Taobao

Taobao (simplied Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Tobo Wng; literally: searching for treasure website) is a Chinese website for online
shopping similar to eBay and Amazon* [3] that is operated in China by Alibaba Group.

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. As of October 2013 it was the
eighth most visited web site in China.* [9]

Founded by Alibaba Group on May 10, 2003, Taobao

Marketplace facilitates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online stores that mainly
cater to consumers in Chinese-speaking regions (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) and also
abroad.* [4]

In 2008, Taobao fueled the overall growth of the Chinese

online shopping industry through execution of the Big
Taobaostrategy with the aim of becoming a provider
of e-commerce infrastructure services for all e-commerce
market participants.
In October 2010, Taobao beta launched eTao as an independent searching engine for online shopping, providing product and merchant information from a number of
major consumer e-commerce websites in China. Online
shoppers can use the site to compare prices from dierent sellers and identify products to buy. According to the
Alibaba Group web site, eTao oers products from Amazon China, Dangdang, Gome, Yihaodian, Nike China and
Vancl, as well as Taobao and Tmall.* [6]

With around 760 million product listings as of March

2013, Taobao Marketplace is one of the worlds top 10
most visited websites according to Alexa.* [5] For the year
ended March 31, 2013, the combined gross merchandise
volume (GMV) of Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com
exceeded 1 trillion yuan.* [6]
Sellers are able to post goods for sale either through a
xed price or auction. Auctions make up a small percentage of transactions. The majority of the products are new
merchandise sold at xed prices. Buyers can assess seller
backgrounds by information available on the site, including ratings, comments and complaints.

In May 2011, Alibaba Group opened a retail store in

Beijing under the Taobao Mall brand. The ve-story
25,000sqm Taobao Mall iFengChao Furniture Showroom opened as a complement to their online stores.

In June 2011, Alibaba Group Executive Chairman and

former CEO Jack Ma announced that Taobao would split
into three dierent companies: Taobao Marketplace (a
C2C platform), Tmall.com (a B2C platform; then called
1 History
Taobao Mall), and eTao (a search engine for online shopping). The move was said to be necessary for Taobao to
Taobao Marketplace (formerlyTaobao) was launched
meet competitive threats that emerged in the past two
in May 2003 by Alibaba after eBay acquired Eachnet,
years during which the Internet and e-commerce landChinas online auction leader at the time, for USD 180
scape has changed dramatically.* [10]
million and became a major player in the Chinese consumer e-commerce market.* [7] To counter eBays ex- From 2012 onward, Taobao began to accept international
pansion, Taobao oered free listings to sellers and intro- Visa and MasterCard credit cards;* [11] prior, only doduced website features designed to act in local consumers' mestic banks were supported by AliPay.* [12]
best interests, such as instant messaging for facilitating On April 29, 2013, Alibaba announced an investment of
buyer-seller communication and an escrow-based pay- USD 586 million in Sina Weibo. According to Reuters,
ment tool, Alipay. As a result, Taobao became mainland the deal should drive more web trac to Alibaba's
China's undisputed market leader within two years. Its Taobao Marketplace, China's largest e-commerce webmarket share surged from 8% to 59% between 2003 and site with a consumer focus.* [13] On August 1, 2013,
2005, while eBay China plunged from 79% to 36%.* [8] Alibaba launched Weibo for Taobao, which allows users
EBay shut down its China site in 2006.
to link Sina Weibo accounts with Taobao accounts.* [14]
In April 2008, Taobao introduced a newly dedicated B2C
platform called Taobao Mall to complement its C2C marketplace. Taobao Mall 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

2 Services and features

1

2.1

Tmall.com

Tmall.com oers a shopping experience for increasingly

auent Chinese consumers that oers them the opportunity to buy Western brands. According to the Alibaba
Group web site, these brands include UNIQLO, LOral,
adidas, P&G, Unilever, Gap, Ray-Ban, Nike and Levi's).
Again, according to the Alibaba Group site, Tmall.com
and Taobao Marketplace set a record for highest singleday transaction volume during a special promotion on
November 11, 2012, facilitating the sales of goods totaling RMB19.1 billion on the day. For the year ended
March 31, 2013, the company claimed that combined
gross merchandise volume (GMV) of the two platforms
exceeded RMB1 trillion.* [6]

2.2

Mascot

Taobaos mascot is an ant, which represents their corporate culture. Ma introduced Taobao to the outside world
by stating, We are the ant army.Ma once organized
more than 2,000 employees at a gymnasium to celebrate
the 5th anniversary of the founding ceremony. At the
party, Taobao employees waved the Taobao mascot the
ag ofants.At the end of the celebration that lasted for
four hours, all the employees stood hand-in-hand, singing
If you do not experience wind and rain, you cannot see
the rainbow. The ants that be organized together can beat
the elephant.

