Taobao

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Globe icon of the infobox
Taobao
Website logo
Online auction house
languages Chinese
operator Alibaba Group
founder Jack Ma
user 500 million (2013.1)
Registration required
On-line - (currently active)
http://www.taobao.com/

Taobao ( Chinese : 淘 宝; Pinyin : Táobǎo; German “digging for treasure”) is a Chinese online shopping platform for C2C retail ( consumer-to-consumer ), which was launched on May 10, 2003 was introduced by the parent company Alibaba Group. Taobao.com is among the top ten most visited websites globally . In China it is even the third most visited website (as of April 29, 2018) and has a penetration rate of 87%. Taobao claims to have almost 500 million registered users, of which more than 60 million are active every day. Registered customers are offered an extensive range of products, which now includes over 800 million products. 48,000 items are sold every minute.

founding

Jack Ma (born September 10, 1964 in Hangzhou , China ) is the founder and managing director of the Chinese company Alibaba.com Inc., which also launched the Taobao e-commerce platform. In 1999 he founded the B2B website ( business-to-business ) Alibaba.com with a starting capital of $ 60,000. Just a year later, Alibaba.com had over 1,000 new user registrations a month.

In 2002, the American C2C business website eBay acquired a third of the Chinese auction platform Eachnet.com for $ 30 million to gain access to the Chinese market. A year later, eBay acquired the remaining shares in Eachnet for a total of $ 150 million and took over the Chinese auction platform entirely. Jack Ma perceived eBay's activities in China as a threat to Alibaba's business and future: "We knew that someday eBay would come in our direction." He was aware that the line between C2C and B2B is difficult to differentiate. It was only a matter of time before eBay invaded Alibaba.com territory . Jack Ma responded to eBay's attempt to penetrate the Chinese market through Eachnet by founding the C2C platform Taobao.com in 2003. Although eBay had already managed to establish itself successfully in other countries and had more experience in e-commerce than Alibaba.com, the US auction platform Taobao was still unable to outdo Taobao. In one of his famous quotes, Jack Ma compared himself to a crocodile in the Yangtze River and eBay compared himself to a shark in the ocean . If there was a fight in the ocean between the two giants, the crocodile would have no chance of winning. But if this fight takes place in the river, then the shark would lose. According to the research company Analysis International, Taobao's shares of the C2C market in China reached 57.7% in 2005, which is 26.2 percentage points more than eBay Eachnet.

The eBay management at the time finally admitted that the American auction platform could not win against Taobao on the Chinese market and then pursued a new strategy . EBay planned to acquire Taobao and offered $ 150 million. Joe Tsai, the former CFO of Alibaba (now Vice Chairman), turned down the offer and asked for $ 900 million instead. The acquisition was ultimately not carried out. In the same year 2005, eBay withdrew from the Chinese market. By the end of 2006, however, Taobao's market share rose to 70%.

Business concept

The e-commerce platform Taobao.com pursued a low-cost and low-margin business model right from the start, clearly differentiating itself from the US competitor eBay, which charges customers relatively high fees for using its platform. Taobao's revenue, on the other hand, is primarily generated through advertising and other trading services.

In order to acquire new interested parties and poach eBay users, Taobao initially implemented the marketing strategy "free for three years" . Registered users could set up accounts on Taobao.com free of charge and conduct free transactions for three years . Sales initially only played a secondary role for Taobao. The goal of attracting and winning interested parties, on the other hand, had the highest priority in order to be able to outperform eBay in the Chinese market. Transactions on Taobao.com are now chargeable, but the costs on the Chinese platform are relatively low. Taobao.com charges less than 2.5% of the total transaction value, whereas eBay charges 8.5%.

Further attractive conditions and promotions have also been developed for customers, for example consumers on Taobao.com have the option of shopping without paying. There are also various promotions on the platform. Customers can " earn " and collect virtual points by participating in various promotions. The points collected can be redeemed when shopping and replace payment with monetary means.

Taobao also developed a live chat function " AliWangWang " (阿里 旺旺) for customers so that buyers and sellers can communicate and negotiate directly with one another. This service from Taobao gives users more freedom and is another feature that sets Taobao apart from its US competitor. Seller and buyer cannot communicate with each other on eBay.com or Eachnet.com. EBay feared, if eBay users were offered a means of communication, that they would only use the trading platform as a communication platform in order to process the sale offline and avoid transaction fees. Taobao, on the other hand, did not charge any fees at the beginning. Because of this, these fears did not exist for the Chinese e-commerce website. Unlike eBay, Taobao promoted communication between buyer and seller.

Alibaba's "Rural Taobao Strategy"

While e-commerce is booming in cities, the concept of online business has been relatively unknown in rural areas. The reasons for this lie in the low level of education and income of the population as well as the lack of infrastructure and investment capital. Jack Ma planned to change this and introduce Taobao into the villages: “We're really hoping to bring e-commerce to all of China's [many] villages, so that rural people can get a taste of the city life and sell their own products in the cities ”. According to AliResearch's definition, a “Taobao Village” consists of a group of rural e-tailers (retailers who sell their products exclusively via the Internet) in which at least 10% of the village households operate e-commerce or at least 100 online shops opened by villagers and the total annual e-commerce transaction volume in the village is at least 10 million. There are now around 1500 Taobao villages, most of which only manufacture one product and sell it online on Taobao.com, for example, in the village of Xiniujiao (Chinese Provinz; Guangzhou Province ), women's clothing is mainly made, while the focus is in Lankao ( Henan Province ) on the production of traditional Chinese musical instruments.

