Taobao

Taobao Marketplace

Taobao Marketplace logo
URL	www.taobao.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	C2C and E-commerce
Available language(s)	Chinese
Owner	Alibaba Group
Launched	May 2003 (2003-05)
Alexa rank	11 (November 2012)
Current status	Active

Taobao Marketplace (simplified Chinese: 淘宝网; traditional Chinese: 淘寶網; pinyin: Táobǎo Wǎng) is a Chinese language web site for online shopping, similar to eBay and Amazon, operated in the People's Republic of China by Alibaba Group.

Founded by Alibaba Group in May 10, 2003, Taobao Marketplace facilitates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online retail stores that mainly cater to consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Sellers are able to post new and used goods for sale on the Taobao Marketplace either through a fixed price or by auction. The overwhelming majority of the products on Taobao Marketplace are brand new merchandise sold at a fixed price; auctions make up a very small percentage of transactions. Buyers can judge the sellers’ credit from their selling prestige, or the history of comment and complaint.

History

Taobao Marketplace (formerly "Taobao") was launched in May 2003 by Alibaba Group after eBay acquired Eachnet, China’s online auction leader at the time, for US$180 million and became the major player in the Chinese consumer e-commerce market. To counter eBay’s expansion, Taobao offered free listings to sellers and introduced website features designed to better cater to local consumers, such as an instant messaging tool for facilitating buyer-seller communication and an escrow-based payment tool, Alipay. As a result, Taobao became the undisputed market leader in mainland China within two years. Its market share jumped from 8% to 59% between 2003 and 2005, while eBay China's slid from 79% to 36%. eBay had to shut down its own site in China in 2006.

In April 2008, Taobao introduced a dedicated B2C platform called Taobao Mall to complement its C2C marketplace. Since then, Taobao Mall has established itself as the destination for quality, brand name goods for Chinese consumers. Taobao Mall launched an independent web domain, tmall.com, and enhanced its focus on product verticals and improvements in shopping experience in November 2010. It became an independent business in June 2011 and changed its Chinese name to Tian Mao (Tmall) in January 2012.

In 2008, Taobao also announced the “Big Taobao” strategy with the aim of becoming a provider of e-commerce infrastructure services for all e-commerce market participants, hence fueling the overall growth of the online shopping industry.

In October 2010, Taobao beta launched eTao as an independent online shopping search engine, providing product and merchant information from a number of major consumer e-commerce websites in China.

In May 2011, Alibaba Group opened a physical furniture store in Beijing under the Taobao Mall brand. The five-story 25,000sqm Taobao Mall iFengChao Furniture Showroom opened as a complement to their online stores.

In June 2011, Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO Jack Ma revealed that Taobao will be split into three different companies:,Taobao Marketplace (a C2C platform), Tmall.com (a B2C platform; then called Taobao Mall), and eTao (a shopping search engine). The move was said to be necessary for Taobao to “meet competitive threats that emerged in the past two years during which the Internet and e-commerce landscape has changed dramatically.”

From 2012 onwards, Taobao began to accept international Visa and MasterCard credit cards; prior, only domestic banks were supported by AliPay. The plan to support international credit cards was announced in late 2011.

Services & Features

TMALL

On January 11, 2012, Taobao Mall was renamed "Tianmao". March 29, 2012 Tianmao introduced a new logo. Enable an independent domain, Taobao "Tianmao", by virtue of the new LOGO and image of Tianmao debut, Taobao Mall has finally completed the independent brand of three-step. As to occupy the country B2C online retail market share of more than 50% of the electricity provider platform, Taobao Mall independent means Alibaba Group subsidiaries in the positioning of the entire e-commerce ecosystem of increasingly improved. Three Amoy (a Amoy network Taobao and Taobao Mall) each focused direction, but with the same open and platform gene, is the leader in their respective fields, which is both independent and collaborative way layout for the entire electricity supplier in China market pattern of laying a new foundation. hustle and experience accumulated after four years, it is expected that there will be over one hundred companies in the Tianmao passed the one billion in annual sales in 2012, 2,000 companies with annual sales exceeded 10 million yuan.

