Is there an operator on Taobao to exclude search terms?

[vellocet]

I'm looking for fresh zucchini and yellow squash, but everything I find are seeds.  I want to exclude 种子 from my search, but putting a - character in front doesn't do it.  Does Taobao even support this kind of search?  

[DavyJonesLocker]

On 3/21/2019 at 12:07 PM, vellocet said:

I'm looking for fresh zucchini and yellow squash, but everything I find are seeds.  I want to exclude 种子 from my search, but putting a - character in front doesn't do it.  Does Taobao even support this kind of search?  

 

Not that I'm aware of, but i am no expert on Taobao.  What are you searching for 西葫芦 , 黄葫芦?   It comes up with a long list vegtables when i search.  

 

One thing i find lacking in Chinese shopping apps is that there never seems to a "breadcrumb trail", so you can trace backwards, e.g. zucchinni -> vegetables -> fruit and veg -> fresh produce and so on. It seems pretty sloppy at best . I find especially on Taobao often there is no sensible 分类 category. 

I much prefer to stick to Jing Dong, its seems better laid out and more standardized. On JD I see you can sort  葫芦 by 蔬菜，种子，etc in the 全部分类 part

 

I run into too many problems with Taobao. 1 out of 3 times I have issues with them. An item listed but out of stock and they don't tell you, is the most common. 

[Tomsima]

If all else fails, theres my tried and tested method of finding things I don't know the correct search term for: Taobao is heavy on AI and tracking, so just search and then favourite a bunch of things to do with zucchinis, then frequently talk about zucchinis in chinese, clearly stating words like 新鮮 over the next few days, and you will 99% get fresh zucchinis suggested to you within a week...

 

I mean, if all else fails

[abcdefg]

For zucchini, try 小瓜 and 角瓜 if 西葫芦 doesn't return what you want. 

 

As to yellow squash, aka "summer squash,"  try 黄丝瓜 if the search term you're using now doesn't yield suitable results. 

 

I'll let someone else ask why you don't just buy them at a local market. 

[ChTTay]

Tomsima’s method is a good one! Sometimes if I’m searching for something and find a listing that’s similar I just wish list it or add it to my basket. Often exactly what I want will appear in my feed within a few days. 

 

I found out the hard way when buying something not quite right but acceptable then, after I’d bought it, the exact thing popping up in the app. 

 

Also, messing around with terms helps yield different results (much like any search, including google). You can also type a character or two and look at suggested results! 

[vellocet]

8 hours ago, abcdefg said:

I'll let someone else ask why you don't just buy them at a local market. 

Because they don't have them at the supermarkets.

 

I don't buy from local wet markets because God knows what's in that produce.  Farmers washing their fields with cadmium.  A friend of mine found some frozen chicken that was four years past its expiry date.  When he pointed this out to the seller - a woman he had known and bought from for 4 years - she laughed and removed the label from the box.  For what it's worth, I didn't see them at the local markets, either.   

 

So, nobody knows how to exclude search terms from Taobao?  To be honest, I'm not really looking for zucchini, I'm looking for how to search better.  A man who shops for a drill doesn't really need a drill, he needs holes.  

[Tomsima]

https://www.zhihu.com/question/45375203

it would seem there used to be a simple way to exclude search terms (adding - before the search term), but that feature has been removed. According to the posts in the zhihu thread, you can do it from a desktop, but im in the uk now, and it keeps redirecting me to world.taobao.com, which appears to have a different layout to the mainland site. Let us know if you have any success