Taobao & Tmall Scraper — Products, Shops, Search, Reviews 🛍️

🎉 Four scrapers in one — product details, keyword search, shop catalogs, and customer reviews in a single actor

Built for dropshippers, sourcing teams, e-commerce analysts, and anyone who needs clean Taobao data without the setup headache

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📋 Overview

Tired of hacking together Taobao scrapers that break every other week? This actor gives you reliable, structured data from Taobao and Tmall — one clean run per task, one tidy dataset out.

Why thousands of professionals choose SIÁN scrapers:

• ✅ Four operations, one actor: Product detail, keyword search, shop catalog, and review scraping — pick what you need
• ⚡ 79 structured fields: Every response pre-flattened into a flat row — no parsing nested Chinese JSON
• 🎯 Production-ready output: Three predefined dataset views (Overview, Products, Reviews) for instant BI integration
• 💰 Best price on the market: Pay-per-result — you only pay for data you actually receive
• 💎 No account, no API key, no setup: Just paste an item ID or keyword and run — works out of the box
• ✨ NEW: SKU-level variant data with per-variant prices, stock, and swatch images for dropshipping decisions

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✨ Features

• 🛍️ Product Detail Scraping: Full product payload — title, SKUs with variant prices, gallery + description images, videos, seller info, shipping costs, coupons, and buyer Q&A
• 🔍 Keyword Search: Search Taobao and Tmall by query (Chinese, English, or mixed) with optional price range and Tmall-only filter
• 🏪 Shop Catalog Sweep: Pull a seller's full product list by shop ID — ideal for brand mapping and competitor intelligence
• 💬 Review Scraping: Customer reviews with text, photos, videos, purchased variant, reviewer info, and follow-up appended comments
• 🎨 SKU Variant Intelligence: Per-SKU prices, stock levels, property paths, and swatch images for every color/size combo
• 📊 Three Dataset Views: Overview (mixed), Products (search/catalog/detail), Reviews — switch views without re-running
• 🎬 Media Included: Product videos, description gallery, review photos and videos — all as direct URLs
• 🌏 Chinese + English Titles: Search results include machine-translated English titles where available
• 🔋 Two Detail Depths: Rich (full 38 KB payload) for research; Lite (compact 7 KB) for high-volume runs
• 📄 Paginated Operations: Keyword Search, Shop Catalog, and Reviews all paginate automatically — set maxPages to control scope

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🎬 Quick Start

Run one operation, get one dataset. The operation selector drives the entire run — either search by keyword, look up a product by ID, dump a shop, or pull reviews.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sian.agency~taobao-tmall-product-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"operation": "productDetail", "itemId": "744983869996"}'

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🚀 Getting Started (3 Simple Steps)

Step 1: Pick an Operation

Choose one of four modes in the operation dropdown: 🛍️ Product Detail, 🔍 Keyword Search, 🏪 Shop Catalog, or 💬 Product Reviews.

Step 2: Provide the Key Input

• Product Detail / Reviews → an itemId (the number from any Taobao product URL after id=)
• Keyword Search → any keyword (Chinese, English, or mixed — e.g. iphone 15 or 无线耳机)
• Shop Catalog → a userId (the seller / shop ID, visible as shopId in any search result row)

Step 3: Run It

Click Start — the actor handles the rest. Paginated operations respect maxPages (default 5, max 50).

That's it! In under a minute, you'll have:

• A flat dataset with up to 79 structured fields per row
• Every image, video, and variant URL as direct links
• Three ready-to-filter views for BI tools, Airtable, Google Sheets, or n8n

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📥 Input Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Description
operation	enum	✅	productDetail | keywordSearch | shopCatalog | productReviews
itemId	string	for productDetail + productReviews	Numeric Taobao/Tmall item ID
detailVersion	enum	—	v1 (rich, default) or v5 (lite, faster)
keyword	string	for keywordSearch	Search query — supports Chinese, English, mixed
startPrice	integer	—	Min price in CNY (keywordSearch only)
endPrice	integer	—	Max price in CNY (keywordSearch only)
tmallOnly	boolean	—	Restrict search to Tmall brand stores
userId	string	for shopCatalog	Numeric shop / seller ID
maxPages	integer	—	Pages to fetch (1–50, default 5)
includeRawResponse	boolean	—	Include unflattened _raw field per row
proxy	object	—	Apify proxy config (default: residential)

Example — Product Detail

{
  "operation": "productDetail",
  "itemId": "744983869996",
  "detailVersion": "v1"
}

