How to Source Products from 1688 — A Practical Guide for TikTok Shop and Shopee Sellers

Most operators start on 1688 with a keyword search, a tab full of listings, and no system. They browse until something looks right, place a small test order, and hope for the best. Some of those bets pay off. Most don't — and they never know why.

The operators who consistently win on TikTok Shop and Shopee have a different approach. They don't hunt for products. They screen them at scale.

Here's how to do it properly.

What 1688 actually is

1688 (1688.com) is Alibaba's domestic wholesale marketplace — built for Chinese businesses buying from Chinese factories and distributors. Unlike Alibaba International, everything is in Chinese, prices are in RMB, and there's no enforced minimum order quantity. That's both the opportunity and the friction.

For SEA cross-border sellers, 1688 is the ground truth for what's available, what's priced right, and what's selling in China before it crosses into Southeast Asian markets. Products that perform well domestically in China often surface on TikTok Vietnam or Shopee Thailand 3–6 months later. Catching them early is the edge.

Start with a category, not a product

The most common mistake: going into 1688 looking for one specific item.

Browse a category instead. Export the full listing. Screen everything before you evaluate anything.

Your edge isn't finding the product — it's finding it before the next operator does. Browsing by category surfaces items you'd never think to search for directly. That's where asymmetric opportunities sit: products with proven China-side demand, no established sellers on your target platform yet, and room to build a content advantage.

Export first, evaluate later

1688 lets you export product lists as Excel files. Use this feature every single run.

Get everything into one place before you start filtering. Trying to evaluate while you browse is how you miss things, second-guess yourself, and waste an hour making no decisions.

Once you have a full export:

1. Remove obvious fails — no images, zero sales history, suspiciously low pricing
2. Apply your baseline filters: minimum monthly sales volume, listing age, price band
3. What's left is your evaluation batch — the set you actually think about

This two-stage approach — collect, then evaluate — is the single biggest productivity improvement most operators can make.

The three metrics that actually matter

Monthly sales volume

Is anyone buying this? A listing with zero or single-digit monthly sales is speculative inventory. You want evidence of market demand before you put capital down.

A useful baseline: 50+ monthly sales to be considered, 500+ to warrant closer analysis. Products below this threshold need a compelling reason to stay in the batch.

Repurchase rate

Repeat purchases signal real product utility. A product people come back for has staying power on Shopee (where repurchase algorithms reward consistent sellers) and on TikTok Shop (where repeat buyers drive your shop's trust score).

High repurchase rate is the strongest signal we've found for products that stay in long-term rotation — not just ones that spike and die.

Listing age

A product with 12+ months of consistent 1688 sales has survived long enough to be taken seriously. New listings with sudden high sales are a yellow flag: they could be a real trend, or a one-month spike before returns flood in.

We treat new high-sales listings as conditional — they stay in the batch but need a TikTok cross-check before any order gets placed.

Screen fast, decide slow

First pass is elimination: remove anything that obviously doesn't qualify. This should take seconds per product, not minutes. You're not thinking — you're filtering.

Second pass is evaluation: the surviving batch gets actual attention. This is where you look at numbers, cross-check TikTok, and make decisions.

Collapsing these two stages is where most operators lose time. Don't evaluate products that should have been eliminated in pass one.

Cross-check before any order

Before placing any order, search the product on TikTok and Shopee:

Nobody selling it — there's usually a reason. Demand doesn't exist, import is difficult, margins don't work, or the product has a compliance issue. The absence of sellers is data.

Everyone selling it — the margin is probably already gone. You'd be entering at the bottom of a price war with no differentiation.

Moderate competition, strong fundamentals — this is the signal. Some sellers but no dominant player, product has real sales history, and there's room to differentiate on content, packaging, or speed.

The TikTok check is especially important. If a product is generating organic views and purchases on TikTok Vietnam or TikTok Thailand right now, consumer demand is real and visible. That's a stronger signal than any 1688 metric alone.

Common mistakes operators make

Evaluating while browsing — you'll be slower and less consistent. Export first, always.

Ignoring listing age — a new listing with high sales is a risk, not a green light.

Skipping the TikTok cross-check — 1688 data tells you supply-side demand. TikTok tells you consumer demand. You need both before you commit.

Over-indexing on unit price — the cheapest 1688 price isn't always the right supplier. Minimum order, lead time, and reorder reliability matter more at volume.

Evaluating product-by-product — screening works at batch scale. If you're looking at one item at a time, you're losing to operators who move 10x faster.

Not tracking your decisions — if you can't remember why you passed on something three months ago, you'll evaluate it again from scratch. Every pass decision should be recorded.

FAQ

Do I need a freight forwarder to source from 1688? Yes. 1688 is a domestic Chinese marketplace — it ships within China only. You'll need a consolidation warehouse in China and a freight forwarder to move goods into Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, or wherever you're selling. Several services specialize in 1688 → SEA logistics and can consolidate multiple supplier shipments.

Is there a minimum order quantity on 1688? Unlike Alibaba International, most 1688 suppliers don't enforce a hard MOQ. You can test with small quantities — but expect the unit price to reflect that. At volume, negotiate directly.

How do I handle the language barrier? Chrome's auto-translate covers most browsing. For supplier communication, a mix of Google Translate and WeChat messaging works at small scale. At volume, a dedicated China sourcing agent is worth the cost.

How many products should I screen per batch? This depends on your category and growth stage. Early-stage operators typically screen 100–500 products per batch. At full operational capacity, our own sourcing runs processed 2,000–5,000 products per week using a structured tool — that's not practical with a spreadsheet.

The real edge is process, not product-finding

The operators who win long-term aren't the ones who find the best products. They're the ones with the best repeatable system for finding them — week after week, batch after batch, without reinventing the process every run.

That means a consistent filter set, a way to track what you passed on and why, and a way to annotate winners so you can learn what you're actually good at sourcing.

We built Ordinex Scout because we couldn't find a tool that did this. Spreadsheets don't scale. Browsing 1688 manually doesn't compound.

If you're screening more than 200 products a week, a structured process isn't optional — it's the difference between a business that grows and one that grinds in place.