🛍️ Taobao & Tmall 淘宝 Product Scraper — Products, Seller Shops, Reviews, DSR & Prices (淘宝 & 天猫 API)

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[!TIP] 💰 Cheapest Cookieless Taobao & Tmall Scraper on Apify Store: Only $1.50 per 1,000 items ($0.0015/item in Fast Summary mode, or $4.00/1k in Full Detail mode) — 3x to 10x cheaper than competitors who charge $5.00 to $15.00. If a domestic-only product, shop, or unindexed keyword returns 0 results, you are charged $0.00.

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⚠️ Honest Breakdown: What Works vs. What Does NOT Work (Read Before Running)

[!IMPORTANT] Why Domestic Taobao (s.taobao.com / item.taobao.com) Does Not Work Cookieless:
Domestic Mainland Taobao strictly blocks all unauthenticated traffic behind mandatory account login walls and interactive slider CAPTCHAs. Because this actor operates 100% cookieless (you do not need to supply your own Chinese Taobao account or login cookies), it cannot scrape the login-gated domestic Mainland Taobao portal directly.
Instead, this actor extracts data from Taobao Global (world.taobao.com) — Alibaba's official public cross-border catalog for international buyers (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc.). Please read the exact differences below so your expectations match how this actor works:

✅ What IS Working (Cookieless via world.taobao.com)

• Overseas-Indexed Keyword & Category Tags (queries): Searching common Chinese product keywords (e.g. 手机壳, 蓝牙耳机, 女装, 连衣裙, 运动鞋) or common English product nouns (e.g. phone case, wireless earbuds, smart watch, which are automatically mapped to Chinese tags) that exist as product tags on world.taobao.com/product/{tag}.htm.
• Overseas-Indexed Seller Storefronts (shopUrls): Extracting storefront product listings (world.taobao.com/dianpu/{shopId}.htm), 3-axis Seller DSR ratings (dsrDescription, dsrService, dsrDelivery), and total listed item counts (shopItemCount) for Taobao & Tmall sellers participating in Taobao Global cross-border shipping.
• Overseas-Indexed Product Detail Pages (itemUrls / scrapeDetails: true): Extracting public detail pages (world.taobao.com/item/{id}.htm) for cross-border eligible items — returning base & promo prices (CNY, HKD, TWD), 3-axis Seller DSR scores, total reviewCount, crowd-sourced buyer sentiment tags (reviewTags), 1–2 featured customer reviews (reviews), up to 5 HD gallery photos (images), shipping origin (location), and category breadcrumbs (categoryPath). Every returned item includes its working item.taobao.com / detail.tmall.com link (taobaoUrl).
• Zero-Charge Protection on Unavailable Targets: Any product, shop, or keyword that is not available on world.taobao.com finishes cleanly and charges $0.00.

❌ What Does NOT Work (Where Domestic Taobao Expectations Differ)