2.3

Shop feedback

To thoroughly investigate a Taobao shop, a good way is

to view its feedback by clicking the shop's rating icon.
For Tmall.com shops, people click the stars to view their
ratings. Taobao users usually spend time to read feedback
and compare items of one shop with those of others.* [15]

SERVICES AND FEATURES

2.5 AliWangWang (TradeManager)

A distinctive feature of shopping on Taobao Marketplace
is the ease of communication between buyer and seller
prior to the purchase through its embedded proprietary
instant chat program, named AliWangWang (Chinese:
; pinyin: lWngWng). It has become a habit
among Chinese online shoppers to interact with the sellers
through AliWangWang to inquire about products and to
bargain prior to purchasing products.

2.6 Happy Taobao

In Dec. 2009, Taobao, together with Hunan TV, set up
Happy Taobao, Inc for television shopping. Hunan TV
launched an entertainment series calledHappy Taobao
, while Taobao Marketplace created channels and independent websites.

2.7 Other services

Taobao Marketplace introduced various features and services to create a better user experience for online shoppers and retailers. For instance, in January 2010, it
launched the Taobao app, created by independent developers through the Taobao Open Platform, to be downloaded by consumers in Taobao App Store.* [17]
In March 2010, it introduced the Taobao Data Cube platform, which gives small businesses access to its aggregate consumer transactions data for insight into industry
trends.* [18]
In June 2010, it partnered with Wasu Media Internet
Limited to launch Taohua, a digital entertainment products platform, and interactive digital television shopping,
that are operated by a joint-venture formed by the two
companies.* [19]

2.8 Taobao agents

2.4

Alipay

Taobao agent helps foreigners to buy products. It gathers online shoppers in China, attracted by millions of catLaunched in 2004, Alipay (simplied Chinese: egories and Price Absolute Advantage. Shopping agent
; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Zhfbo), services benet all foreign customers. Agents are uent
an escrow-based online payment platform, is the pre- in many languages. Agents are particularly popular in
ferred payment solution for transactions on Taobao Mar- Southeast Asia.
ketplace. It is the most widely used third-party online
payment solution in China.* [16] To ensure safe transactions, Alipay uses an escrow system through which pay- 2.9 Chinese Singles Day
ment is only released to the seller once the buyer has received his or her goods in satisfactory condition.
Chinese Singles Day (11/11) is Chinas biggest eAccording to the Alibaba Group web site, Alipay is
partnered with multiple nancial institutions as well as
Visa and MasterCard to facilitate payments in China and
abroad.* [6]

commerce sales day of the year. It is larger than America

s Cyber Monday. In 2011 Taobao.com and Tmall.com
took only 8 minutes to reach 100 millions RMB (equivalent to $15.8m) in transaction volume and after the

3
day ended, transaction volume reached RMB 3.36 bil- [14] Alibaba Released Weibo for Taobao with Sina China Internet Watch,August 5, 2013
lion.* [20]

2.10 Taobao for Southeast Asia

In September, 2013, Taobao launched its Southeast Asian
site. A translation feature is now available on Taobao.com
for major languages in Southeast Asia.* [21]

Metrics

Taobao Marketplace had more than 5 million registered

users as of June 2013 and hosted more than 80 million
product listings.* [22] It facilitated approximately RMB
200 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2009.* [23] In
September 2013, Taobao ranked 12th overall in Alexa's
internet rankings.* [24] For the year ending March 31,
2013, the combined gross merchandise volume (GMV)
of Taobao and Tmall.com combined exceeded RMB 1
trillion.