AliPay

AliPay (Chinese: 支付 宝; Pinyin: Zhīfùbǎo) is a Chinese online payment platform launched by Alibaba Group on October 18, 2003. It is the Chinese competitor of eBay's PayPal . AliPay was developed to fill the gap in the online payment system in China. At the time, only about 1% of the population owned credit cards and there was no established online payment platform. AliPay provides escrow services to all merchants who operate within the Alibaba e-commerce business. The Chinese payment system serves as an intermediary institution and differs greatly from PayPal in its concept, because the use of AliPay does not transfer the money directly between the buyer and the merchant. When ordering goods on Taobao.com, the money is first transferred to AliPay instead. AliPay forwards the money to the seller only when the buyer accepts and confirms that the goods are in perfect condition.

Singles Day

Symbol for Singles' Day; chinese: 光棍节; Pinyin: Guānggùn Jié

Chinese Singles Day takes place annually on November 11th and is China's largest e-commerce sales day of the year. It was first introduced by Alibaba in 2009 and is comparable to the US sales promotions on Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday . Chinese Singles Day, originally dedicated to single people, is best known for reaching record sales and beating Black Friday or Cyber ​​Monday sales. On November 11, 2015, Taobao users made transactions worth $ 1 billion in the first eight minutes. A year later, Taobao.com sales hit $ 5 billion in the first hour. The total of sales on Singles Day 2016 was $ 17.8 billion, increasing to $ 25 billion in 2017.

literature

  • Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 .
  • Erisman Porter: Alibaba's World . Pan Macmillan, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-9066-7 .
  • Marco Gervasi: East Commerce: A Journey through China E-Commerce and the Internet of Things . John Wiley & Sons, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-119-23088-5 .
  • Shiying Liu, Martha Avery: Alibaba: the inside story behind Jack Ma and the creation of the world's biggest online marketplace . Harper Collins, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-06-167219-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alibaba Group: About. Retrieved April 29, 2018 (Chinese).
  2. ↑ Wolfgang brain: China's bosses . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-593-50874-0 , p. 174.
  3. ↑ Shiying Liu, Martha Avery: Alibaba: the inside story behind Jack Ma and the creation of the world's biggest online marketplace. Harper Collins, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-06-167219-4 , p. 121.
  4. ↑ a b How popular is taobao.com? In: alexa.com. Accessed April 29, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b c David Chuen, Ernie Teo: Emergence of FinTech and the LASIC principles , in: The Journal of Financial Perspectives: FinTech . 2015, p. 28.
  6. ↑ Alibaba Group: Introduction. Retrieved April 29, 2018 (Chinese).
  7. ↑ Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 , p. 37.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang brain: China's bosses . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-593-50874-0 , pp. 173-174.
  9. ↑ Edward Tse: China's Disruptors . Portfolio Penguin, St Ives 2015, ISBN 978-0-241-24039-7 , p. 37.
  10. ↑ Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 , p. 131.
  11. ↑ Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 , p. 152.
  12. ↑ Shiying Liu, Martha Avery: Alibaba: the inside story behind Jack Ma and the creation of the world's biggest online marketplace. Harper Collins, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-06-167219-4 , p. 119.
  13. ↑ Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 , p. 156.
  14. ↑ Erisman Porter: Alibaba's World . Pan Macmillan, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-9066-7 , p. 84.
  15. ↑ Erisman Porter: Alibaba's World . Pan Macmillan, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-9066-7 , p. 83.
  16. ↑ a b Katie Hafner, Brad Stone: Ebay Is Expected to Close Its Auction Site in China. In: New York Times. December 19, 2006, accessed May 12, 2018 .
  17. ↑ a b Edward Tse: China's Disruptors . Portfolio Penguin, St Ives 2015, ISBN 978-0-241-24039-7 , p. 34.
  18. ↑ Wolfgang brain: China's bosses . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-593-50874-0 , p. 175.
  19. ↑ Edward Tse: China's Disruptors . Portfolio Penguin, St Ives 2015, ISBN 978-0-241-24039-7 , p. 35.
  20. ↑ a b Erisman Porter: Alibaba's World . Pan Macmillan, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-9066-7 , p. 88.
  21. ↑ Shiying Liu, Martha Avery: Alibaba: the inside story behind Jack Ma and the creation of the world's biggest online marketplace. Harper Collins, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-06-167219-4 , p. 127.
  22. ↑ Erisman Porter: Alibaba's World . Pan Macmillan, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-9066-7 , p. 195.
  23. ↑ a b c d e Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 , pp. 168-169.
  24. ↑ Erisman Porter: Alibaba's World . Pan Macmillan, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-9066-7 , p. 90.
  25. ^ A b Report: "Taobao Villages" in rural China. In: alizila.com. December 22, 2014, accessed May 12, 2018 .
  26. ↑ Wolfgang brain: China's bosses . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-593-50874-0 , p. 178.
  27. ↑ Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 , p. 173.
  28. ↑ Erisman Porter: Alibaba's World . Pan Macmillan, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-9066-7 , p. 91.
  29. ↑ David Chuen, Ernie Teo: Emergence of FinTech and the LASIC principles , in: The Journal of Financial Perspectives: FinTech . 2015, p. 18.
  30. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hirn: China's bosses . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-593-50874-0 , p. 176.
  31. ↑ Duncan Clark: Alibaba . Harper-Collins, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-06-241340-6 , p. 2.
  32. ↑ Tarandip Kaur: 11/11: Everything To Know About Singles' Day. In: Forbes. November 8, 2017, accessed May 13, 2018 .