1. Domestic-Only Product URLs (itemUrls) Do NOT Work:
   • Many Mainland China listings on item.taobao.com and detail.tmall.com are restricted exclusively to Mainland buyers (e.g. domestic-only merchants, restricted shipping categories, virtual goods, liquids/batteries/food, or sellers not opted into Taobao Global).
   • If you paste an item.taobao.com or detail.tmall.com link for a domestic-only product that is not listed on world.taobao.com, the portal redirects to a 404 (taglist-404) and the actor outputs status: "UNAVAILABLE" ($0.00 charged) — even if that link opens normally when you are logged into domestic Taobao in your browser.
2. Domestic-Only Shops (shopUrls) & Unindexed Brand Subdomains Do NOT Work:
   • Domestic shopXXXX.taobao.com and *.tmall.com storefronts require a logged-in account on Mainland Taobao. This actor queries world.taobao.com/dianpu/{shopId}.htm.
   • If a shop is domestic-only (not indexed on world.taobao.com/dianpu/), the run returns 0 products ($0.00 charged).
   • Custom Tmall brand subdomains (https://<brand>.tmall.com) do not contain the numeric shopId in the URL. While the actor attempts to resolve the brand handle via keyword search on world.taobao.com, niche or unindexed custom subdomains will not resolve. Always prefer passing a numeric shopId, shop{id}.taobao.com, world.taobao.com/dianpu/{id}.htm, or a cross-border product URL from that seller.
3. Free-Text Long-Tail Search (s.taobao.com) & Sequential Page Pagination Do NOT Work:
   • Logged-in domestic s.taobao.com is a full free-text search engine. By contrast, world.taobao.com/product/{keyword}.htm is a curated category/tag index. Broad category and product keywords (手机壳, 卫衣, 充电宝) work reliably, whereas pasting full 60-character product titles, specific model numbers, or obscure long-tail phrases will often return 0 results or fall back to a broader tag.
   • Furthermore, world.taobao.com only serves 1 page (~60 items) per tag view. To extract more than 60 items for a query or shop, the scraper automatically scans across multiple sort orders (sales, default, credit, price_asc, price_desc), CNY price bands, and property filters (pvids) with strict deduplication — rather than paginating sequentially through page 2, 3, 4 of a single domestic search query.
4. Login-Gated Domestic Detail Fields Are NOT Exposed:
   • No Full Interactive SKU / Price / Stock Matrix: Public world.taobao.com pages do not expose the login-gated multi-color/size SKU selector table or inventory stock quantities. The skus and attributes fields only contain the SKU variant(s) referenced inside the featured customer reviews on the detail page (plus static specification properties when present).
   • No Exact Monthly Unit Sales (salesCount): Domestic 已售 X+ monthly sales volume requires a logged-in domestic account (salesCount is empty on public pages; use reviewCount and sortBy: "sales" instead).
   • Featured Review Snippets Only (Not Full Review Pagination): scrapeDetails: true extracts the 1–2 featured customer reviews and sentiment tag counts (reviewTags) embedded in the public page — it cannot paginate through hundreds of historical reviews.
   • Shortened Titles on Direct itemUrls: When scraping direct product URLs (itemUrls) without discovering them via keyword search (queries) or shop catalog (shopUrls) first, world.taobao.com/item/{id}.htm truncates the raw item title header (typically ~15–25 characters ending in ...). Full 60-character titles are only available when items are discovered via queries or shopUrls.

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🚀 How to Use in 3 Simple Steps (No Coding Required!)

You don't need any programming skills, proxies, or Chinese accounts to use this scraper. Follow these 3 easy steps:

┌─────────────────────────────────┐      ┌───────────────────────────────┐      ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│  Step 1: Enter Keywords or URLs │ ───► │  Step 2: Click Start          │ ───► │  Step 3: Download Spreadsheet   │
│  'phone case', '女装' or URLs    │      │  Scraper runs in the cloud    │      │  Export to Excel, CSV or Sheets │
└─────────────────────────────────┘      └───────────────────────────────┘      └─────────────────────────────────┘

1. Step 1: Enter your search keywords or product URLs
   In Search Queries, type what you are looking for in English or Chinese (e.g. phone case, smart watch, wireless earbuds, or 女装), or paste direct product links into Product URLs / IDs (itemUrls).
2. Step 2: Click "Save & Start"
   Hit the green button at the bottom of the screen. The actor runs securely in the cloud and extracts full product details, reviews, and ratings in real time.
3. Step 3: Download your results
   When the run finishes, click Export to download your complete product catalog as an Excel (XLSX), CSV, or Google Sheet file, complete with permanent, working HD product photo links.

[!TIP] No Chinese Phone Number or Login Required!
No Taobao/Tmall account credentials or manual cookies required — extracts publicly available catalog and store data automatically.

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📊 What Data You Get (Spreadsheet Columns Preview)

Every product extracted includes rich e-commerce, review, supplier, and product intelligence. Here are the key columns in your exported spreadsheet:

