Alibaba is three marketplaces, and each one answers the proxy question differently. Alibaba.com is the group's site for buyers around the world, and it sets prices and delivery by the country you choose. 1688 is Alibaba's wholesale market for China, in Chinese, with its own sign-in. AliExpress is the retail site. For each of them Alibaba offers its own route to what people want a proxy for: a country setting, an open platform for data, a channel for brand owners. Alibaba.com's terms set the limits: no systematic retrieval by robots without written permission, and one account per user unless Alibaba approves more.
We read Alibaba Group's own descriptions, Alibaba.com's interface texts and robots.txt, and 1688's robots.txt and open platform from our server on October 13, 2026. Alibaba.com's rules now load through a script we did not run, so the rules below come from Internet Archive copies of March 2022, with the version dates they carry. We also read five pages that proxy and scraping sellers publish about Alibaba.
What people mean by an Alibaba proxy
Keyword Planner counts 20 searches a month worldwide for "alibaba proxy", by its figures of October 13, 2026. The questions around it are far larger. 1688 alone draws 1,000,000 searches a month and "1688 english" 6,600. Buying agents come next, with "taobao agent" at 3,600 and "1688 agent" at 590. The API draws 1,000 for "alibaba api" and 590 for "1688 api". Alibaba decides each of these questions with a site, a rule or a service, and the table names it.
What people mean by an Alibaba proxy, and what decides it
| What people search | What decides it | Does a proxy server change it? |
|---|---|---|
| 1688 english (6,600), 1688 global (1,900) | 1688 is a Chinese wholesale market with its own sign-in | no |
| taobao agent (3,600), 1688 agent (590) | companies that buy in China for you | no |
| china proxy (1,900), alibaba proxy (20) | the country an IP address points to | yes, and only that |
| alibaba api (1,000), 1688 api (590) | the 1688 Open Platform and Alibaba.com's open platform | no |
| alibaba change currency (70) | Alibaba.com's delivery setting | no, you choose the country |
| alibaba captcha (50) | Alibaba's checks and its terms on retrieval | this page does not cover that |
| alibaba scraper (90) | written permission under Alibaba.com's terms | no |
Google Keyword Planner, worldwide, October 13, 2026; Alibaba Group's descriptions, Alibaba.com's terms and interface texts, and the 1688 Open Platform, read October 13, 2026
Three marketplaces, three routes
Alibaba Group describes each site in its own words. Alibaba.com, launched in 1999, "has evolved into a leading platform for global business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce". In fiscal year 2024 it served more than 48 million small and medium businesses from over 190 countries and regions. 1688 is "China’s leading integrated domestic wholesale marketplace", and it has grown from B2B trade into buying services for small businesses and consumers. AliExpress, launched in 2010, is the retail site, and it runs in 16 languages.
| Who it serves | Route for buyers abroad | |
|---|---|---|
| Alibaba.com | global B2B trade; SMEs from over 190 countries | the site itself, with a delivery country you choose |
| 1688 | China's domestic wholesale market | a sign-in through Taobao; an open platform for software |
| AliExpress | global retail, in 16 languages | the site itself |
Country, currency and delivery on Alibaba.com
Alibaba.com lets you pick the market you see. Its header carries a delivery setting, and when your IP address points to another country, the page asks "Update to {ipCountryName}?" The explanation reads "It looks like you’re in {ipCountryName}, but current availability, pricing, and delivery options apply to {oldCountryName}". Two buttons follow, "Update" and "Keep current settings". The IP address only prompts the question. The delivery country you set decides what the page shows.
Your IP address
suggests a country
Alibaba.com asks
update, or keep current settings
You choose the delivery country
in the header
Availability, pricing, delivery
follow the country you chose
The same header carries a language prompt, "Switch to {0}?". A proxy in another country would only change the suggestion. The setting does the rest.
1688 from outside China
1688 is built for buyers in China, and its pages are in Chinese. We sent one plain request from our server in the United States to its home page. The answer was a short page whose script sends the visitor to the 1688 sign-in, and that sign-in forwards to Taobao's login. We made no further request. A Chinese IP address changes neither the sign-in nor the account behind it.
1688's robots.txt, last changed on September 21, 2026, sets its own limits. For every crawler without a section of its own, it closes any address with a query string and the /offer/ pages. Alibaba.com's robots.txt closes member contact pages, messages and trade pages to every crawler. It tells GPTBot and Google-Extended to stay out of the whole site.
1688 does run channels for cross-border trade. Its cross-border channel, 跨境专供, describes itself as a sourcing market for sellers on Amazon, eBay, Wish and AliExpress. For software, 1688 runs the Alibaba Open Platform (阿里巴巴开放平台) at open.1688.com. It offers API groups for members, products, shops, orders, payments and logistics. Registered software providers build on them, including tools that let 1688 buyers who sell on cross-border platforms pick products, list them, place orders and sync order data. That is Alibaba's route for automated work with 1688.