Virtual recharge

Online shop business, there are two options, First sold in kind, and sell virtual items (selling cards, recharge QQ value-added services, and so on) Operating kind refers mostly net purchased items such as home, clothing, electrical appliances, electronic products and other items, because of its unique characteristics: large investment, logistics purchase shipping is required, operating costs, long cycle, is not conducive to the novice start operating characteristics. So people online open higher requirements. The business virtual goods prepaid recharge, QQ value-added services, Q point Q coins, game cards, etc., because he needs is a computer and an automatic recharge software, logistics purchase shipment is not required, so called virtual goods.

Development tendency

It finally will be a living tool instead of a business tool. Taobao will create a new employment mode. If you want to begin, you can open a shop in taobao at any time. You don't have to worry about sustain losses in business how to do, because the beginning is almost zero cost - has more than 300000 people in taobao success achieved this dream, they only on taobao set up shop business revenues, just enough to live a decent life, this group would be like snowball . At the same time, taobao launched this year focus on B2C mall, it will play a more and more important role in the whole Chinese economy in the future . The electronic commerce will significantly help enterprises to reduce the cost of sales - this is for the small and medium-sized industrial clusters provides in severe economic situation of a new survival may be. These small and medium-sized enterprise health degree will be greatly depends on the degree of China's employment market, economic growth speed and consumption growth ability, observers say, this kind of new breakthrough must from taobao . The ecological chain architecture is the original intention of Ma Yun - in a healthy economy, ChanPinXing enterprise stable growth can solve the macro economic operation pressure, and promote the formation of personal consumption society . The way to purchase goods you want Step1:order the goods Step2:pay the money for the goods(it means that you need to pay money to Alipay temporarily) Step3:wait the seller to send the goods Step4:confirm that you receive the goods(if you are satisfied with the goods, you can pay the money from Alipay to the seller) Concrete steps Step1:you can consult the seller about the goods with Internet and if you have no problems, you can click the button “prompt purchase” Step2:confirm the information: shipping address, the number you take, means of conveyance, and then you can click the button “purchase” Step3:you can enter “my taobao”—“I am the buyer”—“the goods I have bought” to check transaction record, and when you confirm everything, you can click “pay” Step4:you will enter the web page of payment. After you pay for the goods successfully, the transaction situation will turn to “the buyer have paid”, and you need to wait the seller to send the goods Step5:after the seller send the goods, transaction situation will turn to “the seller have sent ”. when you receive the goods and you are satisfied with it, you can click “confirm to receive” Step6:you need to enter the code of Alipay to pay money to the seller

Enterprise culture

Taobao advocate honest, active, fast network business culture, persist in "treasure can not be sought, but the honesty can't be abandoned."When making more secure and efficient network business platform for taobao members, taobao is also trying our best to create and promote mutually helpful, relaxed and lively family atmosphere at the same time. Each one who trades in taobao trades not only more quickly but also more efficiently, and makes more friends. In October 2005, taobao announced that in the future five years, they will create 1 million job opportunities for the community, helping more Internet users to be employed in taobao, even to venture. Until 2007, taobao has created more than 200000 direct employment post for the community . Especially under the 2008 financial crisis, through the consumption in taobao no matter quantity or amount are contrary and rising.

Staff handstand

The magazine said that the report in March 31, 2005 spent a great deal of time to describe alibaba, no, it point to the sign of taobao action, and it also put a lot of taobao employees’ handstand photo in the magazine. Mayun said, "We want to use such a way to tell all the people in taobao that eBay looks very big, but it is not invincible, if you see the world upside down, a lot of things is not the same. Of course, to see the world upside down, it becomes different "because Mayun has found a different world after he stood upside down , and this is related to that he loves wushu. The martial arts enthusiasts.

