Taobao

Taobao (simplified Chinese: 淘宝网; acceptable Chinese: 淘寶網; pinyin: Táobǎo Wǎng) is a Chinese accent web armpit for online shopping, agnate to eBay, Rakuten and Amazon,2 operated in the People's Republic of China by Alibaba Group.

Founded by Alibaba Group in May 2003, Taobao facilitates business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by accouterment a belvedere for businesses and alone entrepreneurs to accessible online retail food that mainly baby to consumers in acreage China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.3

History

Taobao was launched in May 2003 by Alibaba Group afterwards eBay acquired Eachnet, China’s online bargain baton at the time, for US$180 actor and became the above amateur in the Chinese customer e-commerce market.4 To adverse eBay’s expansion, Taobao offered chargeless listings to sellers and alien website appearance advised to added good baby to bounded consumers, such as an burning messaging apparatus for facilitating buyer-seller advice and an escrow-based acquittal tool, Alipay. As a result, Taobao became the acknowledged bazaar baton in acreage China aural two years. Its bazaar allotment jumped from 8% to 59% amid 2003 and 2005, while eBay China's slid from 79% to 36%.5 eBay had to shut bottomward its own armpit in China in 2006.

In April 2008, Taobao alien a committed B2C belvedere alleged Taobao Mall to accompaniment its C2C marketplace. Since then, Taobao Mall has accustomed itself as the destination for quality, cast name appurtenances for Chinese consumers. In November 2010, Taobao Mall launched an absolute web domain, tmall.com, with an added focus on artefact verticals and improvements in arcade experience. The armpit currently appearance articles from added than 30,000 above bunch and Chinese brands.

In May 2010, Taobao and Yahoo Japan launched a cross-border retail action that allows Chinese consumers to acquirement Japanese articles from Yahoo Japan arcade and Japanese consumers to acquirement Chinese articles from Taobao. For the Chinese consumers, Taobao launched a Chinese-language aperture alleged TaoJapan alms Japanese products. For Japanese consumers, Yahoo Japan added a Japanese-language aperture alleged "China Mall" to its arcade platform. However, in band with import/export restrictions in both countries, assertive articles are not accessible to non-local buyers; for example, adaptable phones listed on Yahoo Auctions are not agitated over to TaoJapan and assertive name-brand appurtenances listed on Taobao do not backpack over to Yahoo Japan's China Mall.

In October 2010, Taobao beta launched eTao as an absolute online arcade chase engine, accouterment artefact and merchant advice from all above customer e-commerce websites in China.

In June 2011, Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO Jack Ma appear that Taobao will be breach into three altered companies: eTao (to be acclimated for arcade searches), Taobao Mall (a B2C platform), and Taobao Exchange (a C2C platform).6

Services & Features

Taobao Marketplace

Sellers are able to column fresh and acclimated appurtenances for bargain on the Taobao Marketplace either through a anchored amount or by auction. The cutting majority of the articles on Taobao are cast fresh commodity awash at a anchored price; auctions accomplish up a actual baby allotment of transactions.

edit Taobao Mall

Taobao Mall logo

Taobao Mall (simplified Chinese: 淘宝商城; acceptable Chinese: 淘寶商城; pinyin: Táobǎo Shāngchéng) was aboriginal alien by Alibaba Group in April 2008 as a committed B2C belvedere aural Taobao. Back then, Taobao Mall has accustomed itself as an online aperture for arch bounded and all-around brands to ability out to the growing Chinese chump abject as able-bodied as the destination for calm online shoppers to acquirement quality, cast name goods.

In November 2010, Taobao Mall alien an absolute web domain, tmall.com, to differentiate listings by Taobao Mall merchants, who are either cast owners or accustomed distributors, from Taobao’s C2C merchants. Meanwhile, it kicked off a US$30 actor announcement attack to accession cast acquaintance amid consumers.7 It additionally appear an added focus on artefact verticals and improvements in arcade experience.

Brands that accept accustomed flagship food on Taobao Mall accommodate P&G, adidas, UNIQLO, GAP, Nine West, Reebok, Ray-Ban, Fresh Balance, Umbro, Lenovo, Dell, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Logitech and Lipton.

edit Alipay

Alipay (simplified Chinese: 支付宝; acceptable Chinese: 支付寶; pinyin: Zhīfùbǎo), an escrow-based online acquittal platform, is the adopted acquittal band-aid for affairs on Taobao.

edit AliWangWang

A characteristic affection of arcade on Taobao is the common advice amid client and agent above-mentioned to the acquirement through its anchored proprietary burning babble program, called AliWangWang (Chinese: 阿里旺旺; pinyin: ĀlǐWàngWàng). It has become a addiction amid Chinese online shoppers to “chat” with the sellers or their chump account aggregation through AliWangWang to analyze about products, appoint in acceding above-mentioned to acquirement products.

edit Others

Taobao has alien assorted fresh appearance and casework in contempo years. For instances, it launched the Taobao App Store in January 2010 to accommodate Taobao merchants and consumers with applications created by absolute developers through the Taobao Open Platform;8 in March 2010, it alien the Taobao Abstracts Cube platform, which gives baby businesses admission to its accumulated chump affairs abstracts for acumen into key industry trends;9 and in June 2010, it partnered with Wasu Media Internet Limited to barrage a agenda ball articles belvedere Taohua and alternate agenda television shopping, which are operated by a joint-venture formed by the two companies.10.

In October 2011, Taobao has accomplished two alternating after-effects of online rioting11 back it decidedly added fees on online vendors 12. The account fees aloft from 6,000 yuan ($940) to as abundant as 60,000 yuan ($9,400) a year, and a compulsatory anchored sum drop gone from 10,000 yuan ($1,570) to up to 150,000 yuan ($23,500)13

Users

Taobao appear added than 370 actor registered users as of the end of 2010 and currently hosts added than 800 actor artefact listings.14 In May 2011, Taobao ranked 15th all-embracing in Alexa's internet rankings.15

Financials

In 2009 Taobao saw announcement revenues of $220 million. Announcement accounts for a majority of Taobao's income. Analysts accept Taobao's about-face exceeded 400 billion RMB in 2010 and revenues surpassed 5 billion RMB.16

In January 2010, Alibaba Group said it expects gross commodity aggregate on Taobao to bifold from 200 billion Chinese yuan in 2009 to 400 billion Chinese yuan in 2010, as China’s e-commerce bazaar is accepted to abound decidedly in the abutting bristles to eight years.17