You can not see it's drape or even it's true color.
And you certainly can not smell it. Lots of the on-line fabrics have a weird odor when you take them out of the box.
Fabrics from China are risky anytime but buying them on-line is down right asking to be poisoned.
Not true at all. China makes the best fabric in the world...and the worst, depending on what the customer is willing to pay. If a company is buying cheap clothes, say, for the Latin American market, maybe they cut corners and look for some cheap Chinese factory with the lowest price - regardless of what petroleum-smelling plastic-feeling textiles they are using. But down the street. another Chinese factory is making ultra high-end natural fiber fabrics for Fendi.
Like I said, you have to know what you are looking for. Fabric Depot wouldn't stay in business very long if what they re-sell in the USA was poisoning consumers. It's the same with clothes, consumer electronics, and almost everything else available online.