Tigbuy's service charge: what it is worked out on, and where it drops
Tigbuy adds one fee of its own to bought items: a percentage of the item price plus the China freight. This page takes that formula apart, shows a second fee page that leaves it out, and lists the order types where the percentage is lower or absent.
The formula on Tigbuy's fee page
The help article Tigbuy files under “For New beginners”, help 58, lists four parts of an order total: the product price, the China freight, the international freight and a service fee. Its last line is the one this whole site is built on. The service charge is the product price plus the China freight, multiplied by ten percent, and members on the Gold, Platinum and Diamond levels pay eight, seven and six percent instead.
We read the same article in Chinese, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian on 17 October 2026. Every copy carries the same four rates and the same two-part base, so there is no language in which the rule reads differently.
Two things follow from the wording. First, the charge is a share of what you spend inside China: a jacket at ¥200 with ¥12 of domestic shipping carries ¥21.20 at the standard rate, however heavy it is. Second, international freight is not part of the base. The weight of the parcel, the line you choose and the customs clearing cost all move the freight, and none of them moves the service charge.
China freight sits inside the base
China freight is the postage a seller charges to send an item from its shop to Tigbuy’s warehouse. It is paid with the item when you submit an order to buy, and it is the second half of the service charge base. A ¥60 tee with ¥10 of freight is a ¥70 base, not a ¥60 one.
The Fill & Buy form makes this visible. On that page (tigbuy.com/expertbuy, where Tigbuy’s buyers order an item you describe by link, title and photos), the fee block has exactly three boxes: Price (RMB), Domestic Shipping (RMB) and Quantity. The first two are the base this page is about.
The domestic shipping box opens with 12 already typed in. Treat it as a starting value, not a quote. Sellers set their own postage, many on Taobao and Weidian send for free inside China, and a few charge more for bulky items. Type the figure from the listing, because whatever you enter there flows into the service charge later.
Several orders from one seller, one domestic freight
Tigbuy answers one freight question directly in help 62: if you place several orders with the same seller and submit them to buy at one time, it will combine the domestic freight for you. The seller then posts one box to the warehouse instead of three, and the base carries one postage charge instead of three.
An example with invented prices: three items at ¥80, ¥60 and ¥45 from one shop that lists ¥10 of postage on each. Bought on three different days, the base is ¥215 and the standard charge is ¥21.50. Bought together and combined, the base is ¥195 and the charge is ¥19.50, assuming the shop charges one postage for the lot. Some shops charge a little more for a heavier box, so the saving depends on the seller.
The combining happens at the buying step, days before any delivery request. That is why the fee board on this site has a “bought together with the item above” switch: it removes the second postage from the base rather than pretending the warehouse can merge freight after the fact.
A second Tigbuy fee page that leaves the charge out
Tigbuy has another article on fees, help 17, titled “Cost and Fees” and listed under Operator guide. Its total has three parts only: what the item costs, what the seller charges to post it to the warehouse, and international freight. It then defines those three parts in nearly the same words as help 58. The service fee is simply missing.
We follow help 58. It is the page that carries the formula, it matches the five other language copies, and the charge it describes is confirmed by a separate article on when that charge is taken. The two articles are inconsistent; the dated formula and your actual checkout should be checked before payment.
The practical risk is a budget that comes out short. Someone who plans from help 17 alone will be surprised by an extra ten percent of the in-China spend at the delivery request, or eight, seven or six percent on a member level. If you keep a running list of what a haul will cost, add that line yourself.
Two order types with a lower charge or none
Two exceptions are written down. The first is Ship for Me, where you buy from a Chinese shop yourself, send the parcel to Tigbuy’s warehouse and let Tigbuy forward it. help 27 puts it plainly: the only difference from a normal order is that Ship for Me has no service fee. Tigbuy has not bought anything for you, so there is no purchase to take a percentage of.
The second is for resellers. help 25, written for people who sell on eBay, Amazon and similar platforms, offers a two percent service fee once you send Tigbuy your store for review. The same article promises half a year of free storage, which clashes with the ninety days in help 10; we treat help 10 as the storage rule.
Everything else on this site assumes a normal order that Tigbuy buys for you, which is what most catalogue finds turn into.
What stays outside the base
A Tigbuy order collects several amounts, and only two of them are inside the service charge base. Keeping the rest outside in your head makes the percentage easy to check.
- Inside the base: the item price and the China freight, both paid when you submit the order to buy.
- Outside, at the delivery request: international freight (help 9 (“When should I pay the shipping fee?”, listed under Operator guide)), the optional parcel cover at three percent of the value you insure (help 43), and any packing option, whose prices Tigbuy shows on the order page rather than in its help centre.
- Outside, at payment: a payment-processing fee that depends on the method and is shown at checkout.
- Outside Tigbuy entirely: import duty or tax in your country, which the recipient pays (help 30).
None of these is multiplied by the member rate. A bigger parcel, a pricier line or a dearer payment method raises what you pay, but the service charge line stays where the item prices put it.
Worked charges at each member rate
The table runs four invented baskets through the help 58 formula. Prices are examples, not quotes from any listing; the percentages are Tigbuy’s. Rounding is to the fen, and Tigbuy’s checkout may round a single item differently, so expect the odd one-fen gap.
| Example item | Base | Standard | Gold | Platinum | Diamond |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tee, ¥45 + ¥8 | ¥53.00 | ¥5.30 | ¥4.24 | ¥3.71 | ¥3.18 |
| Hoodie, ¥139 + ¥10 | ¥149.00 | ¥14.90 | ¥11.92 | ¥10.43 | ¥8.94 |
| Jacket, ¥260 + ¥15 | ¥275.00 | ¥27.50 | ¥22.00 | ¥19.25 | ¥16.50 |
| Bag, ¥420 + ¥0 | ¥420.00 | ¥42.00 | ¥33.60 | ¥29.40 | ¥25.20 |
Two patterns are worth noticing. The gap between levels is small on cheap items and real on expensive ones: on the ¥420 bag, Diamond saves ¥16.80 against the standard rate, on the tee it saves ¥2.12. And free domestic shipping helps twice, once on the postage and once on the ten percent of it you no longer pay.
