1688 Image Search — Find Factories & Suppliers by Photo

Reverse image search on 1688.com, Alibaba's wholesale marketplace for China's domestic market. Paste the URL of any product photo (Amazon, AliExpress, Shopify, TikTok Shop, Temu, your own pictures) and get the visually similar factory offers that 1688's own visual search returns: price in CNY, MOQ, units sold, repurchase rate, supplier name, location and years on 1688, product image and link, with the similarity rank.

No 1688 account, no login, no Chinese phone number. You pay per search that returns matches. Nothing else.

What you get

One row per similar offer:

field	example
inputImage, rank, similarityScore	your photo URL, 1, 0.78
offerId, title, url, imageUrl	655297693710, "狗狗玩具球耐咬磨牙棒…", detail.1688.com link, product photo
price, currency, priceLabel	4.84, CNY, 限时价
moq, moqLabel	2, "2件起批"
sales, salesLabel, repurchaseRate	100000, "10万+件", "33%"
serviceTags[]	先采后付, 回头率33%
supplierName, supplierLoginId, supplierMemberId	义乌市首悦贸易有限公司, …, b2b-2220314204394702dc
supplierProvince, supplierCity, supplierYears, supplierScore	浙江, 金华市, 2, 4.5
superFactory, factoryInspected, businessInspected	false, true, false
shopUrl, sameDesignUrl, isAd	supplier shop, 1688 "same design" search, false

Turn on Fetch full product detail and each match also carries the full product page: tiered wholesale prices, SKU variants with price and stock, packaging weight and size, ratings, review tags, gallery and supplier verification flags (detailFetched: true).

How to use

1. Paste one image URL per line. JPG, PNG and WebP are accepted; images hosted anywhere public work.
2. Choose how many similar offers you want per image (20 by default, up to 700), most similar first.
3. Optionally fetch the full product page of each match, keep or drop sponsored results, or filter by price.
4. Run. Rows appear in the dataset as they are found; export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or call the Actor from your code through the API.

{
  "imageUrls": ["https://cbu01.alicdn.com/img/ibank/15418323391_1847764777.jpg"],
  "maxResultsPerImage": 20,
  "fetchDetails": false
}

Use cases

• Sourcing: find the factory behind a product you saw on Amazon, Temu, AliExpress or TikTok Shop, with CNY price and MOQ.
• Dropshipping and margin checks: compare the 1688 price of visually similar offers with your selling price.
• Supplier shortlisting: rank matches by supplierYears, supplierScore, superFactory / factoryInspected and repurchaseRate.
• Market research: units sold (sales) of similar designs on China's wholesale market.

How much does it cost?

Pay per event: you pay only for results delivered. Platform usage (compute, residential proxy) is included. Failed, blocked or removed items are never charged.

What you get	Event	Price	Per 1,000
Up to 20 similar offers for one image	image-search	$0.0045	$4.50
Full product page of a match (fetchDetails on)	product	$0.003	$3.00

Example: 100 photos × 20 similar offers ≈ 100 × $0.0045 = $0.45. No start fee.

Set a maximum cost per run when you start the Actor (Console or API): it stops cleanly when the limit is reached.

Output example

Real output from a run on 13 Oct 2026 (an AliExpress photo, one matching offer, selected fields):

{
  "inputImage": "https://ae-pic-a1.aliexpress-media.com/kf/S988e621e38064363bfbde0440aadeb32k.jpg",
  "rank": 2,
  "similarityScore": 0.6605,
  "offerId": "1006334194467",
  "title": "爆促销车载手机支汽车用吸盘式万能仪表台导航支驾支撑夹车内车",
  "price": 6.34,
  "currency": "CNY",
  "moq": 1,
  "moqLabel": "1件起批",
  "sales": 4000,
  "repurchaseRate": "35%",
  "supplierName": "深圳市小格子科技有限公司",
  "supplierMemberId": "b2b-220078628767044687",
  "supplierProvince": "广东",
  "supplierYears": 8,
  "superFactory": false,
  "shopUrl": "https://shop2951538x3x5m0.1688.com",
  "imageUrl": "https://cbu01.alicdn.com/img/ibank/O1CN0143PrxZ26WuwFCfrn7_!!2200786287670-0-cib.jpg",
  "url": "https://detail.1688.com/offer/1006334194467.html"
}

FAQ

Do I need an account on the marketplace? No. The Actor reads public pages and endpoints: no login, no cookies, no phone number.

Which images work? Any public JPG, PNG or WebP URL: Amazon, AliExpress, Temu, Shopify, TikTok Shop or your own CDN. URLs without protocol (//…) and objects like {"url": …} are accepted too.

What if a photo returns nothing? It is not charged and is listed in the failures of the run's STATS record.

Is a match the same product? It is visually similar according to 1688's own visual search; check the offer before ordering.

Can I run it on a schedule or from my code? Yes. Schedule it in Apify Console, call it through the Apify API (JavaScript, Python, HTTP), or connect it to Make, Zapier, n8n or Google Sheets. Export as JSON, CSV or Excel.

How it works

Each photo is downloaded, reduced and submitted to 1688's own visual search (the 以图搜货 "search by image" feature of 1688.com), exactly like a buyer uploading a picture on the website. Photos already hosted on alicdn.com are passed by address, without upload. 1688 blocks datacenter IPs, so residential proxies are used by default.

Tips

• A clean product shot (one object, plain background) gives the best matches; 1688 detects the main object automatically.
• Sponsored (P4P) offers are excluded by default because they are often less similar; switch Exclude sponsored results off to keep them, flagged with isAd.
• Pair it with our 1688 Wholesale Scraper (keyword search and product pages) and 1688 Supplier Scraper (full catalogue of a supplier).

Limits

• Results and ranking are those of 1688's visual search at run time; similarity is visual, not a guarantee of the same product.
• Titles are in Chinese, prices in CNY.
• Data is public marketplace information (product listings and supplier business profiles). No personal data is collected.

Chain it with

Temu Product Scraper and AliExpress Scraper can call this Actor for you: turn on their Find the factory on 1688 option and every product comes back with its closest 1688 offers and an estimated margin.

Take this output field	Feed it to	Input field
url (or offerId)	1688 Wholesale Scraper	offerIds (tiered prices, SKUs, stock)
shopUrl or supplierMemberId	1688 Supplier Scraper	shops (full catalog and company profile)

Values are accepted exactly as this Actor outputs them (full URL or bare ID). In code, start the next Actor with the dataset of this run, or use an Apify integration (Actor-to-Actor) to chain them automatically.

More SourceLab scrapers

• 1688 Wholesale Scraper — search 1688 by keyword (Chinese or English) when you have no photo, with tiered prices, SKUs and stock.
• 1688 Supplier Scraper — found a matching factory? get its full catalog and company profile (pass shopUrl or supplierMemberId).
• Alibaba.com Product Scraper — the export side of Chinese factories: USD quantity price tiers, MOQ, lead times, certifications and supplier credentials on Alibaba.com.
• AliExpress Scraper — check the retail price abroad: per-variant price and stock, shipping fees and delivery days to your country, review summary.
• Temu Product Scraper — see what similar products sell for on Temu in 20 countries: price, rating, units sold and discount from category pages.
• Taobao & Tmall Product Scraper — compare with Chinese retail on Taobao & Tmall: current price, seller DSR scores and credit level, rating breakdown.
• JD.com Product Scraper — compare with China's B2C retail on JD.com: real CNY price (when confirmed), UPC barcode, specification table, self-operated flag.

Support

Open an issue on the Actor's page. Feature requests are welcome.