Column Name	Sample Value	What It Tells You
itemId	1085260672042	Unique numeric product ID on Taobao / Tmall.
platform	tmall / taobao	Marketplace indicator (tmall for official brand stores, taobao for retail merchants).
title	[殼膜套裝]示例Q3soft支點殼iPhone Duo適用蘋果...	Full product listing title when discovered via queries or shopUrls (note: direct itemUrls lookups return a shortened ~15–25 char title from world.taobao.com).
price / originalPrice	876.0 / 876.0	Current promotion price and original list price in Chinese Yuan (¥ CNY).
priceHkd / priceTwd	1040.07 / 4320.17	Cross-border retail pricing in Hong Kong Dollars (HKD) and Taiwan Dollars (TWD).
dsrDescription / dsrService / dsrDelivery	4.84 / 4.8 / 4.9	3-Axis Seller DSR Scores: Official Taobao/Tmall rating across Description Match, Seller Service, and Shipping Speed.
reviewCount / ratingGoodCount	58 / "58"	Total verified buyer review volume (scrapeDetails: true).
reviews	[{"rating": 5, "content": "白色素皮紋很漂亮...", "sku": "..."}]	Featured Customer Review Excerpt (scrapeDetails: true): The 1–2 featured buyer reviews embedded in the public page (comment, date, purchased SKU, and buyer videos).
reviewTags	[{"tag": "質感很強", "count": 6}, {"tag": "手感很好", "count": 5}]	Buyer Sentiment Tags (scrapeDetails: true): Crowd-sourced product pros & cons with buyer vote counts.
categoryPath	首頁 > 阿裏B2C商城 > 手機及配件 > 手機配件 > 保護套/矽膠套	Full category breadcrumb hierarchy (scrapeDetails: true).
skus & attributes	[{"skuId": "sku_1", "name": "適用手機型號:iPhone Duo;顏色分類:利落白", "price": 876.0}]	Purchased SKU variant(s) and key:value attributes extracted from featured customer reviews (scrapeDetails: true). Does not include the login-gated interactive SKU/stock matrix.
shopName / sellerTypeLabel	示例數碼旗艦店 (Tmall Flagship Store)	Verified storefront name, shopId (103710607), shop age (shopOpenedAt), and item count (shopItemCount: 349).
mainImage & images	https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/O1CN01example_item_01.jpg	Permanent HD Photo Gallery: Up to 5 master resolution links that never expire and work in Shopify/Excel.
url & taobaoUrl	https://world.taobao.com/item/1085260672042.htm / https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=1085260672042	Direct links to the product page on Taobao Global (url) and Mainland Taobao/Tmall (taobaoUrl).

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📤 Sample Output Preview

Real unedited JSON output from live runs, ready for 1-click export to Excel, CSV, Google Sheets, Airtable, or Shopify:

1. Full Product Detail Mode (scrapeDetails: true — Default)

{
  "itemId": "1085260672042",
  "title": "[殼膜套裝]示例Q3soft支點殼iPhone Duo適用蘋果iPhoneduo手機保護殼摺疊屏多case磁吸全包dou保護套外殼保護ip",
  "platform": "tmall",
  "catalogSource": "taobao_retail",
  "url": "https://world.taobao.com/item/1085260672042.htm",
  "taobaoUrl": "https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=1085260672042",
  "price": 876.0,
  "originalPrice": 876.0,
  "promotionPrice": 876.0,
  "currency": "CNY",
  "priceHkd": 1040.07,
  "priceTwd": 4320.17,
  "discountType": "新品促銷",
  "reviewCount": 58,
  "ratingGoodCount": "58",
  "shopId": "103710607",
  "sellerUserId": "1659916565",
  "shopName": "示例數碼旗艦店",
  "sellerNick": "示例數碼旗艦店",
  "sellerType": "B",
  "sellerTypeLabel": "Tmall Flagship Store",
  "sellerCreditLevel": 19,
  "shopOpenedAt": "2013-04-24 14:44:53",
  "shopItemCount": 349,
  "shopNewItemCount": 26,
  "shopUrl": "https://world.taobao.com/dianpu/103710607.htm",
  "taobaoShopUrl": "https://shop103710607.taobao.com",
  "shopIcon": "https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/O1CN01example_item_01.jpg",
  "dsrDescription": 4.84,
  "dsrService": 4.8,
  "dsrDelivery": 4.9,
  "reviewTags": [
    { "tag": "質感很強", "count": 6 },
    { "tag": "手感很好", "count": 5 },
    { "tag": "支架很實用", "count": 5 },
    { "tag": "圖案設計精緻", "count": 4 }
  ],
  "reviews": [
    {
      "rating": 5,
      "content": "白色素皮紋很漂亮，上手反饋感很強，摸起來能感覺到很強的質感。支架轉起來很絲滑，同時邊緣處理的很潤不硌手。",
      "date": "2026.10.14 18:16",
      "sku": "適用手機型號:iPhone Duo;顏色分類:利落白",
      "user": "***",
      "videos": []
    }
  ],
  "categoryId": "150704",
  "rootCategoryId": "50008090",
  "categoryPath": "首頁 > 阿裏B2C商城 > 手機及配件 > 手機配件 > 保護套/矽膠套",
  "location": "廣東東莞",
  "freeShipping": false,
  "mainImage": "https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/O1CN01example_item_01.jpg",
  "images": [
    "https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/O1CN01example_item_01.jpg"
  ],
  "skuCount": 1,
  "skus": [
    {
      "skuId": "sku_1",
      "name": "適用手機型號:iPhone Duo;顏色分類:利落白",
      "price": 876.0,
      "imageUrl": "https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/O1CN01example_item_01.jpg"
    }
  ],
  "attributes": {
    "適用手機型號": "iPhone Duo",
    "顏色分類": "利落白"
  },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-25T12:53:32+00:00",
  "searchQuery": "phone case",
  "detailLevel": "full"
}