Mascot

Taobao’s mascot is the ants, and the ant culture is their culture! "We are the ant army ." Mayun has introduced taobao to the outside world. Mayun has used the word "ant army" in more than one occasion. It can be remembered that Mayun once organized more than 2000 employees at a gymnasium collective in alibaba to take part in the 5 th anniversary of the founding ceremony. At the party, taobao employees waved with taobao mascot—the flag of "ants". At the end of the celebration which lasts for 4 hours, each employee hand-in-hand, singing " If you do not experience wind and rain, how to see rainbow". " the ants that be organized together can beat the elephant". The secret of success Pre-marketing in nascent times of its establishment,taobao didn’t have the leading-edge advantage of the domestic C2S market,but due to the triumphant advertisement strategy,taobao successfully caught up on eBay in 2 years. (1）surround the cities from the countryside By putting advertisement on mini websites with a relatively low cost,taobao successfully introduced CSC to the vast number of consumers. (2)Build alliances with web portals as MSN Due to the immensely changed idea about consumers,taobao seized the opportunity to form allies. Build alliances with 21CN,Sohu,MSN,breaking the convention of monopoly. (3) Media Marketing Promoter Start with the Beijing international broadcast television week, taobao increased its popularity largely.Besides, taobao also auctioned the prop used in several films exclusively.By virtue of these method,taobao ingeniously created the cultural stir by the influence of the mass media.

Points of avoiding frauds

1. verify the authenticity of the seller’s credibility
2. look specifically at the buyers’ evaluation
3. make clear every detail of the goods before you decide to buy
4. watch out for the goods which sells at firesale prices
5. don't remit money to the other side of the bank card accounts
6. don't ever believe that winning scam
7. make clear terms of payment of the sellers
8. don't promise to trade face to face
9. take an in-depth online chatting with the seller

Alipay

Alipay (simplified Chinese: 支付宝; traditional Chinese: 支付寶; pinyin: Zhīfùbǎo), an escrow-based online payment platform, is the preferred payment solution for transactions on Taobao Marketplace.

AliWangWang (TradeManager)

A distinctive feature of shopping on Taobao Marketplace is the pervasive communication between buyer and seller prior to the purchase through its embedded proprietary instant chat program, named AliWangWang (Chinese: 阿里旺旺; pinyin: ĀlǐWàngWàng). It has become a habit among Chinese online shoppers to “chat” with the sellers or their customer service team through AliWangWang to inquire about products, engage in bargaining, etc., prior to purchasing products.

Happy Taobao

In Dec. 2009, Taobao together with Hunan TV set up Happy Taobao, Inc for television shopping. Not only did Hunan TV launch an entertainment called "Happy Taobao", Taobao Marketplace created channel and independent website, both of which were combine electronic commercial with TV media.

Others

Taobao Marketplace has introduced various new features and services in recent years to create a more holistic user experience for online shoppers and retailers. For instances, it launched the Taobao App Store in January 2010 to provide Taobao merchants and consumers with applications created by independent developers through the Taobao Open Platform; in March 2010, it introduced the Taobao Data Cube platform, which gives small businesses access to its aggregate consumer transactions data for insight into key industry trends; and in June 2010, it partnered with Wasu Media Internet Limited to launch a digital entertainment products platform Taohua and interactive digital television shopping, which are operated by a joint-venture formed by the two companies.

Metrics

Taobao Marketplace currently has more than 370 million registered users as of the end of 2010 and currently hosts more than 800 million product listings. it facilitated approximately RMB200 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2009. In May 2012, Taobao ranked 14th overall in Alexa's internet rankings.

Financials

In 2009 Taobao saw advertising revenues of $220 million. Advertising accounts for a majority of Taobao's income. Analysts believe Taobao's turnover exceeded 400 billion RMB in 2010 and revenues surpassed 5 billion RMB.

External links

• Official website (Chinese)