You will have to find someone who:
1) Understands logistics, most logistics companies in China absolutely do not understand logistics, and even less understand it at a low volume level. Most freight companies in China and Hong Kong consist of someone that bought a
2) Has an "in" at a local large volume shipping company that uses Federal Express, China Post, HK Post, UPS, which is almost an oxymoron because most companies doing large volume are sending stuff out themselves as LCL (Less than Container Load) and not a bunch of medium sized boxes. If they don't, they will be forced to using crappy rates provides by EMS which is like 240 RMB for the first 500g of weight, and 70 RMB for the next following 500g. So, in essence, shipping something 1 KG (about 2 pounds ) is going to cost you about $50 USD, and if they are able to get an amazing 30% discount (even though they are really getting a 50% discount, they won't pass this savings on to you) is $35 USD - at this rate, it's unlikely you are going to profit on anything but some replicas or something.
3) Lives in Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Everywhere is more expensive, and it will all get shipped through HK anyways. If you want to ship from Shanghai (which is where I am from) its going to cost more, and it will take an extra 1-3 days to get from Shanghai to HK.
4) Has some kind of experience, otherwise you are fucked. If forms aren't filled out properly, people aren't going to be like "Oh, you forgot to sign here and here" - nobody cares, and whatever you buy will sit and rot in a warehouse or until someone steals/claims it.
5) TaoBao doesn't work like eBay, westerners don't seem to understand this. A lot of people have items up for sale they put up like 2 years ago, and as you may already know, what we consider "dropshipping" the Chinese consider a completely normal way of doing business. People absolutely avoid saying "Hey, I can't give you 10 of these, I can only give you 5" - so what they will do is take the payment for all 10, send you 5, and then wait until there is an alipay dispute or make you hold off until you can no longer get your money back. - or, they will give you extra crap you didn't want. I've got probably $20k worth of crap I have no use for like stickers I was given instead of stuff I actually ordered. There's no real consequences for not sending exactly what was ordered. So you need someone who can be abrasive and put their foot down and not only threaten to take the money back, but to actually know how to.
