- Measurements that don't match the size chart
- Visible flaws: loose stitching, marks, scratches, damage in transit
- Missing parts, accessories or order quantities
- Fabric weight, since the warehouse weighs everything anyway
QC can't catch
- How it fits your body: measurements yes, fit no
- Hand-feel, drape and comfort of a fabric
- Durability over months of use: only owner reviews cover that
- Exact colour accuracy under warehouse lighting
- Function beyond a basic power-on for electronics
The gap between the two columns is what owner photos and reviews on Lantern exist to close: warehouse photos tell you what shipped; people who have worn something for two months tell you whether it was worth shipping.
The discovery and decision layer, never the shop.
Before you buy
Members submit listings and the page is live at once. We host it, read it against the content policy afterwards and take down what breaks it, check that links still work, and attach community ratings, QC photos and price history. A page nobody has read yet says so, so you know which kind you are looking at.
When you decide
Every product is priced through all 8 agents (item, fees, freight to your region) and ranked by value. All totals are estimates and labelled as such; the agent's own cart is the final word.
What we never do
We hold no stock, take no payment and touch no parcel. Some agents pay referral fees (disclosed here), and they only ever break exact ties in rankings, never make them.
Totals are estimates calculated by Lantern from each agent's published fee structure and our own per-region freight table. Actual charges depend on final weight, dimensions, declared value, route and customs. Always confirm in the agent's own cart before paying. Agent fee structures last reviewed 2026-08-01.
Frequently asked
The questions every first-timer asks, answered without hedging.
How long does an order take, end to end?
Budget three to six weeks for a consolidated order. Domestic shipping to the warehouse takes 2-5 days per seller, QC photos appear within a day or two of arrival, and international freight adds 7-14 days to Western Europe, 8-16 to North America or 4-9 within Asia-Pacific. The biggest variable is you: how long items sit in storage before you ship.
How much does international shipping cost?
As a baseline, roughly ¥30-48 per chargeable kilogram depending on region, plus a flat ¥12-20 per parcel, before each agent's own discount or premium. A 2 kg consolidated parcel to Western Europe typically lands between ¥90 and ¥130. Every product page on Lantern estimates this per agent for your region.
What is chargeable weight?
Carriers bill the greater of actual weight and volumetric weight: length × width × height in centimetres divided by roughly 5,000. Dense items ship at their real weight; light bulky ones bill for the space they take up. Asking the warehouse to repack or vacuum-compress is often the single biggest saving available on apparel.
What happens if an item arrives at the warehouse wrong or damaged?
That is exactly what the QC window is for. You review warehouse photos before anything ships internationally; if something is wrong, agents handle a return or exchange with the seller for a small fee, usually recovering the item cost minus domestic shipping. Once a parcel has left China, returns are rarely economical; treat the QC review as your real checkpoint.
Will I pay customs duties?
Possibly. It depends on your country's de-minimis threshold and the parcel's declared value. Import VAT and duties are your responsibility and no estimate on Lantern includes them. Under-declaring to dodge them risks seizure of the parcel; check your local threshold before consolidating a large order.
Which purchasing agent should I use?
It depends on the parcel, not the agent. Freight-priced agents win on robust low-risk orders; premium warehouses earn their fees on fragile or high-value parcels; wholesale specialists exist for 1688 bulk. Lantern prices every product through all 8 agents and ranks them by value; the comparison hub covers the trade-offs in detail.
Does Lantern sell anything or handle my money?
No. Lantern is a discovery and decision layer: members submit the listings and they publish at once, we host them, read them against the content policy in the days after and remove what breaks it, collect community evidence and estimate landed costs. The purchase happens on the agent's platform and the parcel never touches us. Some agents pay us a referral fee, disclosed wherever it applies and only ever used to break exact ties in rankings.
What makes a good first order?
Two to four light, cheap, well-reviewed items from different sellers: enough to watch consolidation work without much at stake. Skip fragile goods, heavy parcels and anything time-critical until one delivery is behind you.
Ready to price a real parcel?
The comparison hub runs these numbers across all 8 agents for your region, or open any product and the buy box does it in place.