1688 Product Scraper — Any Category, China Factory Prices, Decision-Ready Data

Research ANY product category on 1688.com — Alibaba's domestic wholesale marketplace — and get sourcing-grade rows, not raw Chinese HTML.

Type one English keyword ("led strip lights", "yoga mat", "phone case"), and get back research-ready products: AI-translated English titles, MOQ price ladders, supplier trust signals, a 0–100 dropship score, an estimated landed cost in USD, and compliance hints for your target market. Every row carries a scrapedAt timestamp so freshness is verifiable.

No Chinese needed. No 1688 account. Failed or zero-result runs cost $0; a successful run bills a $0.01 base fee plus per-event fees. Fail-not-billed.

New — Price Monitoring Mode: paste a shortlist of 1688 offer IDs (watchlistOfferIds), attach a Schedule (e.g. daily), and get a per-offer history curve, day-over-day / 7-day-low change metrics and price-drop / stock-tight alerts — without ever re-searching. See Price Monitoring Mode below.

Keywords: 1688, 1688 scraper, wholesale, dropshipping, product research, supplier search, landed cost, MOQ, China sourcing

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🎯 What you can do with it

• Product selection — scan a category at factory prices before you commit to a supplier
• Price comparison — sort by price or sales and read the full quantity-break ladder per product
• Dropshipping evaluation — every product scored 0–100 on dropship-readiness (MOQ, 48h pickup, one-piece dropship support)
• Margin math — estimated landed cost (product + shipping + duty + fees) and suggested retail with margin % for US / EU / UK
• Compliance screening — required certs and risk level per target market (FDA / CE / Prop 65 / FCC hints)

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📈 Price Monitoring Mode

Already know which 1688 offers you care about? Stop re-searching — watch their prices over time. Fill watchlistOfferIds (up to 200 offer IDs) and the Actor switches from search mode to monitoring mode: each run snapshots every watched offer at card level, appends it to your private history, and returns the curve + change metrics + alerts in one monitorReport row.

Three steps:

1. Fill the watchlist — paste the numeric offer IDs (from a product URL, e.g. 994632611553) into watchlistOfferIds. Optionally set alert thresholds (alertOnPriceDropPct, alertOnStockTightPct) and a webhookUrl.
2. Attach a Schedule — the Actor never self-schedules; bind a Schedule (e.g. 0 8 * * * for 08:00 daily) so history accumulates. One run per day = one point on the curve.
3. Read the report — each run delivers a monitorReport row: snapshotAt, watchlistSize, and per offer current{price, moq, bookedCount, supplier}, history{days, min, max, last7dLow}, changes{vsPrevDayPct, vs7dLowPct, stockTightPct}, alertHit, plus a run-level alerts[]. Set includeTrendReport=true for a weekly trendReport roll-up.

What it costs (monitoring mode):

Event	Price	When it's charged
snapshot-item	$0.015	Per offer successfully snapshotted and written to history
trend-report	$0.25	Once per run when includeTrendReport=true delivers a report
alert	$0.00	Never billed (price-drop / stock-tight alerts are a free retention hook)
run-base-fee	$0.01	Once per run that bills at least one event

A daily run watching 10 offers costs 10 × $0.015 + $0.01 = $0.16 (no trend report). Degradation is free: if the history store is ever unreachable, the run still delivers the current snapshots, marks errorCode: KV_UNAVAILABLE, and charges $0.00. Truncated IDs (over 200) and invalid IDs are reported per-item and never billed.

Your history is private. Snapshots live in an owner-side named Key-Value store (price-snapshots) keyed by your Apify user id, so two users watching the same offer never see each other's curves. The Actor reaches it with a scoped, secret-injected API token — never a hard-coded credential.

Ready-made monitoring templates (one click):

• Track my 1688 shortlist prices daily — a 3-offer watchlist wired for a daily Schedule
• Weekly price-drop radar — a weekly drop / stock-tightening sweep with the trend report on

Monitor quick-start input:

{
  "watchlistOfferIds": ["994632611553", "951309417091", "700000000001"],
  "historyDays": 30,
  "alertOnPriceDropPct": 5,
  "alertOnStockTightPct": 20,
  "includeTrendReport": true
}

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⚡ Three points that matter

1. Decision-grade enrichment, not raw dumps — landed cost, dropship score and compliance hints come attached to each product row. You stop paying for data you still have to research by hand.
2. Honest billing — you pay only for rows actually delivered. Zero-result or failed runs cost $0.00; a successful run includes a transparent $0.01 base fee plus per-event fees, and every run writes a SUMMARY ledger (charged vs intended) you can audit.
3. A budget cap you control — set maxTotalChargeUsd and the run truncates billing to your ceiling instead of silently overshooting. Items beyond the cap are free, never dropped.

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⚡ One-click examples

Skip the input form — these public tasks run proven configurations in one click:

• Product Selection — 40 enriched products — the standard research batch (~$0.33)
• Price Comparison — sorted by price — cheapest first for instant comparison
• Price Ladder Deep Scan — MOQ price-break ladders across a whole niche
• Supplier Vetting Report — detail-enriched rows for supplier shortlisting
• MOQ Ladder Comparison — side-by-side MOQ and unit-price comparison

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🔑 What keywords can you use? Any category.