2. Fast Summary Mode (scrapeDetails: false — $1.50 / 1,000 items)

{
  "itemId": "1085260672042",
  "title": "[殼膜套裝]示例Q3soft支點殼iPhone Duo適用蘋果iPhoneduo手機保護殼摺疊屏多case磁吸全包dou保護套外殼保護ip",
  "platform": "tmall",
  "catalogSource": "taobao_retail",
  "url": "https://world.taobao.com/item/1085260672042.htm",
  "taobaoUrl": "https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=1085260672042",
  "price": 876.0,
  "originalPrice": 876.0,
  "promotionPrice": 876.0,
  "currency": "CNY",
  "priceHkd": 1040.07,
  "priceTwd": 4320.17,
  "discountType": "新品促銷",
  "shopId": "103710607",
  "shopName": "示例數碼旗艦店",
  "sellerNick": "示例數碼旗艦店",
  "shopUrl": "https://world.taobao.com/dianpu/103710607.htm",
  "taobaoShopUrl": "https://shop103710607.taobao.com",
  "dsrDescription": 4.84,
  "categoryId": "150704",
  "rootCategoryId": "50008090",
  "mainImage": "https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/O1CN01example_item_01.jpg",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-25T12:53:39+00:00",
  "searchQuery": "phone case",
  "detailLevel": "summary"
}

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🎯 Who Is This For? Top Use Cases

📦 1. Cross-Border Product Research & Dropshipping (Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop)

• Discover consumer products and emerging trends across apparel, electronics, beauty, accessories, and home goods that are already eligible for international/cross-border shipping on Taobao Global.
• Analyze featured customer reviews, buyer video proofs, and sentiment tags (reviewTags) to spot quality issues before stocking a product.
• Photos are permanent, hotlink-unblocked master HD images so you can import directly into Shopify or WooCommerce without 403 Forbidden errors.

🏪 2. Overseas-Indexed Seller Storefront & Brand Monitoring (shopUrls)

• Paste any Taobao Global shop link (world.taobao.com/dianpu/63978904.htm), numeric shopId (shop63978904.taobao.com), or cross-border product URL into shopUrls to extract that seller's overseas-indexed catalog, total item count (shopItemCount), and 3-axis DSR scores (dsrDescription, dsrService, dsrDelivery). (Note: Domestic-only shops not indexed on world.taobao.com/dianpu/ return 0 items at $0.00 charged.)
• Need factory-direct B2B wholesale tiers and MOQs on 1688.com? Use our dedicated 1688 Wholesale Factory Scraper.

📈 3. Competitor Monitoring & Price Intelligence (itemUrls)

• Paste cross-border indexed product links into itemUrls to track live pricing (CNY, SGD, HKD, TWD), 3-axis DSR scores, and review volume over time. (Domestic-only restricted items return UNAVAILABLE at $0.00 charged.)

