Rhon's Guide to Getting the Most Out of Your Taobao Order

Choose Between Convenience and Savings:
How much is saving really worth to you, and how fast do you want your stuff?
Frugirls has very low service fees and discounted EMS shipping, but communication and money transfer (they don't do paypal) can take several days not including the order processing. You don't get updates as to where an item is, if it is in stock or needs to be made, unless you ask.
My-Lolita-Dress costs a lot more per item, but the shipping is about the same price and the cart system is very nice to use (though I suggest putting everything in the wishlist first as the site will spontaneously log you out and empty your cart if you're not fast enough). Their communication is faster and more clear than many other services' communication, and the items you order can arrive as quickly as three days provided everything's in stock. They also accept paypal and can order things for you from taobao that aren't available on their site, and work with people who have limited time to complete coords.

Group order:
Even if you only have three people to split the order with, it will help with shipping costs.
Most shopping services' carriers charge between $20-30 for sending a package at all (even if it's only a pair of socks) and then charge according to the weight afterwards.

For example, using EMS, a 5 kg (11 lb) package from frugirls costs a $5 fee, basic postage charges of $23.33, and then $56.25 for the additional weight for a shipping total of $84.58. Let's say you ordered 10 pairs of shoes altogether that all weighed the same, so weight-wise each pair of shoes is $5.63 extra.
We'll say your friends ordered 3 pairs of those shoes each.
From here you can choose to split the fees and basic charges by how many people ordered (certainly the easiest when there's more than three people) or according to the number of items you each purchased.
If you split the fees and basic charges between three people, you will save $18.89.
Enough for a purse, a wig, or most of a petticoat.

Dedicated Self Control:
Pick things carefully, compare it to what you already have or to what your goal was when you started shopping on Taobao, and do your best to stick to that. As an impulsive shopper, I would say that I have lost considerable amounts of time and money on things that I thought were fantastic at the moment but completely didn't fit my wardrobe or even an area that I was looking to expand.

The cliche quality over quantity is perfect here. It's easy to snatch 5 pairs of cheap wrist cuffs, and three purses that are only $13 each when you run the price through Google's currency converter. Then, overlooking the shipping and service fees, I'd delightedly boast "look how much I got!" Later it sinks in that I could have gotten a dream jsk for all of my uncontrolled clicking.