Testing a catalog, a seller and the agent handling your money
Short tests for each choice, based on what each side publishes rather than how it looks.
Checked October 22, 2026Three choices before the first product
Three choices come before any product: which spreadsheet site to browse, which store to buy from, and which agent to trust with the money. Each has its own tells, and none of them is "the site looks professional". The card sums up the signals we rely on; the sections below explain each one and how to test it in a few minutes.
Separating a catalog someone tends from one left to rot
How to choose a spreadsheet site: judge it on maintenance, not on size. A list with ten thousand cards and no dates is worth less than one with a few hundred that someone checks. Four tests take five minutes.
- Dates. Fees, coupons and freight should carry the day they were read. "Shipping from $5" with no date is a guess.
- Dead links. Open ten random cards. If more than one or two lead to a removed listing, the list is not being kept.
- Disagreements admitted. Agents' own pages contradict each other (Whalebuy's two PayPal figures are an example). A site that shows both values has read the sources; one that shows a single tidy number may not have.
- A name and a way to reach it. Somebody should be answerable for corrections.
What makes a good spreadsheet site, then, is boring: dated facts, working links, admitted gaps, and a contact. Apply the same tests to this one; our dates are on every page and our address is on the about page.
Vetting sellers from their own listings
Vetting sellers on Taobao, 1688 or Weidian is mostly reading what they publish. A store that answers questions in its listing tends to answer them in its shipping too.
- Option names match the photos, or at least are numbered in a way you can map. Stores that list colors only as 1, 2 and 3 in a different order from the thumbnails are a common source of wrong-color orders.
- The size chart states its units and what was measured, flat width or circumference, and the weight bands if any are in jin.
- Stock numbers look real. A listing whose cheapest option is ¥0.01, or whose stock is 9,999 on every option, is using the price menu as advertising.
- Sales and review counts exist and the reviews show buyer photos. A new store is not a bad store, but it has not earned a large first order.
- The store dispatches within the 3 to 7 days typical for Taobao-type sellers. Whalebuy's product page shows an estimated warehouse arrival date; a far-off date often means a pre-order.
Good sellers also make returns possible. If the listing excludes returns, or the item falls in a category the five-day guarantee excludes, buy one before buying five.
Four things a trustworthy agent puts in writing
Choosing an agent you can trust is the same exercise at a larger scale: read the rules before you send money. A trustworthy agent publishes four things you can check without an account. A fee page with a formula. Storage terms with a number of days and what happens after. Compensation terms for lost or damaged parcels, with claim windows. And a named company with a contact address.
Whalebuy passes all four. Its fee formula and priced extras are public, storage is 90 days with a paid extension, compensation terms and claim windows are in the help centre, and the operator is a named Hong Kong company with a support address. Where it is weaker is consistency between its own pages, which is why this site states both values where they differ. Comparing agents beyond that comes down to the lines and prices for your country, which the estimator shows in a minute.
Two warning signs apply to any agent: pressure to pay outside the platform (a direct transfer to a person rather than the account wallet), and no way to reach a human when an order goes wrong. Whalebuy's order page has a Consult button on every order, which is the right place to test the second one with a simple question before you buy.
Our full reasons for and against Whalebuy Other agents, in general terms