Module two of the guide
How to use the Basetao Spreadsheet without wasting an order
A card gives you a picture, a name, a platform and a link. Everything that decides whether the item is any good sits somewhere else, and this page is about where.
The definition
It is a browsing site, and the name is historical
People still say spreadsheet because the community once traded finds in shared files. What replaced those files is an ordinary product discovery site: category pages, product cards, a picture on each card, a link under each picture.
Getting this wrong costs real money, because it changes how you use the thing. If you think of it as a document you try to read it. If you think of it as a shop window you go to the one category you want, look at what is there, and leave with a link.
The card is a starting point, not a product page. It is the fastest way to find out that an item exists and where it lives.
From a card to a parcel
Six steps. The first three happen on the browsing site, the last three on Basetao. Nothing is bought here.
Open the category, not the whole site
Go straight to the category you came for. Twenty five of them are covered on the categories page of this guide, each with the specific thing that goes wrong there.
Read the card for what it can tell you
Picture, name, platform, link. That is the honest extent of it. The picture is the sellers intention rather than a photograph of your parcel.
Ask the seller the measurement questions
Because Basetao states that colour difference and actual size are outside its inspection, this is the step that decides whether the item fits. Ask for centimetres, not sizes.
Copy the link into Basetao
Marketplace links go into the search bar. Anything from 1688, Yupoo, WeChat or an image host goes through the self help order form instead.
Pay for the goods and the domestic freight
This is the first of the three payment moments. International freight is not part of it and cannot be, because the parcel does not exist yet.
Wait for the arrival photos, then decide
Basetao states arrival photos are normally uploaded the day the item reaches the warehouse, at no extra charge and with no limit on the number of pictures. This is your last cheap moment to change your mind.
The alternative is a marketplace in a language you do not read
Why use the spreadsheet instead of searching Taobao yourself
You could go to Taobao directly. Plenty of people do. The difficulty is that the search box wants Chinese keywords, the results are ranked by things that have nothing to do with you, and there is no way to tell a seller with a decade of history from one that opened last week.
A curated browsing site skips the keyword problem entirely. Someone has already found the item, put an English name on it and left a working link. Our own catalogue holds more than 20,000 items on that basis (our count, August 2026).
What it does not do is vouch for anything. No curated list can tell you todays price, todays stock or whether this particular seller ships the version in the photo.
Four questions worth asking before you pay
All four exist because of the same sentence on the Basetao inspection page. If the warehouse will not check it, you have to.
| Ask this | Because | What a good answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| The flat measurements in centimetres, for the exact size | Actual size against the label is outside the inspection, so a mislabelled garment still passes | Chest, length and sleeve as numbers, ideally with a photo of a tape measure |
| Whether the colour in the listing is the current production run | Colour difference is also outside the inspection | A recent photo taken by the seller rather than the catalogue render |
| Whether the item is in stock today | A curated card cannot know stock, and a sold out link becomes a refund and a wasted week | A yes with a date, or an alternative link |
| What is in the box | For electronics Basetao states it does not check whether accessories are complete | A list, which you can then compare against the arrival photos |
Read the inspection standards page in full
Two habits that save the most money
Decide before you pay, not after
Everything cheap happens before the money moves. Once the goods are bought, your options narrow to a return the seller has to agree to, inside a window of about seven days.
Think in parcels, not in items
Freight is charged per parcel, on weight or on volume, whichever is larger. One more shirt in an existing parcel is nearly free. A second parcel is not.
What this guide will not tell you
We do not publish prices, freight rates or delivery times, because all three change weekly and a stale number is worse than no number. Where a rate matters, we point at the official calculator and show you which inputs it wants.
We also do not rank agents. There is no defensible way to call one the cheapest without measuring every line to every country on the same day, and anyone who does claim it has not.
Why this spreadsheet, and how it is kept
A browsing site is only worth your time if someone is still maintaining it. Two lists below: the part we stand behind, and the part no guide can stand behind.
Kept under review
- We clicked all sixteen tiles ourselves. A tile that needed a second hop to land got swapped for the direct address, not annotated
- Any Basetao number here is traceable back to the page it sits on, with the day we last looked at that page
- When one official page says something the next one contradicts, you get told about the clash instead of a tidy single answer
Outside what we can promise
- That a listing still has stock, or the same price, or the same seller
- That a seller ships the exact version in the photograph
- That a dead link gets noticed the day it dies
How to use the search box and the coverage calculator on this site
Two tools, and they answer different questions. Neither of them talks to Basetao, so neither can see your order.
Search from the box at the top of the home page
It takes plain English and sends it straight to the category catalogue. Broad words work better than model codes: a code only matches if whoever listed the item typed the same code.
Use the sixteen tiles when you do not have a word yet
The tiles are the same sixteen categories the catalogue is organised by. The line under each one is the Basetao rule that bites in that category, so the constraint reaches you before the shopping does.
Use the coverage calculator before you insure anything
It is on the coverage page. You put in a declared value and a cover level, it applies the published 2 percent and 4 percent rates and shows the payout rows. It is arithmetic on Basetaos own numbers, not a quote.
What makes a trustworthy finds site, and four ways to test one
Four checks you can run on any finds site in about two minutes. Run them here too.
Open three links at random
Not the top three. A delisted item or an extra hop on any one of them tells you how old the whole list is.
Look for a date, then test it
A site that prints a last checked date is making a claim you can falsify. A site with no date anywhere is not maintained, it is abandoned.
See whether it says how it gets paid
Referral funding is normal. Hiding it is the signal. We say ours in the footer of every page.
Check whether it ever says no
A site that recommends everything is selling you the category. The useful pages are the ones that tell you when not to order.
How to choose an item before you send the link
Judging a listing is mostly a process of working out which of your questions the photographs can answer and which ones only the seller can. The picture settles shape, hardware and colourway. It settles nothing about measurements, materials or which version is in the box.
Two of your questions fall outside what the warehouse will check for you: whether the shade matches what your screen showed, and whether the garment measures what its label claims. Both have to be closed before you pay, not after the photographs land. A tape measure is orderable at a stated 1.5 CNY handling fee, which beats paying freight twice.
If the listing shows several colourways in one photograph, write the one you want into the order note. The note function is the field the purchasing team reads, and Basetao states orders are normally placed within 24 hours, so there is not a long window in which to correct it.