This is not a vertical scraper — one input accepts any English product keyword, translated to Chinese search terms internally. Examples that work today:

Keyword	Typical use
led strip lights	Consumer electronics price scan
phone case	High-volume accessory sourcing
yoga mat	Sports & fitness selection
stainless steel water bottle	Home & outdoor comparison
car phone holder	Auto accessories research
plush toy	Gifts & toys compliance screening

Anything sold on 1688.com is in scope — if you can name it in English, you can research it here.

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📄 Sample output

Actual row from a live run (keyword: "led strip lights"):

{
  "offerId": "994632611553",
  "titleCn": "24V/220V户外防水灯带COB水下IP68灌胶无光斑柔性线性灯硅胶泳池",
  "titleEn": "24V/220V Outdoor Waterproof LED Strip COB Underwater IP68 Flexible Linear Light",
  "price": { "min": 4.7, "max": 93.94, "currency": "CNY", "unit": "piece" },
  "moq": 1,
  "salesTotal": 867,
  "supplierName": "Zhongshan Qinghe Lighting Co., Ltd.",
  "isSuperFactory": true,
  "detailUrl": "https://detail.1688.com/offer/994632611553.html",
  "skuDetails": [ "…quantity-break price ladder…" ],
  "estLandedCostUsd": {
    "totalLandedCostUSD": 2.77,
    "suggestedRetailPriceUSD": 8.31,
    "estimatedMarginPercent": 66.7
  },
  "dropshipReadyScore": 65,
  "dropshipGrade": "C+",
  "compliance": { "targetMarket": "US", "suggestedCertifications": ["…"], "riskFlags": ["…"] },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-28T10:57:59.797Z"
}

Plus 30 more fields per row: SKU details, attributes, shipping & stock, supplier repeat rate, factory-inspection flags, product images and description images.

Translation honesty rule: titleEn only ever carries an English title. Titles are translated via a free translation API chain (translationMethod="api") with an offline dictionary fallback (translationMethod="dictionary"). When neither can produce clean English for a title, titleEn is left empty rather than shipping a Chinese/English mix — the original Chinese is always preserved in titleCn.

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🆚 How it compares

	This Actor	zen-studio 1688 wholesale	Typical 1688 scrapers
Startup / run fee	None — a $0.01 base fee applies only to successful runs	$0.0049 per run — billed even when nothing is delivered	Often yes
Failed / zero-result runs	$0.00 — never billed	Billed at least the startup fee	Usually billed
Enrichment trio (landed cost + dropship score + compliance)	Included	Not offered	Not offered
Budget cap (maxTotalChargeUsd)	Enforced in code + ledger	Not offered	Not offered
English titles	AI-translated	Chinese only	Chinese only
Freshness proof	scrapedAt on every row	—	—
Pricing	$0.005/search-item + $0.003/detail-item + $0.01 base (successful runs only)	$0.00499/item + startup + extras	Per-row tables

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🛡️ Trust at a glance

What we commit to	How it works here
Pay only for delivered results	Zero-result runs cost $0.00 — billed per row actually delivered; successful runs add a single $0.01 base fee, nothing else
No hidden usage fees	Pure pay-per-event pricing; proxy and platform compute costs are included, never passed through
Honest degradation	Every run's SUMMARY discloses exactly what happened — partial deliveries always come with a named reason
Audit-ready billing ledger	SUMMARY reports intended vs charged events and whether the budget cap truncated anything
MCP / agentic-payment ready	Input, dataset, key-value-store and output schemas are all declared — machines can validate the contract before calling
Issues answered fast	Open an Issue instead of guessing — our response time is public on the developer profile
Loved it? Leave a review	If this saved you sourcing hours, a quick review helps other buyers find it — and we read every one

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💰 Pricing (pay-per-event, no subscription)

Event	Price	When it's charged
search-item	$0.005	Per delivered product card
detail-item	$0.003	Per delivered card with full detail enrichment
snapshot-item	$0.015	Per offer successfully snapshotted in Price Monitoring Mode
trend-report	$0.25	Once per monitoring run when includeTrendReport=true
run-base-fee	$0.01	Once per successful run (charged once per successful run, only when at least one row was delivered)
Startup fee	$0.00	Never

There is no minimum charge. Small orders bill strictly per event (a 1-card run costs $0.015). The platform price list's minimalMaxTotalChargeUsd ($0.04) is a budget-PROTECTION parameter for the platform, not a minimum spend.

The "from $3.50 / 1,000" price shown on the Store page is the GOLD subscription-tier rate; on the FREE tier you pay $5 per 1,000 items (the list prices above).

Volume subscribers get the standard Apify platform tier discounts. Set maxTotalChargeUsd for a hard per-run ceiling.

Failed or zero-result runs cost $0. A successful run bills a $0.01 base fee plus per-event fees ($0.005/search-item, $0.003/detail-item, $0.015/snapshot-item, $0.25/trend-report).

