Picking items, sellers and catalogues for an OSSBuy order

For a first OSSBuy order, the best item is boring: light, soft, adjustable and easy to judge from photos. Caps, T-shirts, hoodies and sweatpants teach you the routine without the risks that come with shoes, electronics or anything liquid. Save heavy jackets and boxed shoes for a second parcel, when you have seen how your first one was weighed.

Before paying, read a listing three ways: the option menu (the real price of the colour and size you want, and whether the options are named sensibly), the size chart in centimetres, and the photo set (are the photos of the item or a model wearing something similar).

Option menus on Taobao and Weidian are written by sellers for Chinese buyers, and they are the most common source of a wrong item. In the practice basket alone we found a cardigan whose two colourways are named only "1" and "2", a cap where every option carries the note "adjustable", and a tote whose size is hidden inside the option name.

Rules that help: match each option to a photo before choosing it; read sizes in centimetres, not letters; if an option mentions a gift, a box or a set, ask in the order message what is included. A Chinese L frequently fits like a European M or S, so trust the centimetres over the letter.

On how to choose a seller, OSSBuy's own disclaimer gives the main rule: choose stores with a high reputation and a paid deposit, because low-reputation stores without one are more likely not to ship at all, or to post a tracking number for a parcel that never moves, and the loss is yours. Beyond that, a reliable seller tends to show the same product in several photos taken in the same place, answers buyer questions on the listing, and has sales spread over time rather than a sudden spike.

Warning signs: a price far below every similar listing, photos lifted from other shops (watermarks with a different shop name), an option menu full of unrelated items, and "pre-sale" or deposit wording you did not notice. When in doubt, ask OSSBuy's buyer through the order Contact button; they can see the seller's responses before ordering.

Choosing a spreadsheet site is quicker than it sounds. Product catalogues and lists come and go. The ones worth using show four things you can check in a minute: dates on their facts, links that still open (try three at random), a clear statement of who runs them and whether they earn from referrals, and a way to report a mistake.

Apply the same test to this site. Every fact here has a reading date, the referral link is labelled as one, the outbound links were opened before publication, and corrections go to [email protected]. If any of that stops being true, stop trusting the page.

• One seller, few items. Fewer sellers means fewer domestic courier fees in payment one.
• Rehearse once. CNY 20 to see the packed weight is cheap insurance against a surprise in payment two.
• Ask for packaging removal only where it helps. Shoe boxes and rigid gift boxes cost volume weight; soft clothing barely changes.
• Watch the calendar. Chinese holidays stop the warehouse for days; ship before them or after them, not across them.
• Avoid restricted goods on a first parcel. Liquids, powders, batteries and perfume narrow the lines you can use, and some get removed at packing.
• Avoid branded goods. OSSBuy's anti-counterfeiting policy forbids buying counterfeit products, and its disclaimer warns that brand goods face customs restrictions.