Example — Keyword Search with price filter

{
  "operation": "keywordSearch",
  "keyword": "sony headphones",
  "startPrice": 500,
  "endPrice": 3000,
  "tmallOnly": true,
  "maxPages": 10
}

Example — Shop Catalog

{
  "operation": "shopCatalog",
  "userId": "713464357",
  "maxPages": 20
}

Example — Product Reviews

{
  "operation": "productReviews",
  "itemId": "742902854135",
  "maxPages": 10
}

💡 How to find IDs

• Item ID — in any Taobao / Tmall product URL after id= https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=744983869996 → 744983869996 Every search and shop-catalog row also returns itemId.
• Shop / Seller ID — returned as shopId in every keyword-search or shop-catalog row. The simplest chain: run Keyword Search for a brand first, note the top shopId, then feed that ID into Shop Catalog.
• Keywords — no special formatting. Chinese, English, or mixed queries all work.

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📤 Output

Each run writes to an Apify dataset with up to 79 structured fields per row. Every row carries an _operation discriminator so you can filter mixed datasets.

Core fields (all operations)

Field	Type	Description
_operation	string	Which operation produced this row
_fetchedAt	string	ISO-8601 timestamp
itemId	string	Stable product ID
title	string	Full product title
priceYuan	number	Current price in CNY
imageUrl	string	Primary image URL
shopId	string	Seller ID (pivot into Shop Catalog)
shopName	string	Seller display name
status	string	success / error

Product Detail extras

originalPriceYuan, promotionPriceYuan, discountPct, priceRange, skus[] (variant list with prices + stock + swatch image), skuCount, quantityInStock, images[], descImages[], videoUrl, videoCoverUrl, properties[], itemDescHtml, creativeText, couponInfo, couponUrl, freeShipping, deliveryFee, qna[], tags[], categoryId, rootCategoryId, location

Keyword Search extras

titleEn (English title), subTitle, discntPriceYuan, commentCount, itemGradeAvg (product rating), sellerLevel, sellerGoodRate, sellerLoc, userType, tags[], _sourceKeyword, _page

Shop Catalog extras

promotionPrice, finalPromotionPrice, reservePrice, minDiscountPrice, priceAfterCoupon, commissionAmount, commissionRate, payRate30Days, dailySellCount, provcity, levelOneCategoryName, _sourceUserId

Product Review extras

reviewId, reviewDate, reviewContent, reviewAppend, reviewAppendDays, reviewRatingStars, reviewTag, reviewPhotos[], reviewVideoUrl, reviewSkuLabel, reviewBuyAmount, reviewUsefulCount, reviewerNick, reviewerAvatar, reviewerVipLevel, reviewerAnonymous, _sourceItemId, _page

Example — Product Detail row (abridged)

{
  "_operation": "productDetail",
  "_fetchedAt": "2026-04-20T11:34:51Z",
  "itemId": "744983869996",
  "title": "绿联转换插头英标港版Switch2中国香港地区马来西亚新加坡ns通用",
  "priceYuan": 32.9,
  "priceRange": "32.9 - 211",
  "promotionPriceYuan": 20.9,
  "discountPct": 36.5,
  "imageUrl": "https://img.alicdn.com/bao/uploaded/i4/...",
  "imageUrls": ["...", "...", "...", "...", "..."],
  "videoUrl": null,
  "skuCount": 9,
  "skus": [
    { "skuId": "5606370363622", "propPath": "1627207:28562459650", "price": "32.9", "promotionPrice": "32.9", "quantity": "200", "imageUrl": "..." }
  ],
  "shopId": "67095450",
  "shopName": "绿联数码旗舰店",
  "userType": "C",
  "freeShipping": true,
  "deliveryFee": "0.00",
  "categoryId": "50025386",
  "tags": ["官方旗舰", "品牌商家"],
  "status": "success"
}

Three built-in views

• Overview — all rows, mixed across operations, 18 most-useful columns
• Products — only product rows (search / catalog / detail), hides review-only fields
• Reviews — only review rows, reviewer info + photos + variant purchased

Switch views in the Apify dataset UI — no re-running required.

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💼 Use Cases & Examples

1. Dropshipping Product Research

Sourcing specialists and dropshipping operators finding hot products with healthy margins.

Input: Keyword Search for a product category (e.g. wireless earphones, price 100–500 CNY, Tmall only) Output: Ranked list of 100+ products with prices, seller ratings, review counts, shop locations Use: Sort by itemGradeAvg × commentCount to find validated best-sellers. Chain into Shop Catalog to map the winning seller's full lineup.

2. Competitor Price Monitoring

E-commerce teams tracking competitor prices and promotions across Taobao and Tmall.