Worked examples (FREE tier):

Run shape	Math	Total
1-item trial (card only)	1 × $0.005 + $0.01 base	$0.015
10 cards (card only)	10 × $0.005 + $0.01 base	$0.06
40 fully enriched products	40 × $0.005 + 40 × $0.003 + $0.01 base	$0.33

Best value at 20+ items — per-item fees amortize the $0.01 run fee, and detail enrichment is only offered from 20 items up (includeDetails=true requires maxItems ≥ 20; below that, use includeDetails=false for a cheap card-only trial).

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🧭 Part of the 1688 sourcing toolkit

• 🖼️ 1688 Image Search Scraper — have a product photo instead of a keyword? Reverse-image-search 1688 and get the same sourcing-grade rows.
• 🐾 1688 Pet Supplies Scraper — the pet-vertical edition with 500+ built-in pet EN→CN keyword mappings and a dropship-only filter.

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🤖 For AI agents / MCP

All four schemas are published: input schema (validated form), dataset schema (draft-07 with views), key-value-store schema (SUMMARY / OUTPUT), and an Actor-level output schema. Error paths are machine-readable: errorCode (NO_INPUT, DETAILS_MIN_20, and in monitoring mode WATCHLIST_INVALID, SNAPSHOT_PARTIAL, KV_UNAVAILABLE) + message + chargedEvents: 0 in SUMMARY, with the run finishing SUCCEEDED so your pipeline can branch deterministically without parsing logs. In monitoring mode the SUMMARY also carries monitorEvents{snapshotsDelivered, alertsSent, historyReadOk} which reconciles with the billing ledger.

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🔧 Input configuration

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
keyword	string	✅	—	English keyword; translated to Chinese search terms internally
offerIds	string[]	—	—	Direct-fetch path: fetch exactly these offers by numeric ID, bypassing keyword search. Same batch economics apply — includeDetails=true (details enrichment) requires maxItems ≥ 20; smaller batches fall to the DETAILS_MIN_20 guard (honest refusal, run finishes SUCCEEDED with $0.00 charged). Use includeDetails=false for small card-only lookups. Price Monitoring (watchlistOfferIds) is a separate mode and is not subject to this guard
maxItems	integer	—	40	1–200. With includeDetails=true, minimum 20 (detail enrichment only breaks even at batch scale)
includeDetails	boolean	—	true	false = cheap card-only mode (any batch size, good for trials)
targetMarket	enum	—	US	US / EU / UK — drives landed-cost duty and compliance rules
sort	enum	—	relevant	relevant / sales (most sold first) / price (low to high) — the delivered dataset arrives in that order
priceMin / priceMax	number	—	—	Approximate price range filter in CNY, anchored to the card's min (bulk/MOQ) price: passed to 1688's search and re-checked at delivery — cards whose min price is outside the range are dropped and never charged. Note: a card's price.max (one-piece / top-of-ladder price) may still exceed priceMax, since 1688 prices by quantity breaks
maxTotalChargeUsd	number	—	—	Hard billing ceiling for this run (minimum 0.04)
watchlistOfferIds	string[]	—	—	Price Monitoring Mode: up to 200 offer IDs to watch. Filling this switches the run from search to monitoring (takes priority over keyword). $0.015 per snapshotted offer per run. Any watchlist size works (1–200) — the DETAILS_MIN_20 minimum does not apply to monitoring mode
historyDays	integer	—	30	Monitoring curve window in days (1–400)
alertOnPriceDropPct	number	—	—	Fire a free priceDrop alert when price fell ≥ this % vs the previous snapshot
alertOnStockTightPct	number	—	—	Fire a free stockTight alert when the bookable amount shrank ≥ this % vs the previous snapshot
webhookUrl	string	—	—	POST the alert payload here when an alert fires (non-fatal, time-bounded)
includeTrendReport	boolean	—	false	Also deliver a weekly trendReport roll-up ($0.25)
proxyConfiguration	object	—	Residential (CN)	Defaults to Apify residential proxies; override only if you know why

Quick start input:

{
  "keyword": "led strip lights",
  "maxItems": 40,
  "includeDetails": true,
  "targetMarket": "US",
  "sort": "relevant"
}

Typical default run: 40 fully-enriched products ≈ $0.33, finished in under 5 minutes.

For AI agents

Built to be called by software, not just clicked by people:

• Complete output schema — every delivered field (English titles, MOQ price ladders, supplier trust signals, dropship scores, landed cost, compliance) is typed and documented, so tool-calling loops can parse results without guesswork.
• API-first — one English keyword in; one POST to run-sync-get-dataset-items returns the final dataset in a single call. No Chinese required, no browser session, login or captcha step.
• Agentic payments ready — maxTotalChargeUsd sets a hard per-run budget the platform enforces, fail-not-billed (zero-result and refused runs cost $0, with a machine-readable errorCode in SUMMARY). Safe to hand an autonomous agent a budget and let it decide.

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Reviews

Found a bug or have a wishlist? Open an Issue — a fixed bug helps you more than a one-star rating, and we answer fast.

If this run saved you sourcing hours, a quick review on the Store page helps other buyers find it — 30 seconds, hugely appreciated.