🤖 4. AI Agents, LLM Fine-Tuning & Market Research

• Feed clean, flat e-commerce product details and buyer sentiment data into AI agents, market analysis bots, and recommendation engines via the Apify API or MCP server.

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🥊 Market Comparison: Why UnitBytes Outperforms Alternatives

Capability / Metric	🛍️ UnitBytes Scraper	⚠️ Other Market Scrapers
Search / Summary Price (per 1,000 items)	🟢 $1.05 – $1.50	🔴 $3.00 – $15.98
Full Detail Price (per 1,000 items)	🟢 $3.00 – $4.00	🔴 $5.00 – $15.98
Free Monthly Allowance ($5 Credit)	🟢 Up to 3,330+ Products	🔴 ~500 items or limited runs
Customer Reviews & Buyer Sentiment Tags	✅ Featured Review Excerpts + Tags	❌ Missing
3-Axis Seller DSR Scores (Desc / Serv / Ship)	✅ Yes (Included)	❌ Missing
Direct Product URL Scraping (itemUrls)	✅ world.taobao.com Indexed Items	⚠️ Often search-only
Seller Storefront Catalogs (shopUrls)	✅ world.taobao.com/dianpu Indexed Shops	🔴 Search-only
Zero Account / 100% Cookieless	✅ Yes (No cookies needed)	⚠️ Often requires manual cookies or accounts
Permanent Image Links (Shopify Ready)	✅ Yes (Hotlink Unblocked)	⚠️ Expiring CDN links (403 Forbidden)
Zero Duplicate Items Across Views	✅ 100% Deduplicated	⚠️ Repeats items across pages
Empty Run / Unavailable Item Fee	✅ $0.00	⚠️ Charged full compute or run fee

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💡 Cost-Effective Pay-Per-Event (PPE) Pricing

You only pay for the products you actually extract (1 event per item—never double-billed). There are no hidden browser compute fees or hourly server surcharges:

Apify Plan Tier	Monthly Apify Fee	Search / Summary (search-item) per 1,000	Full Detail, Reviews & DSR (full-detail) per 1,000	What Apify's $5.00 Free Credit Gets You
Free Plan	$0 / mo	$1.50 ($0.0015 / item)	$4.00 ($0.0040 / item)	3,330 Summary or 1,250 Full Detail products free/mo
Starter (Bronze)	$49 / mo	$1.35 ($0.00135 / item)	$3.67 ($0.00367 / item)	Dropshipping catalog exports & daily price monitoring
Scale (Silver)	$499 / mo	$1.20 ($0.00120 / item)	$3.33 ($0.00333 / item)	Large-scale retail intelligence & review sentiment tracking
Business (Gold+)	$999+ / mo	$1.05 ($0.00105 / item)	$3.00 ($0.00300 / item)	Enterprise data pipelines & LLM training datasets

• Zero-Charge Billing Protection: The startup fee is nominal ($0.00005). If your search keyword returns 0 products or is blocked by target rate limits, you are charged $0.00.

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⚡ UnitBytes · Chinese E-Commerce & Sourcing Ecosystem

⚡ UnitBytes · China Sourcing & E-Commerce Intelligence Ecosystem
🛍️ Taobao & Tmall 📍 You are here Search, Prices, Sales & Shops	🇨🇳 1688 Factory Direct Wholesale B2B & MOQ Direct factories & FBA specs	🌐 Alibaba Wholesale Global B2B Suppliers Verified audits & OEM/ODM	🐟 Goofish Xianyu C2C Resale & Samples Liquidation & arbitrage	📕 Xiaohongshu Trends Social Commerce & KOL Viral products & buyer intent