Input: Shop Catalog for each competitor's shopId, scheduled daily Output: Full catalog with price, promotionPrice, finalPromotionPrice, minDiscountPrice per SKU Use: Detect price drops, new promotions, and inventory additions. Feed into a BI dashboard with _fetchedAt as the time axis.

3. Private-Label Sourcing

Brand founders identifying white-label manufacturers and OEM partners.

Input: Keyword Search for generic product terms (unbranded bluetooth speaker), filter by userType = factory/wholesaler Output: Sellers with provcity, sellerLevel, sellerGoodRate, dailySellCount indicators Use: Build a shortlist of credible factories. Deep-dive with Product Detail to check SKU variety and Q&A for reliability signals.

4. Review Sentiment & Media Mining

Marketing agencies pulling unboxing photos and authentic customer language for ad creative.

Input: Product Reviews for your own or competitor item IDs Output: Dataset of review text, photos, videos, ratings, and purchased variants Use: Extract Chinese review language for UGC ad copy. Download review photos and videos for social proof content. Filter reviewRatingStars + reviewTag to find negative reviews that surface product flaws.

5. Category Intelligence Sweeps

Market researchers mapping an entire product category across Taobao.

Input: Keyword Search with broad queries, maxPages: 50 Output: 500+ products with pricing, seller distribution, category IDs Use: Build a category map — count sellers per categoryId, compute price quartiles, identify gaps. Export to Tableau or Looker.

6. Brand Catalog Mapping

Amazon sellers doing arbitrage research on Chinese brands expanding overseas.

Input: Keyword Search for the Chinese brand, note top shopId, then Shop Catalog Output: Complete SKU list with variant breakdowns Use: Map which products the brand sells domestically vs exports. Spot candidates for Amazon FBA.

7. BI & Data Warehouse Enrichment

Data teams augmenting internal product databases with Taobao market data.

Input: Product Detail lookups driven by internal item IDs Output: Canonical Taobao fields joined into your existing product records Use: Pipe into Snowflake / BigQuery / Postgres. Use _fetchedAt for slowly-changing-dimension logic. Join shopId for seller-level rollups.

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🔀 Which Chinese E-commerce Scraper Is Right For You?

There are several scrapers on the Apify Store for Chinese marketplaces — each targets a different audience. Quick decision guide:

Your use case	Right tool
🛒 B2C retail product research (consumer prices, SKU variants, authentic reviews)	🎯 This actor — Taobao & Tmall
🏭 B2B wholesale sourcing (find factories, bulk pricing, MOQ, Gold Supplier data)	1688.com Products Scraper · Alibaba Supplier Scraper
🌍 Cross-border retail for Western buyers (English listings, shipping-ready)	AliExpress Products Scraper
♻️ Second-hand / used goods	Xianyu (Goofish) Listings Scraper
💼 Dropshipping research needing retail prices + SKU variants + Chinese customer reviews	🎯 This actor — Taobao & Tmall

Why Taobao & Tmall specifically

• Taobao = China's #1 consumer marketplace — the equivalent of US Amazon for retail. Lower prices, SKU-level variants, authentic customer reviews with photos + videos.
• Tmall = Taobao's premium brand-store tier — the equivalent of Amazon Brand Registry. Use the tmallOnly filter when you need licensed sellers or official stores only.
• Alibaba and 1688 = B2B wholesale. Different audience (importers, resellers). Products listed in bulk MOQ, usually unbranded.
• AliExpress = Alibaba's retail export site. English-first, but a subset of Taobao inventory with 20–50% markup and slower shipping. Scraping Taobao directly gets you the source-price data before markup.

This is the only Apify store actor focused specifically on Taobao + Tmall retail data — and the only one bundling product detail, keyword search, shop catalog, and reviews into a single actor.

What we include that B2B scrapers skip

• ✅ SKU-level variant data — color / size pricing + per-variant stock + swatch images (B2B scrapers list bulk listings only)
• ✅ Review photos and videos — UGC from real Chinese customers for ad creative (B2B scrapers skip reviews entirely)
• ✅ Taobao Union commission data — commissionAmount, commissionRate, maifanPromotionDiscount in the shop catalog for dropshipping margin decisions
• ✅ Tmall-only filter — restrict results to licensed brand stores in one click
• ✅ Machine-translated English titles in search results for cross-language workflows
• ✅ Four operations in one actor — no need to subscribe to 3+ separate scrapers

Keyword translation between marketplaces

If you're used to Alibaba / 1688 vocabulary, here's how concepts map:

