1688 & Taobao Reverse Image Search | Find Products by Photo

Find product listings on 1688, Taobao, or both from a photo. Compare listed prices, spot lower minimum orders, and save a shortlist with links, images, shop details, and reported sales where available. You can search with up to three photos of the same item to see which candidates recur.

Get started in three steps

1. Paste a direct public link to a product photo, or use Upload product photos to add a JPG, PNG, WebP, or GIF file. If the upload dialog asks where to save the file, choose a storage and continue; there is no second storage field to fill in.
2. Choose 1688, Taobao, or Both under Where to search. Keep the default result limit for a quick first look.
3. Click Start. Open the Product shortlist for listings and Price and search summary for counts and price ranges.

Add a second or third view only when you want to compare repeated candidates. All photos should show the same product. If you only have a product page link, open the image itself and use its direct image address instead.

If you switch from an uploaded photo to a direct link, remove the old upload from the form before starting a new search.

Apify asks you to approve full Actor permissions before your first run. Full permissions grant access to your Apify account data; this Actor uses that access to read photos you upload through the form. Review the access prompt before running it.

What you can do

Feature	How it helps
Search one or both marketplaces	Compare wholesale offers on 1688 with Taobao listings from the same photo.
Sort and filter listed prices	See cheaper candidates first or set a CNY price range.
Check minimum order	Keep 1688 offers with a reported minimum order at or below your limit.
Compare multiple photos	Prioritize candidates that recur across different views of one item.
Explore deeper results	Request up to 5,000 candidates per photo and marketplace when available.
Export results	Download JSON, CSV, or Excel, or use the Apify API and integrations.

What is in each result?

Results include the marketplace, product title, product link, image link, and listed price in CNY when available. Depending on the marketplace and listing, you may also get a shop name, minimum order quantity, reported sales, shop rating, repeat-purchase information, and an original listed price. On 1688, returned cards can also include the seller's location, trade score, medal level, and reported repeat-purchase percentage. Unavailable details remain empty.

Each result shows its best search position and the number of your photos on which the same offer or visible card appeared. The shortlist also includes short reasons and a comparison with the median listed price among returned candidates from the same marketplace. The summary shows the lowest, median, and highest returned prices, overall and by marketplace.

These figures describe the returned listings, not the whole market. A repeated card helps narrow your search; it does not prove an exact product match. Always verify the live listing, seller, price, and order terms before purchasing. Prices exclude shipping, taxes, and other fees.

Useful settings

• Results to request: Start with 10. Increase the limit for deeper research. A request for 5,000 does not guarantee 5,000 distinct products; deep searches take longer and use more resources. Taobao may return fewer results than requested.
• Sort products: Keep the search order, show the lowest listed prices first, or show the highest first. Listings without a price appear last.
• Found in at least this many photos: With two or three views of the same product, set this to 2 or 3 to keep recurring candidates.
• Minimum and maximum listed price: Keep products within your CNY budget. Listings without a price are excluded when a price filter is set.
• Largest acceptable minimum order: Applies to 1688 listings. Listings without a reported minimum order are excluded when this filter is set; Taobao listings remain available in a combined search.

If a photo search fails while another succeeds, the summary marks the run as partial and lists the affected marketplace and photo. Some Taobao product links may redirect. Some public photo links also fail when the image host rejects the request; uploading the photo is the best alternative. Taobao may return few or no cards repeated across several photos. Avoid submitting confidential photos or images containing personal information.

Example API input

{
  "imageUrl": "https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525966222134-fcfa99b8ae77?w=800",
  "marketplace": "both",
  "sortBy": "price_asc",
  "maxPriceCny": 100,
  "maxResults": 10
}

For API use, you can also provide up to three encoded images through imagesBase64, or add direct links through additionalImageUrls. Each image can be up to 5 MB. The result rows are in the run's dataset; counts, errors, and price ranges are in its OUTPUT record.

Pricing

One successful photo search on one marketplace is one search event. Searching both marketplaces with one photo counts as two searches. A search that fails is not counted as a successful search event. Deep searches can also incur more platform usage; check the Actor's Pricing tab before running a large job.