Is HooBuy legit? No service fee, but six things its site won't tell you

The short answer

HooBuy is a shopping agent: it buys for you on Weidian, Taobao or 1688 and ships you the parcel. On October 21, 2026, its help center listed no service fee, usually ¥8 for the customs declaration per parcel, and its calculator showed 5 lines to France, all marked "Tax Free". But six costs didn't show up anywhere without an account. On October 31, 2026, Trustpilot gave it 3.7 from 572 reviews. Start small and ask your questions before paying.

What is HooBuy, exactly?

HooBuy makes nothing and sells nothing in its own name. It's a middleman. You paste the link of a Weidian or Taobao item, often found in a Yupoo album. It buys it from the seller, receives it at its warehouse in China, shows you photos, then ships everything when you ask. On October 21, 2026, a Weidian item page opened on HooBuy without an account, with the title and the price in yuan.

It's a young agent. A World Trademark Review article from May 30, 2024 described it as a newcomer that showed up after Pandabuy shut down. Its Trustpilot profile has been claimed since May 2024. The seller stays the same whether you go through HooBuy or another agent. The full process is in How to buy from Yupoo: from album to parcel at your door, in 5 steps.

What we checked on its site

On October 21, 2026, we read its help center, its home page and its shipping calculator for a parcel to France. Here's what they said that day:

• Service fee: none in the help center's formula. Total cost = item price + international shipping + customs.
• Customs declaration: "usually 8.00 RMB per parcel", depending on the shipping method.
• Lines to France: 5 in the calculator, all marked "Tax Free". Two also showed "Insurance Available". Prices are in US dollars, the site's currency.
• On-time rate: 94.07% shown for the DHL Europe-F1 line. That's HooBuy's own figure, not an independent measure.
• Promos: the home page advertised a ¥1,000 coupon for new sign-ups and a shipping coupon pack. We didn't read the terms, so don't count on it as ¥1,000 off.
• EU customs: no notice about the €3 and €2 charges on the home page that day.

The six blind spots on October 21, 2026: free storage period, number of free QC photos, payment fees, per-item fees, consolidation price and insurance terms. None of it was readable without an account. Ask support before your first order.

What reviews say, and what they don't

On October 31, 2026, HooBuy had 572 Trustpilot reviews and a 3.7 score. The profile is claimed and the page says HooBuy invites its customers to leave a review. You'll find everything there: people happy with the speed, others complaining about an incomplete parcel or slow support. An average score says nothing about your own order. A few things to keep in mind:

• You're buying outside the European Union, from a Chinese seller. Returns are harder and pricier than in Europe.
• The agent checks what it sees in photos. It guarantees neither quality, nor size, nor authenticity. Reading the QC photos is up to you (see QC photos: GL or RL? The checklist before your parcel ships).
• Many "is HooBuy legit" pages come from sites that earn a commission on what you buy. Check who's writing before trusting a score.
• An agent doesn't shield you from the law: a counterfeit can be seized at customs, whatever the agent. More in Is Yupoo legit or a scam? What the law says, no sugar-coating.

What shipping a pair costs with HooBuy

Same example as our KakoBuy review (Is KakoBuy legit? What we actually checked): a pair of shoes at ¥300, or €39.60 at the October 31, 2026 rate (¥1 = €0.132). Yupa counts about 1,550 g with packaging, and most agents then bill 2 kg. Here's shipping alone, as HooBuy's calculator showed it for France:

Prices taken on October 21, 2026 from HooBuy's public calculator, in US dollars, duties and VAT included per the "Tax Free" label. Add the item price. Yupa's calculator doesn't know the first weight tier of these lines yet, so it doesn't rank them against other agents. The only HooBuy line it prices comes from a third-party estimate we haven't verified, so we don't use it to rank HooBuy.

What is a HooBuy spreadsheet?

Search for HooBuy and you'll quickly find "HooBuy spreadsheets". They are shared tables, often on Google Sheets, listing items with a photo, a price and a link. The link doesn't open the seller's album: it opens the item page on HooBuy, often with a referral code in the address. The author of the sheet then gets a cut of what you spend.

Handy for ideas. But a frozen list ages fast, while a search runs fresh every day:

• New items from sellers never make it in. As of October 30, 2026, 13,705 listings had been posted in 30 days in the stores Yupa follows (see Yupoo barometer).
• Links die: a removed item or a changed Weidian link, and the row leads nowhere.
• The price shown is from the day the row was added, not the day you order.
• It only shows one agent, and never the delivered price with shipping, customs and VAT.

Customs when you use HooBuy

Using an agent doesn't make customs go away. For a parcel under €150 in declared value, the European Union has charged a €3 duty per item category since July 1, 2026. From November 1, 2026, add a €2 handling fee per item. Your country's VAT is still due: 20% in France, 23% in Poland.

On a "Tax Free" line, HooBuy says it pays all of that inside the shipping price: nothing to pay the courier. On October 21, 2026, we saw no notice from HooBuy about the €2 fee, so check that your line covers it. Details in Customs on parcels from China in 2026: €3 duty, €2 fee, VAT, worked out.

Ordering with HooBuy without nasty surprises

• Start with a small order, one or two items, to see how photos and shipping go.
• Before paying, ask in writing for the free storage period, the number of free QC photos and the insurance terms.
• Read the QC photos before approving shipping. For sizing, keep Chinese sizes: a medium runs from 96 to 124 cm, here's how to get it right at hand.
• Compare the delivered price, not just shipping. The Delivered price calculator calculator puts the other agents side by side, line by line.
• Look at the full address of a link before clicking. If it has a referral code, someone gets paid on your order.
• Always pay on the agent's site, never by direct transfer to a seller you don't know.

Where Yupa fits in

Yupa has no link with HooBuy and earns no commission from it or any other agent. We search the sellers' own albums, show the seller's price in euros, and you then paste the item link into the agent of your choice, with no referral code.

Our comparison of HooBuy, KakoBuy, CNFans and others is in KakoBuy, CNFans, ACBuy, MuleBuy, HooBuy: shopping agents compared. And if you'd rather find the item first, Yupa search covers more than a million Yupoo listings, with the delivered price next to each one.