Skip to content

The spreadsheet: sixteen categories, and how to actually search them

Browse by category when you know the shape of what you want. Type a keyword when you know the words. Both land on real listings.

Browse by category

Every tile goes to a live listing page. Fifteen are categories. Womenswear is a keyword search, because there is no womenswear category to link to, and the tile says so rather than pretending otherwise.

Sneakers from the catalogueSneakers CategoryJackets & Coats from the catalogueJackets & Coats CategoryHoodies from the catalogueHoodies CategoryA dark tee with a small embroidered logo, on a hangerT-Shirts CategoryJeans from the catalogueJeans CategoryA pair of black joggers photographed on a hangerSweatpants CategoryThree cropped button-front sweaters, since this tile runs a keyword search rather than a categoryWomenswear Search resultsFootball shirt shown in a product listingShirts & Jerseys CategoryBags from the catalogueBags CategoryA monogram bucket hatHats CategoryBelts from the catalogueBelts CategoryEyewear from the catalogueEyewear CategoryA bottle of Dior Sauvage eau de parfum. Most of this category is branded boxes and small leather goods rather than bottlesPerfume CategoryJewellery from the catalogueJewellery CategoryA display of Casio Baby-G watches in their boxesWatches CategoryElectronics from the catalogueElectronics Category

Why your English search sometimes returns nothing

The listings were written by Chinese sellers for Chinese buyers. The catalogue translates a lot of it, but not the words sellers actually use.

Searching "hoodie" works. Searching "techwear cargo with magnetic buckle" usually does not, because nobody listed it with those words. The fix is to search the way a seller would label the item: the garment type, the brand, the colour, and nothing else.

Two habits that help more than any trick. First, search the brand on its own and scroll, rather than describing the item. Second, if a category exists for the thing you want, browse it instead of searching it, because the category is maintained by hand and the search is not.

One category here is worth a warning. The shirts tile is labelled Shirts & Jerseys rather than Jerseys, because when we looked through what that category actually contains it was button up shirts and patterned overshirts, not football kit. The label follows the contents. The link still points where it always did.

What the tools on this site do, and what they cannot do

Three things here are interactive. None of them place an order for you.

  • The search box at the top of every page

    It queries the catalogue directly and opens the results. It searches products, not agents.

  • The destination picker on the shipping page

    Pick your country, your parcel weight, and what you care about, and it reads the sampled freight tables back to you. It is a lookup over numbers we sampled on a stated date, not a live quote.

  • The comparison tables

    Sortable by eye, not by script. Every figure carries its sampling date and a link back to the source so you can check whether it moved.

  • What none of them do: tell you the single best agent

    That answer does not exist in a form that survives your country, your parcel weight and three weeks of rate changes. The picker gives you a shortlist for your case instead.

If you want the reasoning behind that last one, the six things worth comparing sets out the method, and shipping and customs is where the picker lives.