KakoBuy, CNFans, ACBuy, MuleBuy, HooBuy: shopping agents compared

What is a shopping agent?

Sellers on Yupoo albums sell through Weidian, Taobao or 1688, sites that rarely ship to Europe. A shopping agent sits in the middle: you paste the item link on its site, it buys the item in China, receives it at its warehouse, shows you quality-check (QC) photos, stores it while you group your purchases, then ships the parcel on the line you pick.

You pay the agent, not the seller. Depending on the agent, you pay a commission on the items, or only the shipping and the extras you choose. The full process is in Ordering from Yupoo: how it works, step by step.

Using an agent doesn't change customs: your parcel pays duty and VAT like any shipment from China, unless the agent pays them for you on a “duties included” line. Details in Customs on a parcel from China in 2026: what you'll pay.

The comparison, agent by agent

On 21 October 2026, we went through each agent's fee pages, help pages and shipping calculators, for a parcel delivered to France. “Not found” means the page was down, empty or behind a login that day. It doesn't mean free.

Yupa has no ties to these agents and earns no commission. No referral links, no promo codes on this page.

The fees people forget

The item price and shipping aren't everything. Here is what we found on the agents' pages on 21 October 2026:

• Commission: none at KakoBuy, OopBuy, HooBuy, USFans and Sugargoo. Superbuy charges nothing on Taobao, Tmall, JD and 1688, and 10% (¥10 to ¥20) on other platforms. Basetao takes 5% of the item price, Freight2France 15% plus handling fees.
• Customs declaration: usually ¥8 per parcel at KakoBuy, OopBuy and HooBuy, according to their help pages.
• Packing: ¥8 per parcel at Sugargoo.
• Extra photos: $0.33 per photo at Superbuy beyond the 3 free ones. At Freight2France, a QC video costs €1.50.
• Storage after the free period: ¥0.1 per item per day at Superbuy, ¥10 per 30 days at OopBuy. At KakoBuy, a parcel left more than 100 days is treated as abandoned and destroyed.
• Rounded weight: agents bill up to the next weight step. A boxed pair of shoes, estimated at 1,550 g, is billed as 2,000 g on every line in our example below.

A “duties included” line (“tax free”, “duty-prepaid”, “tariffless”) means the agent pays customs and VAT for you: it's built into the shipping price. On other lines, you pay them on delivery.

Is KakoBuy legit? CNFans, MuleBuy and the others

Nobody can vouch for an agent, and we don't rate anyone. Here is only what we could check on their websites on 21 October 2026.

• KakoBuy: public fee page (no service fee, usually ¥8 customs declaration per parcel). 100 days of storage, with a reminder email at 90 days. Three dated notices on EU customs: 22 June, 30 June and 20 October 2026. In the last one, KakoBuy says it will cover the €2 fee from 1 November on eligible parcels.
• CNFans: the site showed a maintenance notice citing repeated cyberattacks. No rates could be read that day.
• ACBuy: the home page promises 3 to 5 free QC photos and 90 days of storage, with a notice dated 18 June 2026 on the new EU duty. The fee pages were empty without an account.
• MuleBuy: the home page stayed blank, with no content at all. Nothing could be checked.
• HooBuy: the help centre breaks down the cost (item, international shipping, customs) with no service fee. Its 5 lines to France are all marked “Tax Free”.
• Superbuy: detailed fee page, 3 free photos, 90 days of storage, free parcel consolidation. The site shows each line's on-time rate: 61% on the DHL Economy line, advertised at 10 to 15 days.
• Sugargoo: no commission, 7 free photos, 100 days of storage. Its notice of 16 October 2026 counts the new EU fee as €2 per declared item, on top of the €3.
• OopBuy: help pages worded exactly like KakoBuy's, no service fee, 90 days of storage. LitBuy: its site says it is run by LITBUY LIMITED (UK) and IYFENIX SARL (Paris); its fee page could not be read.
• USFans: no service fee on the usual platforms, 3 to 7 free photos, 90 days of storage.
• Basetao: 5% commission, 120 days of storage, insurance at 2% or 4% of the value. Its customs page says duties and taxes are paid by the recipient, although some lines in its calculator are marked “tax free”: ask before paying.
• CSSBuy: the home page promises 3 to 5 free photos, 90 days of storage and over 150 lines, but the calculator requires an account.
• PandaBuy: the site wouldn't load. AllChinaBuy: maintenance notice after a hacker attack.
• Hegobuy, JoyaBuy, LoongBuy, MixBuy: we couldn't read their rates, so we say nothing about them.

