Many local Chinese sellers do not update their inventory stats regularly. Thus, you might place an order for a supply, only to find that it’s gone.

This situation doesn’t occur too regularly. Expect stock info to be correct close to 90% of the time.

But, this might be an issue for you if you’re a high volume buyer.
On 1688, high volume sellers tend to struggle with keeping online inventory updates, especially considering the sheer number of sales that occur on 1688.

To avoid those issues, we recommend you choose a good supplier (or a good 1688 agent china buyer).

Pick suppliers with a “bullhead icon” next to their names. That’s a “TrustPass badge” which means that the supplier is Alibaba Group certified, making them trustworthy in their inventory updates!

#2 – Failed Purchases and Orders.

Sometimes, an order that you place can get invalidated. That might be due to the previous issue of the supply running out of stock.

If that occurs, the item won’t be added to your shopping cart.
However, the refund process is what’s odd on the 1688 platform.
After all, it isn’t a retail platform. Being a wholesale website, if you encounter any issues on purchase, the 1688.com will continue the purchase while accounting for stock problems.

Here, you get the opportunity to seek another supplier, where you can place a new order for the same product.

But, what can be an issue is the cancellation time. It usually takes a few days for suppliers to cancel an order after a purchase failure.
You also have the option of getting a refund to your credit card. Here, the money has to be refunded from the supplier to the 1688 platform first, before being sent back to you.

As for security, that’s never an issue when it comes to refunds. The platform protects your transactions, and it records and tracks everything, guaranteeing your money back if a supplier doesn’t fulfill it!

#3 – Cost Modifications for Domestic Shipping.

Sometimes a supplier doesn’t ship directly to you. They’ll send the product to a warehouse, adding extra domestic shipping costs per the final shipment’s weight.

The platform takes care of the starting stage of this fee. It automatically informs you of the additional costs using the default amount of (15CNY) as the lowest shipping cost.

Thus, the platform pays a portion of the shipping costs beforehand. The rest is something you’ll have to fulfill yourself.

A 1688 buyer has to manually confirm the full national shipping fee during order placement. And you do so after filling out your starting payment instructions.

After the full domestic shipping costs are confirmed (at their real value – not the minimum of 15 CNY), the warehouse buyer will extract the rest of the costs by deducting them from you. They’ll also inform you of the correction, and that the proper charge was registered in your 1688 purchase history.

Domestic shipping costs obviously depend on the shipping partners of the suppliers you purchase from. You’ll normally never need to worry about extra domestic shipping costs, unless you’re buying items that are too heavy or large.

Speaking of those.

#4 – Avoid Purchasing Products that are too Large or Heavy.

This isn’t a legal issue, it’s a price-related one.

It’s well-known that buying heavy items (especially ones with fragile components like TVs, furniture, bikes) can lead to price penalization.

It’s best if you buy those if you’ve already factored in the high global and national shipment costs.

Also, it’s best if you avoid buying those, unless you’re connected with low-cost forwarders to ship those items safely.

#5 – Delays and Timing.

Wholesale from China’s 1688 comes with a few problems.
First, being a business supplier network, you can’t expect it to provide the level of accuracy available on retail sites (like Amazon or Tmall.com).

As a rule, wholesale orders require time for processing. They require bigger lead times. And as a result, many of their products don’t get shipped immediately.

You can expect lead times to be around 1 to 5 days. Also, expect the processing of small orders to require up to a week.

Larger orders require even more time, ranging from 2 to 4 weeks for completion, with additional delays (of up to 3 days) in busy seasons (like November and December).

Regardless of the delays, there’s a way to work around them.
You can plan your purchase times by factoring in lead times plus seasonal issues – where you buy your supplies earlier than normal. This helps you avoid any inventory or delay issues.
However, if your order is taking too much time to reach you, then you may cancel it. This is assuming that your order has been on “ordered status” for way too long. And in that case, you can email the buyer for a cancellation.

Just note, if your supplier hasn’t shipped the order, then 1688 can’t cancel it for you. However, if it has been already shipped out, you shouldn’t cancel it. You might be penalized in that situation, losing service privileges from the 1688 website.

#6 – 1688 Agent China buying: Lillians’s Storage Warehousing.

The majority of 1688’s orders require more than a week for completion. During that period, you need a place to store your products until arrival (which may require around 3 months).
Lillian is a 1688 agent that offers that space. You get free storage for up to 3 months. However, any more time requires you to pay 5% of the product’s value for storage fees.