Yen Kai's Idea Cast

Taobao is back on Shopback

For two months probably, Taobao went missing on Shopback. Apparently, they were revamping the mechanism for tracking Taobao purchases through Shopback.

Previously, you had to search for the item you wanted to purchase through the search bar in Shopback’s Taobao page. With the new approach that was just introduced, effective 8 Mar 2017, you can shop on Taobao through Shopback as you would any other merchants on Shopback, i.e. just click “Shop Now” and get redirected to the merchant site. Except, you also need to submit your Taobao order ID using a special form on Shopback.

Despite this extra step, it is somewhat simpler than previously. Just submit the order ID regardless of whether you will actually earn cashback (not all items/sellers are eligible for cashback).

Not a big sum for the cashback earned, but better than nothing

Although i don’t usually get a lot of cashback from Taobao purchases, i still buy more stuff from Taobao than from all other sites combined, so it all adds up. If you are new to Shopback, why wait? Sign up now to start earning cashback for your online shopping (earn an extra S$5 too for your first purchase)!

Update 2 July 2017

Since more than a month ago, Shopback has reverted back to the previous way of tracking cashback for Taobao, so whatever is mentioned above is no longer valid. I guess Shopback must have received too many complaints about the change, or maybe the user submitted data is too prone to error. Whichever the case, consumers continue to benefit from receiving cashback for Taobao purchases.

Update 6 Nov 2017

Shopback has changed the cashback tracking mechanism for Taobao again. Well, in actual fact not much has changed – you still have to search for the item you want to purchase through the ai.taobao.com portal, but now, instead of doing this on Shopback’s Taobao page, you are forced to do this through the Cashback Buddy.

Clicking on the Cashback Buddy button reveals the ai.taobao.com search bar, which is quite neat actually

The downside of this approach is you can’t get cashback if you wanted to do your purchase through your phone, because the Cashback Buddy is implemented as a desktop browser extension only. Anyway, the desktop experience of buying stuff from Taobao is far far better than on a phone, so you should use a desktop anyway.

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Comments

9 responses to “Taobao is back on Shopback”

  1. Lance Avatar
    Lance

    I would not use Shopback anymore- they reject way too many valid transactions, so you cannot depend on getting your cash back. Stick to the reputable cashback sites, like ebates (though I don’t know if they have taobao integration yet)0. But what’s the point of going through all the work to submit your order number if you don’t get any cash anyway?!)

    Reply
    1. yenkai Avatar
      yenkai

      Hi Lance, sorry to hear about your bad experience. I had near perfect success rate in getting cashback from Shopback. I think on the whole Shopback dishes out a higher cashback rate than ebates for the same merchants, which is why I go for Shopback. Ultimately ebates is still more US centric, and I’m finding less reason to have to shop from US merchants since Taobao answers almost all my needs, and beyond that, Amazon settles the rest, and Amazon doesn’t give out any cashback.

      Reply
  2. Petunia Avatar
    Petunia

    Hi, I’m using Shopback for the first time and I’ve read about the Shopback T&Cs on getting cashback. It says I have to click “Confirm Delivery” in Taobao to be eligible for cashback rewards. I’m currently still waiting for the Taobao items to reach Malaysia which will take more than a week. I can only confirm delivery when I receive the items? As from what I know, there’s limited time to confirm delivery.

    Reply
    1. yenkai Avatar
      yenkai

      Hi Petunia, yes there’s a limited time to confirm delivery, and usually the period lapses before you actually receive the goods due to the long shipping time involved, so you don’t normally have to confirm delivery because the system would have done it for you automatically. So you don’t have to worry about the cashback, just do your purchase through Shopback and you will get your cashback if your purchase is eligible.

      Reply
  3. Cherie Avatar
    Cherie

    Hello, apparently Taobao is missing on the Shopback app again! Was trying to find it and realised that it was gone. Any idea what happened?

    Reply
    1. yenkai Avatar
      yenkai

      Hi Cherie, seems like it’s still there https://www.shopback.sg/taobao

      Reply
  4. Jacinta Avatar
    Jacinta

    Hi. Do i have to use the shopback buddy search tab or as long as i activate the button (and it turns green) it is deemed fine? If I use the search tab, the items i want to search does not come out. Thank you

    Reply
    1. yenkai Avatar
      yenkai

      Hi Jacinta, you have to use the search tab. If the items you want do not show up in the search result, it means that the items are not eligible for cashback. Sometimes the item you want shows up but it can be from a different seller than the one you have chosen, then you’ll have to decide whether to buy from a different seller. It can be cheaper from another seller so it can be to your advantage. I always sort by sales volume and pick the one with the highest volume.

      Reply
      1. Jacinta Avatar
        Jacinta

        Thank you for your advice.

        Reply

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