1688 vs Taobao vs AliExpress: Which to Source From

Three marketplaces, often the same factories behind them — but very different prices and very different buying experiences. If you’re deciding where to source for a store, here’s what each one actually is and which makes sense for you.

What each platform actually is

1688 is Alibaba’s domestic wholesale marketplace: factory-direct and B2B, in Chinese, priced for the Chinese market. It carries the widest selection and the lowest per-unit prices, because there’s no middleman and no export premium baked in.
Taobao is consumer-facing C2C — think of it as China’s everyday shopping app. Prices sit above 1688 and listings are built for individual buyers, not bulk orders. Useful for hard-to-find or niche items, less so for scaling a catalog.
AliExpress is the export-ready face of the same ecosystem: English, international payment, and global shipping built in. Convenient, but you pay for that convenience — per-unit prices are higher because export handling and a seller margin are already priced in.

Why 1688 is the cheapest

The further upstream you buy, the less markup sits between you and the factory. AliExpress is engineered for a Western buyer who wants one order shipped abroad with no friction, and the price reflects all of that. 1688 strips it back to the wholesale relationship: tiered pricing, no export premium, and direct access to the people making the product. For anyone selling at volume, that gap compounds on every order. We go deeper on the price logic in our 1688 dropshipping guide.

The catch with 1688 — and how we remove it

1688’s prices come with real friction. It’s the reason most sellers default to AliExpress despite paying more:

Chinese-only interface, listings, and supplier chat.
Domestic-China shipping and payment — suppliers expect to deliver inside China and accept local payment methods, not an international card.
No export support — you need an agent or a platform to consolidate, inspect, and ship your orders abroad.

This is exactly the gap MorePlus closes. You connect your Shopify store, we source the product from 1688 at the factory price with 0% markup on the product, run quality control, can brand and package it, store it, and ship each order to your customer. Sourcing on 1688 is free; there’s no MOQ; and shipping is offered at competitive rates priced by destination, category and weight or dimensions, with your total shown before you pay. A free account gets you started, and an optional custom sourcing agent — for when you want someone hunting a specific product or supplier — runs at 5% of goods value.

When each one makes sense

AliExpress — testing a single product fast, with zero setup and no Chinese to navigate. Fine for validation; expensive once you scale.
Taobao — sourcing a niche or one-off item that isn’t listed wholesale. Rarely the right base for a real catalog.
1688 — the lowest cost and the deepest selection for anyone selling seriously. The only real barriers are language, payment and export — and those are solved by a platform or agent.

For most dropshippers and store owners, the answer is 1688, accessed through a platform that handles the friction for you. If you’re weighing doing it yourself versus a partner, see sourcing agent vs buying direct. For the full picture — choosing a marketplace, vetting suppliers and getting goods shipped — start with our pillar guide on how to source products from China, then see how we handle it on our product sourcing service.

Ready to source from 1688 without the headaches? Get a free quote →