Alibaba / 1688 term	Taobao equivalent
Gold Supplier	Tmall brand store (userType = B)
Verified Supplier	Taobao C-shop with high sellerLevel + sellerGoodRate
MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity)	Not applicable — Taobao is retail (MOQ = 1)
Factory Direct	N/A — Taobao sells to end consumers
Order count	sellCount (sales volume for the listing)
Supplier Response Rate	fahuoDsr (shipping DSR score)

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🔗 Integration Examples

JavaScript / Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('sian.agency/taobao-tmall-product-scraper').call({
  operation: 'keywordSearch',
  keyword: 'iphone 15',
  tmallOnly: true,
  maxPages: 5,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Found ${items.length} products`);
items.forEach(p => console.log(`${p.title} — ¥${p.priceYuan} (${p.shopName})`));

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')

run = client.actor('sian.agency/taobao-tmall-product-scraper').call(
    run_input={
        'operation': 'shopCatalog',
        'userId': '713464357',
        'maxPages': 10,
    }
)

for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(item['itemId'], item['title'], item.get('priceYuan'))

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sian.agency~taobao-tmall-product-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "operation": "productReviews",
    "itemId": "742902854135",
    "maxPages": 5
  }'

Automation Workflows (n8n / Zapier / Make)

1. Trigger: Schedule (daily/hourly) or webhook on a product tracker
2. Apify Run: Call this actor with your chosen operation and inputs
3. Process: Parse the returned dataset — filter by _operation, pick the view you need
4. Action: Save to Google Sheets / Airtable / Postgres, alert on price drops, generate reports

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📊 Performance & Pricing

🎁 FREE Tier (Try It Now)

• 5 items per run — full feature access across all four operations
• No credit card required
• Perfect for evaluating the output shape before scaling up

💎 PAID Tier (Production Ready)

• Unlimited items per run — pull hundreds of products or thousands of reviews in a single run
• Pay-per-result: you're only charged for successful rows
• Three dataset views unlocked by default for BI integration

💰 Best price on the market — flat pay-per-result pricing with no monthly minimums or hidden fees.

🔗 View current pricing

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many products / reviews can I scrape in one run? A: FREE tier: 5 per run. PAID tier: unlimited, capped only by maxPages (up to 50). A single Keyword Search run with maxPages: 50 returns up to 500 products; a single Shop Catalog run can return 1,500+.

Q: Do I need a Taobao account or any API key? A: No. No account, no API key, no setup. Paste an item ID or keyword and run.

Q: What output formats are available? A: JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML — exported directly from the Apify dataset UI or API.

Q: Does it work with Taobao Mobile / Xianyu / 1688? A: This actor targets Taobao and Tmall. For 1688 and Xianyu, check our SIÁN Agency Store for dedicated actors.

Q: How fresh is the data? A: Live — every run fetches fresh data at request time. Use _fetchedAt to track freshness in downstream pipelines.

Q: Can I get English translations? A: Search results include a machine-translated titleEn field where available. Product titles, descriptions, and reviews are returned in their original Chinese — pair with a translation step downstream for full English output.

Q: Is it legal to scrape Taobao? A: Yes — this actor only accesses publicly available product and seller data. See the Legal section below.

Q: How long does a run take? A: Product Detail: ~3 seconds per item. Keyword Search: ~4 seconds per page. Shop Catalog: ~5 seconds per page (larger payloads). Product Reviews: ~3 seconds per page.

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🐛 Troubleshooting

Empty dataset for Keyword Search

• The query may be too narrow — try a broader term or remove price filters.
• Set tmallOnly: false to include Taobao C2C sellers.

status: error with "item not found"

• The itemId has been delisted or never existed. Verify by opening https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=<itemId> in a browser.

Shop Catalog returns fewer items than expected

• The seller may have a smaller catalog than maxPages × 30. The actor stops early when no more pages are available.
• Confirm the userId is the shop / seller ID, not a product ID. It's the number you see as shopId in search results.

Fields are null for a product I know exists

• Some fields (e.g. brandName, categoryName) are only populated for certain product categories or by Tmall brand stores.
• Try switching detailVersion from v5 to v1 for richer detail.

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⚖️ Is it legal to scrape data?

Our actors are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses, gender, or location. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our actors, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe.

However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data (for example, reviewer nicknames or avatar URLs). Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

You can also read Apify's blog post on the legality of web scraping.

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🤝 Support

Join our active support community

• For issues or feature requests, open an issue in the actor's repository
• Check SIÁN Agency Store for more automation tools — Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube scrapers and more
• 📧 hello@sian-agency.online

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