What Alibaba.com's terms say
Alibaba.com's rules now load in a script app, so the newest copies we could read are Internet Archive copies of March 2022. The Terms of Use in that copy took effect on April 30, 2021. They prohibit "Systematic retrieval of Site Content from the Sites to create or compile, directly or indirectly, a collection, compilation, database or directory (whether through robots, spiders, automatic devices or manual processes) without written permission from Alibaba.com". Members also promise not to take part in "any scheme to undermine the integrity of the data, systems or networks used by Alibaba.com".
On accounts the same terms are short. "Except with Alibaba.com’s approval, one User may only register one member account on the Sites." Alibaba.com may cancel an account if it suspects a user controls two or more. No member may share an account, even with colleagues in the same business. Members use the sites for business purposes only.
Counterfeits and brand protection
Alibaba.com's Product Listing Policy, version of June 30, 2021, prohibits "counterfeits, non-licensed replicas, or unauthorized items". Postings that offer to sell or purchase them are removed, and repeated postings bring the immediate suspension of a membership. Its IPR policy, updated on October 9, 2019, sends rights holders to one place: they "shall file intellectual property infringement claims via the IPP Platform", for centralized processing. That address now forwards to the IP protection platform of Taobao and Tmall Group.
Proxyhat's page on brand protection calls residential proxies "essential for scraping marketplaces at scale to detect regional counterfeit listings". It does name the IPP platform afterwards. Alibaba's own policy names only that channel.
What proxy and scraping sellers say
Webshare's guide says Alibaba is "not available in all regions" and offers its proxies for "unrestricted access to the Alibaba platform". Scrape.do writes that "Alibaba scraping requires bypassing anti-bot protection that blocks standard HTTP requests", and sells the bypass. Crawlbase is the one page of five that warns "Alibaba's terms place limits on automated access" and names the Open Platform, though it still sells a service that clears CAPTCHAs server-side. None of the five quotes the clause on systematic retrieval or the clause on one account per user.
Where HProxy fits
Alibaba.com needs no proxy to show you another market, and Alibaba allows systematic retrieval only with its written permission. HProxy sells proxies for other web work, for example seeing how a public page or an advert appears in another country. Residential proxies cost $0.44 per GB, and what a residential proxy is explains where their addresses come from. The Premium plan, at $1.00 per GB, targets cities and internet providers and can hold an address for up to 24 hours. ISP proxies give you one static address, mobile proxies run at $1.50 per GB, and a datacenter proxy is $1.58 per IP a month. All of them speak HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5, and the pricing page lists every plan. Before you rely on any address, run it through our proxy checker or the tests in how to check if a proxy is working. The free proxy list is fine for a short web test, and are free proxies safe explains why a business login does not belong on one.
What we could not find out
- The current text of Alibaba.com's Terms of Use, listing policy and IPR policy. The Rules Center loads them through a signed script that we did not run, so our copies date from March 2022.
- 1688's own user agreement. Its sign-in runs through Taobao, and we read no 1688 terms.
- When Alibaba's slider check appears. Alibaba publishes no rule for it that we found.
- Whether 1688 treats visitors from abroad differently from visitors in China. We made one request, from the United States.
- The documentation of Alibaba.com's open platform. Its pages at openapi.alibaba.com load by script.
- Which buying agents, if any, Alibaba works with for 1688. We found no list.
Our next check of Alibaba's pages is due by January 13, 2027.
Sources
Every page below was read on October 13, 2026, from our server or from an Internet Archive copy where the live page loads by script. Brackets give the date each page carries.
- Alibaba Group, its businesses in its own words (Alibaba.com December 1, 2025, 1688 January 22, 2026, AliExpress July 10, 2024).
- Alibaba.com, home page with its delivery country and language texts.
- Alibaba.com, robots.txt.
- 1688, robots.txt (changed September 21, 2026).
- 1688, home page, one request from our server.
- 1688, Alibaba Open Platform (阿里巴巴开放平台).
- 1688, cross-border supply channel (跨境专供).
- Alibaba.com, Terms of Use (effective April 30, 2021; archive copy of March 7, 2022).
- Alibaba.com, Product Listing Policy (version of June 30, 2021; archive copy of March 2, 2022).
- Alibaba.com, IPR Protection Policy (updated October 9, 2019; archive copy of March 2, 2022).
- Google Keyword Planner, monthly searches worldwide, October 13, 2026.
- Pages on the same questions, read on October 13, 2026, and not linked here: Webshare, Scrape.do, Crawlbase, Oxylabs and Proxyhat.