[15] How to read taobao shop feedbacks?". NewBuyBay

Taobao Agent. January 13, 2013.
[16] Alibaba is building its Alipay payments service into the
PayPal of the East. The Next Web. The Next Web.
Retrieved 21 October 2013.
[17] ""Taobao Launches New Taobao App Store. Alibaba
Group. January 15, 2010..
[18] Taobao to Help Small Businesses Grow More Eectively. Alibaba Group. March 31, 2010.
[19] ""Taobao and Wasu Media Launch Digital Entertainment Products Platform, Digital Television Shopping to
Broaden Consumer Choice. Alibaba Group. June 29,
2010..
[20] ""Taobao 11/11 Chinese Singles Day"".
[21] ""Taobao for Southeast Asia"".
[22] Press release
[23] Taobao app. Retrieved 8 May 2012.

References

[1] Roger Chapman. Top 40 Website Programming Languages. roadchap.com. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
[2]Taobao.com Site Info. Alexa Internet. Retrieved 201503-29.
[3] " =eBay+ +
(Taobao=eBay+Rakuten+Amazon)"
(in
Chinese).
. 9 Jul 2009. Retrieved 14 May 2011.
[4] Taobao.com launches online shopping mall.
china.org.cn. 2008-01-15. Retrieved 2010-09-09.
[5] Alexa.com Taobao Statistics. Alexa.com. Alexa.com.
Retrieved 21 October 2013.
[6] Alibaba Group Company Overview. Alibaba Group.
Alibaba Group. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
[7] ""eBay China Rumors. Search Engine Journal. September 26, 2006..
[8] ""China's pied piper. The Economist. September 21,
2006. The Economist. September 21, 2006.
[9] Alexa.com Tmall.com Access Statistics. Alexa.com.
Alexa.com. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
[10] Bloomberg. June 16, 2011.
[11] , Taobao.com
[12] 2011-10-19,
, Phoenix TV Finance
[13] Alibaba pushes into social networking with Weibo investment. Reuters. Reuters. Retrieved 21 October 2013.

[24] Alexa.com Taobao.com Site Info

5 External links
Ocial website (Chinese)

6 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

Text

Taobao Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taobao?oldid=665440879 Contributors: Andrewman327, Frazzydee, Mattaschen, Blaxthos, Ron Ritzman, Alanmak, Benlisquare, DVdm, Deku-shrub, Kaicarver, SmackBot, Cattus, Neo-Jay, A. B., Kuru, Joseph Solis in
Australia, Lasersharp, Cydebot, Visik, Lfstevens, Montie5, Xb2u7Zjzc32, Fantzipants, Killy-the-frog~enwiki, Shahid1618, Pengyanan,
Dsrguru, OKBot, WikiLaurent, Poterxu, Der Golem, Addbot, TutterMouse, MrOllie, Littletung, Yobot, AnomieBOT, EryZ, Wwbread,
Alvin Seville, Shadowjams, Adrignola, Sun417, Jan Slimkop, BenzolBot, Adoresimon, Jonkerz, Franckn55, Vze2656h, Onel5969, Mean as
custard, RjwilmsiBot, Tomchen1989, Dewritech, Greatshoppers502, Kkm010, Barek-public, Rcsprinter123, Raymondpy, ChuispastonBot,
Security99, Brett director, ClueBot NG, KESHUZE, Futingchang, Lakokat, Deuterostome, Chevrolet2399, Shirudo, Yasht101, Amixyue,
Brett2146, Snow2323, Epicgenius, Severus M, Buetting, Laurencebeck, Mallenus, Jimmy.tocci, Agreetao, Rebecca Ren, Milanyaqi,
PearToPear, Prakaljk, AndMG, Breezywoody, Acagastya, Johnbings, Hewentout, Leungkevin24, Jvck and Anonymous: 69

6.2

Images

File:Decrease2.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Decrease2.svg License: Public domain Contributors:

Own work Original artist: Sarang
File:Edit-clear.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Edit-clear.svg License: Public domain Contributors: The
Tango! Desktop Project. Original artist:
The people from the Tango! project. And according to the meta-data in the le, specically:Andreas Nilsson, and Jakub Steiner (although
minimally).
File:Taobao_Logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Taobao_Logo.svg License: Public domain Contributors: This vector image was created by converting the Adobe Illustrator Artwork le available at Brands of the World (view
download).
Remember not all content there is in general free, see Commons:Fair use for more.
Original artist: Taobao.com

6.3

Content license

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