Taobao Tmall Search Scraper — Product Listings, Prices & Shops

Turn a Taobao or Tmall keyword into one dataset row per public catalogue listing, with item ID, title, CNY price, shop, Tmall flag, image, and item URL. This Actor reads the crawlable world.taobao.com product and category catalogue over HTTP on Apify, with proxy rotation, scheduling, API access, and MCP-ready output.

Taobao and Tmall are trademarks of their respective owners. This independent Actor is not affiliated, associated, or endorsed by Alibaba Group, Taobao, or Tmall.

Best fit for this Actor

This Actor is designed as a focused standalone workflow for public Taobao and Tmall catalogue search:

• Product researchers who start with a keyword such as iphone or 机械键盘 and want listing cards with price and shop.
• Sourcing workflows that keep Tmall-flagged storefronts by setting tmallOnly.
• AI agents that call a bounded search tool through Apify MCP and read the dataset plus OUTPUT.

When the same research job needs Alibaba B2B supplier cards instead of Taobao retail listings, start with Alibaba Listings Scraper then compare MOQ and supplier years. For AliExpress retail search cards, pair this Actor with AliExpress Product Search Scraper after you have a Taobao price baseline.

Practical scenario

A merchandiser is checking iPhone catalogue prices before a sourcing call. They start with searchQueries: ["iphone"], sortBy: "sales", and maxResults: 3. The Actor returns rows with title, priceCny, isTmall, shopName, imageUrl, and url. They then export CSV and pass the item URLs into a detail workflow.

Input

Input fields

Field	Type	What it controls
searchQueries	array	Keywords, one per query. Chinese keywords usually match more of the catalogue. Prefill: iphone.
startUrls	array	Optional world.taobao.com /product/{keyword}.htm or /category/{id}.htm pages.
maxResults	integer	Hard cap on billed rows. Prefill 3, default 40, maximum 2000.
sortBy	enum	sales, relevance, credit, priceAsc, or priceDesc.
tmallOnly	boolean	Keep listings whose title or shop name marks them as Tmall.
minPrice / maxPrice	number	CNY bounds applied after extraction.
expandSorts	boolean	Re-query the keyword across sort orders and merge unique item IDs.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy is the default cloud route.

Quick start input

{
  "searchQueries": ["iphone"],
  "maxResults": 3,
  "sortBy": "sales"
}

What data you receive

One default-dataset record is one public catalogue card. You can download the dataset in JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Field	Description
itemId	Numeric item identifier
title	Listing title
priceCny	Displayed yuan price
currency	ISO currency, usually CNY
isTmall / platform	Tmall badge from public title or shop
shopName / shopUrl	Storefront on the card
imageUrl	Primary image
url	world.taobao.com item URL
searchQuery	Keyword or category context
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 collection time

Illustrative output record

{
  "itemId": "974671890820",
  "itemIdStr": "abcItemSlug",
  "title": "Apple iPhone 17",
  "url": "https://world.taobao.com/item/abcItemSlug.htm",
  "taobaoUrl": "https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=974671890820",
  "platform": "tmall",
  "isTmall": true,
  "priceCny": 5999,
  "currency": "CNY",
  "shopName": "Example Tmall Store",
  "imageUrl": "https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/example.jpg",
  "searchQuery": "iphone",
  "sortBy": "sales",
  "position": 1,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-10T13:30:00.000Z"
}

Pricing

Billing is Pay per event plus platform usage. Confirm the live unit prices on the Actor Pricing tab before a large run.

Event	Price	When it fires
Actor start	$0.00005	Once per run
Product scraped	$0.005	Each validated listing saved to the dataset

Filter-dropped rows are unbilled. maxResults is the event-cost ceiling: 3 products are about $0.015 plus start and platform usage; 40 products are about $0.20 plus start and platform usage.

Use through the API

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/khadinakbar~taobao-tmall-search-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchQueries":["iphone"],"maxResults":3,"sortBy":"sales"}'

Read default dataset items after the Actor reaches a terminal status.

Use with AI agents through Apify MCP

Search public Taobao and Tmall catalogue listings for the keyword iphone, keep at most 3 products, return title, CNY price, shop, Tmall flag, image, and item URL, then report the run outcome and dataset.

Inspect OUTPUT for the outcome, read the dataset rows, keep source URLs as provenance, and respect maxResults as the cost control. Connect through Apify MCP for the current client setup.

Best results and workflow guidance

• Start with a specific product keyword and a small maxResults to confirm the catalogue shape.
• Use Chinese keywords when you need mainland-style coverage of the public catalogue.
• Provide a world.taobao.com /product/ or /category/ URL when you already have a catalogue page.
• Turn on tmallOnly when the job is official-storefront comparison.
• Pair a completed search with a product-detail Actor when you need specs beyond the listing card.
• Confirm the Pricing tab and platform usage before expanding expandSorts.

The public catalogue serves about 40 unique products per keyword and sort. Empty matches finish as a completed empty dataset. Catalogue pages that stay unavailable finish with an upstream outcome so you can retry with a residential proxy route.

Builder's note

I built this as a search-only SKU after I found that the public world catalogue embeds itemList JSON that HTTP Chrome-TLS can read, while mainland search stays behind a separate gate. My goal is a cheap MCP tool that returns honest listing cards with collection time and source URLs, then routes detail work to a sibling Actor.

Responsible use

Use this Actor only on public catalogue pages you are authorized to access, and in line with applicable laws and the site terms of service. Keep personal data out of the workflow unless you have a lawful basis. This Actor is provided for legitimate product research, price monitoring, and sourcing.