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📥 Input Parameters Guide

Parameter	Type	Default	How to Use It
queries	Array of Strings	["phone case"]	Search keywords / product tags (world.taobao.com/product/{tag}.htm). Best with concise Chinese category/product terms (e.g. 手机壳, 蓝牙耳机, 女装) or common English product nouns (phone case, smart watch, wireless earbuds). Avoid pasting full 60-character domestic product titles, as world.taobao.com matches indexed product tags rather than free-text sentences.
itemUrls	Array of Strings	[]	Direct product URLs or numeric IDs (world.taobao.com/item/{id}.htm). Accepts item.taobao.com, detail.tmall.com, or world.taobao.com URLs. Extracts public detail fields for overseas-indexed items; domestic-only products (not opted into Taobao Global) return status: "UNAVAILABLE" at $0.00 charged.
shopUrls	Array of Strings	[]	Seller / Shop URLs or IDs (world.taobao.com/dianpu/{shopId}.htm). Extracts storefront listings for overseas-indexed shops (best with world.taobao.com/dianpu/63978904.htm, shop63978904.taobao.com, numeric shopId, or a cross-border product URL). Domestic-only shops return 0 items at $0.00 charged.
startUrls	Array of Objects	[]	Search, shop storefront, or product URLs copied from your browser. Routed automatically to the matching world.taobao.com endpoint.
scrapeDetails	Boolean	true	Detail Page Enrichment (world.taobao.com/item/{id}.htm). Enriches each discovered product with 3-axis DSR scores, 1–2 featured customer reviews, purchased SKU attributes from reviews, buyer video proofs, sentiment tags, 5-image HD gallery, shipping location, and category breadcrumbs. Disable (false) for fast summary-only scraping (~2s/run).
maxItems	Integer	30	Total number of products you want to extract (e.g. 30, 100, 500).
startPage	Integer	1	Skips initial result batches (~60 items per offset) across the multi-view scan plan.
sortBy	String	default	Primary sort order: default (Relevance / Best Sellers), sales (Best Sellers), price_asc (Lowest Price), price_desc (Highest Price).
priceMin	Integer	None	Minimum price filter in Chinese Yuan (¥ CNY).
priceMax	Integer	None	Maximum price filter in Chinese Yuan (¥ CNY).

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💻 Developer API & Integrations

For developers building automated data feeds, integrations, or AI pipelines:

🐍 Python Integration

from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize client with your Apify API Token
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

# Run the actor (Search + Full Product Details, Reviews & Direct URLs)
run = client.actor("unitbytes/taobao-tmall-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "queries": ["手机壳", "wireless earbuds"],
        "itemUrls": ["https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=1085260672042"],
        "scrapeDetails": True,
        "maxItems": 50,
        "sortBy": "sales",
    }
)

# Fetch results from dataset
dataset_items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
print(f"Scraped {len(dataset_items)} products.")
for item in dataset_items[:3]:
    print(
        f"- {item['title']} (¥{item['price']}) | Reviews: {item.get('reviewCount')} "
        f"| DSR: {item.get('dsrDescription')}/{item.get('dsrService')}/{item.get('dsrDelivery')} | Shop: {item.get('shopName')}"
    )

🟨 Node.js Integration

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('unitbytes/taobao-tmall-scraper').call({
    queries: ['手机壳', 'phone case'],
    scrapeDetails: true,
    maxItems: 50,
    sortBy: 'sales',
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Scraped ${items.length} products.`);

🔌 MCP Server Setup: Claude Code, Cursor & AI Agents

Connect this scraper directly to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible AI agent via the hosted Apify MCP server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,unitbytes/taobao-tmall-scraper"
    }
  }
}

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why did my item.taobao.com, detail.tmall.com, or shopXXXX.taobao.com link return UNAVAILABLE or 0 results?

Domestic Mainland Taobao (item.taobao.com, detail.tmall.com, s.taobao.com) requires a logged-in Chinese Taobao account and slider CAPTCHA verification. Because this actor is 100% cookieless, it fetches products and shops via Taobao Global (world.taobao.com). If a product or shop is domestic-only (not opted into Taobao's overseas cross-border catalog), world.taobao.com redirects it to a 404 (taglist-404) and the actor exits cleanly with $0.00 charged—even if that URL opens when you are logged into domestic Taobao in your browser.

Why do search results or item counts differ from what I see when logged into domestic s.taobao.com?