Before a first order with any agent: check that the site works normally, read its fee page and start with a small order.

What is a KakoBuy, CNFans or ACBuy spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet is a shared table, often on Google Sheets, listing items with a photo, a price and a link. They circulate on Reddit, Discord and TikTok under an agent's name: “kakobuy spreadsheet”, “cnfans spreadsheet”, “acbuy spreadsheet”.

The link doesn't open the seller's album. It opens the item's page at one specific agent, often with a referral code in the address.

Handy for browsing, but it has limits:

• A frozen list: it shows what its author found on the day they made it. New items from sellers never get in.
• Dead links: an item taken down, a Weidian or Taobao link that changes, and the row leads nowhere.
• Stale prices: the price shown dates from the day the row was added. The only price that counts is the seller's on the day you order.
• One agent only: the list is often built by the agent itself or by its affiliates, who earn a commission on your purchases. It won't tell you that another agent is cheaper.
• No delivered price: no shipping, no customs, no VAT for your country.

To spot an affiliate link, look at the full address before clicking: if it leads to an agent and carries a referral or invite code, the author gets paid when you order.

Why an up-to-date search engine does better

Yupa starts from the other end: the sellers' own albums. The engine follows 217 Yupoo stores, where 13,705 listings were posted in the last 30 days (checked on 30 October 2026, see Yupoo barometer). A frozen list sees none of them.

• The price comes from the seller's album, converted to euros, not copied by hand.
• Every item links to the seller's album. You then paste its Weidian, Taobao or 1688 link into the agent of your choice, with no referral code.
• The delivered price is worked out agent by agent and line by line, with your country's customs and VAT (see Delivered price calculator).
• Options are ranked by delivered price, not by a deal with an agent.

Example: a pair at ¥300 on 30 October 2026

On 30 October 2026, we asked Yupa's calculator (Delivered price calculator) for the delivered price of a pair of shoes at ¥300, which is €39.60 at that day's rate (¥1 = €0.132). The parcel is estimated at 1,550 g with packaging and billed as 2,000 g. The calculator finds 93 options (one agent plus one shipping line). Some of the cheapest ones whose rate was taken from the agent's own site:

On these lines the agent pays customs and VAT, so the price Yupa works out is the same in all 8 countries covered. Shipping rates were taken from the agents' calculators on 21 October 2026, for delivery to France. To another country a line can cost more or less: always check the final price with the agent before paying.

Choosing an agent for your country

Yupa's calculator covers 8 countries: France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Poland. What changes from one country to the next is mainly import VAT, paid on lines without taxes included. The same pair at ¥300 on the CSSBuy KLK-Express Rail line (€15.00 shipping, 30 to 40 days, estimated rate), checked on 30 October 2026:

Figures from 30 October 2026, before the €2 per item fee of 1 November 2026: on lines without taxes included, add €2 per item plus VAT on those €2.

How to choose, in practice

• Compare the delivered price, not the shipping price: in Poland, this line with €15.00 shipping ends up at €70.85, more than the Superbuy line with €24.59 shipping, customs and VAT included, at €64.19.
• For a fixed price with nothing to pay the courier, pick a “duties included” line. Otherwise, count the customs duty, the €2 per item fee from 1 November 2026 and your country's VAT (see Customs on a parcel from China in 2026: what you'll pay).
• Check that the line delivers to your country and redo the calculation on the agent's site with your address: most of our line rates were taken for France.
• Look at the delivery time: in our example, the slowest line (45 to 60 days) cost €6.76 more than the cheapest one (14 to 21 days).
• Outside the European Union (UK, Switzerland, United States…), customs rules are different and the calculator doesn't cover them.