For foreigners living in China, Taobao can make life a lot easier. No more frustrating trips to the foreign grocery store only to find out that they don't have what you want. Just order it on Taobao!
However, there is a catch. Taobao is only in Chinese, so it may take a few tries to learn the ropes. Here's a great tutorial on how to sign up for a Taobao account.
After you sign up, the next hurdle is deciding how to pay. Some of the options, like paying directly from your Chinese bank account, will not work for foreigners because we do not have a Chinese citizenship card number (身份证号) and the system is not set up to accept passport numbers. There are basically three options available to foreigners:
1. The simplest way is to use a Mastercard or Visa, as this Youtube tutorial suggests. If you do that, you will have to pay foreign transaction fees.
2. You can choose an option that lets you pay at your local post office. This apparently works in big cities, but I live in small-city China and when I tried it my local post office didn't know what to do with the form I brought them.
3. You can use 支付宝. 支付宝 is basically an online wallet, and you can put money into it from your Chinese bank. First, you need to set up online banking with your Chinese bank. Then, you need to sign up for a 支付宝 account. Finally, you need to link the two. Once that is done, you can move money from your Chinese bank account to your 支付宝 whenever you want. When you check out on Taobao you just select 支付宝 as your payment option.
Note: When signing up for a 支付宝 account, be careful to keep track of which 密码 (password) is which. There are two, the one you sign in with and the one you use when you spend money. They cannot be the same and sometimes it is hard to know which one the system wants.
I signed up myself with lots of trial and error, but in the end it all worked out and I learned some Chinese in the bargain. However, it might be simpler to have a trusted Chinese friend help you the first time. Just make sure they know that some payment options won't work for you because you don't have a 身份证.