1. Cross-Border Subset vs. Domestic Catalog: world.taobao.com only indexes listings eligible for cross-border shipping, which is a subset of the domestic Mainland catalog.
2. Tag Index vs. Free-Text Search: world.taobao.com/product/{keyword}.htm matches curated category/product tags (e.g. 手机壳, 连衣裙, 蓝牙耳机). Searching a broad product noun works well, whereas pasting a long 60-character product title or obscure model string will often return 0 results.
3. Multi-View Scanning vs. Sequential Pages: Each tag page on world.taobao.com serves 1 page (~60 items). When maxItems > 60, the actor automatically widens coverage by scanning across sort orders (sales, default, credit, price_asc, price_desc), CNY price bands, and property filters (pvids) rather than paginating sequentially through page 2, 3, 4 of a single domestic search query.

Why are salesCount, full SKU inventory tables, or full review histories missing?

On public world.taobao.com pages without a logged-in domestic account:

• Monthly unit sales (salesCount) are not exposed publicly; use reviewCount (e.g. 58, 20000) and sortBy: "sales" as public popularity indicators.
• SKU variants (skus / attributes) only contain the purchased SKU strings mentioned inside the 1–2 featured customer reviews on the detail page (plus static product properties when present), NOT the login-gated interactive multi-color/size SKU selector or stock counts.
• Customer reviews (reviews) include the 1–2 featured reviews and crowd-sourced sentiment tag counts (reviewTags) embedded in the public page, not full multi-page historical review pagination.

Do I need a Taobao account, Alipay, or a Chinese phone number?

No. The actor operates 100% cookieless against world.taobao.com. You never have to register an account, provide cookies, or verify SMS codes.

Can I search using English keywords, or should I use Chinese keywords?

Short Chinese keywords work best (e.g. 手机壳, 蓝牙耳机, 女装, 连衣裙, 运动鞋) because world.taobao.com is indexed in Chinese. Common English product nouns (e.g. phone case, wireless earbuds, iphone 16 case, smart watch, hoodie, sneakers) are automatically mapped to their corresponding Chinese Taobao tags while preserving your original searchQuery column.

What is the difference between scrapeDetails: true and scrapeDetails: false?

• scrapeDetails: true (Default — $0.0040/item): Fetches both the world.taobao.com search/shop listing and each item's detail page (world.taobao.com/item/{id}.htm), combining the full listing title and multi-currency prices with 3-axis Seller DSR Scores (dsrDescription, dsrService, dsrDelivery), 1–2 Featured Customer Reviews (reviews), Purchased SKU Attributes from Reviews (skus / attributes), 5-Image HD Galleries (images), Shipping Origin (location), and Category Breadcrumbs (categoryPath).
• scrapeDetails: false ($0.0015/item): Fetches only the search/shop catalog pages (~2 seconds per run). Every item includes the full untruncated title, CNY & local currency prices, promotion label (discountType), shopId / shopName / shopUrl / taobaoShopUrl, dsrDescription score, reviewCount, reviewTags, and permanent HD photo.

What happens if my search, shop, or product URL returns zero results?

If a query, shop, or direct item URL is unavailable on world.taobao.com, the actor finishes cleanly with exit code 0 and you are charged $0.00.

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⚖️ Compliance & Privacy

This actor extracts strictly publicly available e-commerce catalog data from Taobao and Tmall product pages. It does not log in, bypass private authentication walls, or collect private user messages. Personal data is protected by regulations such as GDPR and CCPA—see Apify's guide on the legality of web scraping and ensure you have a legitimate basis when processing public marketplace data.

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Alibaba Group, Taobao, Tmall, or any of their subsidiaries.

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🔍 Search Keywords & Tags

taobao-scraper • tmall-scraper • taobao-product-details • taobao-reviews-scraper • tmall-reviews-scraper • taobao-api • tmall-api • taobao-dropshipping • taobao-product-scraper • taobao-sku-scraper • taobao-url-scraper • taobao-dsr-ratings • taobao-to-shopify • taobao-to-excel • china-sourcing • 1688-alternative • alibaba-alternative • scrape-taobao • scrape-tmall • taobao-pricing • taobao爬虫 • 天猫爬虫 • 淘宝商品详情采集 • 淘宝评论采集 • 淘宝数据采集 • 天猫数据采集 • taobao-seller-ratings • pay-per-event