Does the listing cover your parcel requirements?
Alibaba Group describes 1688 as an integrated domestic wholesale marketplace, founded in 1999. It reported more than one million paying members in fiscal year 2024. That describes the platform; each seller must still confirm the work needed for your order.
Per-order shipping needs a pack size, a delivery address and a plan for claims. Ask whether the quoted price covers individual packing and the requested documents. Confirm who handles a wrong item or damaged parcel.
For 1688 shipping to the USA or another destination, name the country in the brief. Confirm import requirements with your customs broker before accepting a quote. A listing price does not establish the landed cost.
Three parties, and the duties that attach to each.
China’s Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Trading set separate duties for sellers and platforms. The table uses the version amended in 2025. It does not confirm any particular seller’s compliance.
| Party | What the rules require of them | What it means for your order |
|---|---|---|
| The 1688 seller | As an online business operator, must be registered as a market entity unless an exemption applies, and must publish its licence details prominently (Articles 8 and 12). | Their registration is checkable. Their willingness to pack single parcels is a separate question that no rule answers for you. |
| The platform | Must verify and register seller identity information and re-verify it at least once every six months (Article 24), and must distinguish registered from unregistered operators (Article 27). | A platform-side check exists, but it has a stated interval and it sits behind a Chinese-language interface. |
| The party in between | Is itself an online business operator when it sells on, with the same registration and disclosure duties: not a neutral pipe. | This is the position we occupy. It is why we invoice you in our own name rather than passing along someone else’s. |
Before paying: identify who sells the goods, who invoices you and who handles claims. Write down each role. A freight booking alone does not explain the terms of the sale.
The rules do not make the disclosures easy to reach from outside China. They sit in Chinese-language interfaces. A registration mark means registered; it does not establish the licensed scope. A code shown on a shop page remains a claim until it is read against the register.
Two checks are browser-only and do not require our service. Ask whoever sits in the middle for its own credit code, then run it through the USCI checker. Next, compare the seller named on the contract, the issuer on the invoice and the beneficiary on the bank details with the payment-party checker. A party that will not provide a code leaves a material risk unresolved.
Those checks test structure: whether a code is well formed and whether three names agree. They do not open the registration file. If you want the middle party’s registered scope, status and legal representative read and dated by a person, that is the verification service. It is priced by scope, recommends no supplier, and can be pointed at this desk on the same terms as at anyone else.
From parcel brief to dispatch
Use these handoffs to define a first order. If the request falls outside our capacity, we decline before issuing a quote.
- Parcel brief: send the listing, exact variant, pieces per parcel and destination country. Add packing needs and a decision date. Confirm that everything goes to one address before sharing any details. Per-parcel delivery to end customers is outside this desk.
- Accepted quote: agree the goods, packing, freight cost, hand-off point and claim terms. Identify who supplies the invoice and tracking reference. Keep the quote version you accept.
- Payment verified: pay the quoted entity in full. We buy nothing until payment is verified. Payment clears before goods move. Before we purchase, you can cancel at no cost.
- Purchase and dispatch: we buy the agreed goods and arrange tracked export carriage. You receive our invoice and the carrier’s tracking reference. Import clearance remains yours.
Check the full cost: goods and packing, carrier charges, and destination costs need separate answers. We pass the carrier’s charge through at cost. Your customs broker handles duty and import questions.
Service limits
We do not blind-ship or falsify documents. We will not label a parcel as though it came from you, understate its value, or describe goods as something they are not.
We do not guarantee transit time or act as carrier. We book tracked export carriage and pass the carrier’s charge through at cost. Under our DAP trade terms, risk transfers on delivery at the named place. Carrier limits do not replace our obligations as seller; use our claims process for missing or damaged goods.
We do not calculate customs duty. Product classification, import clearance, destination tax and regulatory approval remain with you and your appointed specialists.
We do not finance purchases. We do not extend credit, advance supplier funds for you or carry inventory on your behalf.
We keep selling separate from checking. We will never verify a supplier for you and then offer to replace them with ourselves. If you need an independent record check, use the verification service. It does not recommend us or another supplier.
Send a brief for the first parcel
Email the product link, specification, pieces per parcel, packing needs, destination country and required decision date. State the total first-order quantity and confirm that all goods go to one address. We do not accept end-customer fulfilment briefs.
Send the brief to hello@currawongweb.com. Do not send passwords, marketplace login details, payment credentials or identity documents.
The first-order rules, before you pay:
| Rule | What it means for your first order |
|---|---|
| Order size | First orders stay at about US$2,000 or less. Sample orders of 1 to 5 pieces are welcome. |
| Payment | 100% prepayment, in one payment, to the entity named on the quote. |
| Purchase timing | We buy nothing until your payment is verified. Before we purchase, you can cancel at no cost. |
| Substitutions | Any substitution needs a new quote version that you accept first. |
| Shipping | Goods ship DAP, by a carrier with online tracking. |
| Claims | Claims run on written evidence, within the stated windows. |
The full trade terms control where this summary compresses them.
We will reply with the missing questions, a scoped quote under the payment rule above, or a decline. A decline is better than a desk claiming it can buy every category.
Buying a defined lot rather than per-order? The 1688 wholesale route starts from the same brief. Choosing who to buy through at all? What the register can and cannot tell you.
For EU parcels, the €150 duty relief ended on 1 July 2026. The temporary €3 rate applies per declaration item line to eligible distance sales with intrinsic value no greater than €150, until 1 July 2028 unless extended. This includes non-IOSS orders: the amended “postal consignment” definition is not restricted to postal operators. See the Commission guidance for scope and preference conditions. Confirm the route and classification with your broker. Council adopted text, Article 2; checked 8 September 2026.
Our 28 August 2026 study recorded name and principal fields in the page source of 59 sampled 1688 factory-card pages. The study recorded the code field as present in all 59, with 8 empty values. It did not verify factory status, why those values were empty or whether the fields were visible to a buyer. Ask for the registered name and code; a page field alone does not confirm identity.
Official sources used for the platform and legal facts
Alibaba Group — 1688 business profile. Accessed 12 August 2026. It supports the founding year, the wholesale marketplace description and the FY2024 paying-member figure above; it does not support any claim about our service capability.
Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Trading, State Administration for Market Regulation Order No. 37, amended by Order No. 101 in 2025. Checked 5 September 2026. Articles 8, 12, 24 and 27 support the disclosure and platform duties discussed here.
The Chinese text is authoritative. Our English summaries are not official translations or legal advice. The rules do not establish how a particular platform or shop implements them.