Is 1688 legit and safe to buy from?

1688 is legit: it is the Alibaba group’s domestic wholesale marketplace in China, named in the group’s annual report. The risk is not the site, it is each seller: copies, photos that show another product, payment in China and after-sales in Chinese. Rabbit buys on 1688 for you and has a check against each of these risks, and says where each check stops.

By Hussayn Delli, founder of Rabbit · Updated November 9, 2026.

Is 1688 a real, legitimate site?

Yes. In its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Alibaba group lists 1688.com as its wholesale business in China and calls it “an integrated domestic wholesale marketplace in China”. What it is and how it differs from Alibaba.com and AliExpress: what 1688 is.

The same report lists, among the group’s risks, claims about counterfeit or illegal items sold on its platforms. A real marketplace doesn’t make every seller on it safe.

What are the real risks of buying on 1688?

• Sellers vary. Factories, wholesalers and small shops sell side by side, at different levels of quality.
• Copies. A cheap match for a branded product may be a copy, and the importer is you.
• Photos that show something else. Factory photos travel from listing to listing, sometimes over a different product.
• Payment in China. The seller expects to be paid in China: how to pay a 1688 supplier from abroad.
• After-sales in Chinese. A claim is made with the seller, in Chinese, from far away.

What does Rabbit do about copies and banned products?

• When a seller’s own title says the product is a replica, Rabbit removes it from your results. It reads the original Chinese title before translating it, because translation tends to erase those words. If you open that listing from a link, Rabbit doesn’t open it either.
• When the title or the seller signals a brand or a replica, Rabbit’s verdict on the product page is never “Go for it”. At best it says “It works, to be confirmed”, because the resale price it sees is often the real brand’s price, and a branded product can be stopped at customs.
• In ChatGPT and Claude, Rabbit doesn’t return products from banned families, such as weapons, vapes, alcohol, medicines, adult products or counterfeits.

Where it stops: these are word checks. A copy whose title doesn’t say so gets through. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it “targets and seizes imports of counterfeit and pirated goods”. If the product carries a well-known brand, logo or design, don’t order it. More on brands and image search: how to find the factory source of a product.

What does Rabbit do about photos that don’t match the product?

• When you search by photo, Rabbit checks that its top four results are the same type of object as yours: same use, not just the same shape. If they aren’t, the results found by words come first.
• For its US catalog, Rabbit read 2,919 lines of 1688’s ranking of products sold in the US on October 31, 2026. 1688 matches those products to its own listings by image, and often gets it wrong. We kept 1,020, then checked each photo match by eye and kept 436.
• On November 9, 2026, we removed a product whose photo showed an empty camera housing, priced like a housing but compared with the US price of a real camera.

Why the same photo is everywhere, and when it lies: why the same product photo is on 1688, AliExpress and Amazon. A photo match is a lead: order a sample before a batch.

What happens if what arrives doesn’t match my order?

Your goods arrive at Rabbit’s warehouse in China first. Every order gets a photo inspection, at no extra charge: nature, quantity, variant and visible condition are checked, and you see the photos before anything ships, in the app or in ChatGPT and Claude.

A piece that doesn’t match, found at that inspection, doesn’t ship. Rabbit tells you before shipping and offers a replacement, a credit on a future order or a refund, and you agree on one. A claim after delivery goes by email to support@rabbitimport.com.

Where it stops: the inspection is not a lab test, a certification or a guarantee that a product is authentic or meets a technical standard. A defect you can’t see on a photo isn’t caught there.

What about paying and dealing in Chinese?

You don’t pay the seller and you don’t talk to them. You pay Rabbit in the app, and no order is passed to the seller before your payment has been collected in full. Nothing Rabbit writes to you is in Chinese; only the warehouse address stays in Chinese, because the seller reads it.

What doesn’t Rabbit protect you from?

• You buy to resell, so you stay responsible for your own customs and product obligations, including the rules for what you put on the market.
• Rabbit doesn’t show you who the seller is, so you can’t vet them yourself: how to choose a supplier on 1688, and what Rabbit looks at for you.
• A price seen online is not a promise that your product will sell at that price.

For your exact situation: your accountant or a customs broker.