Reservations and draws: entries that belong to a named account
A reservation or a draw hands out the right to buy, and that right belongs to the account that booked or entered. An agent order can reach the stock around it, rarely the entry itself.
Reservations and draws
Some sales ration the right to buy rather than the stock. A reservation, 预约, asks buyers to book during a window before the sale; only accounts that booked may check out when it opens, and the button for everyone else stays grey. A draw, 抽签, goes further: entrants register, a random draw picks the winners, 中签, and only winners get a short window to pay.
Both are tied to the account that booked or entered, and draws are usually tied to a verified person: a real-name check on the account, a phone number, sometimes an address. The design is one chance per person, which is the point of a draw and the reason an agent account fits badly.
The booking window comes before the sale
A reservation is recorded against an account before the sale opens. Paying CNFans afterwards cannot add one, because the purchaser's account either booked during the window or did not. If the listing you want shows 已预约 counts or a booking deadline that has already passed, the agent route is closed for that sale.
If the booking window is still open, ask the agent before paying whether its buying account can book on your behalf. The archived CNFans pages did not mention reservations, so the answer has to come from the agent at the time.
Draw entries tied to a person
Draw rules commonly require a verified account, a phone number that receives a code, and sometimes a delivery address fixed at entry. Winning gives that account a short window to buy. In practice a purchaser cannot enter a draw for a customer, because the entry belongs to whoever owns the account.
So this is one of the cases where it is better to use a different route. If a listing can only be bought by a drawn winner on their own account, no agent order will reach it. The honest choices are to enter on an account of your own where that is possible for you, to wait for stock that is sold without a draw, or to choose another item.
After a win, a short window to pay
Winners usually have a short time to pay before the right passes on, often measured in hours rather than days. Taobao's general timeout rules close an ordinary unpaid order after 24 hours, but draw pages set their own windows and the shorter one applies. A win that is not paid in time is simply lost.
For an agent order this only matters in the rare case where the agent account entered and won for you. If an agent offers that, ask how it is decided whose order a win belongs to, and what happens to your payment if the account does not win.
What an agent can still do around a draw
Draws often cover a single colour or a first run, and the rest of a range may sell normally. After the draw, unclaimed stock is sometimes released for general sale. Those are the places where an agent order works: the parts of a range that need no entry, and the stock that returns once winners have paid.
Ask the agent to buy only if the item is on general sale when your order is reached, and to cancel rather than wait for a draw. That keeps your money from sitting in an order that cannot complete.
Draw and reservation words, Chinese to English
These words appear on booking and draw pages and on the agent's copy of them. Knowing them tells you within seconds whether a listing needs an entry:
- 预约 reservation; 已预约 booked, often with a count of bookings
- 抽签 draw; 登记 register for the draw
- 中签 won the draw; 未中签 not drawn
- 实名认证 real-name verification of the account
- 购买资格 the right to buy, which is what a draw hands out