10-27-2006, 07:52 AM
Chinese auction users' #1 reason for preferring Taobao over eBay China is eBay's bad customer service, #2 is a preference for Alibaba\Taobao's Alipay over PayPal, the #3 reason for preferring Taobao is that eBay forces all buyer/seller communications to be done through its site in order to minimize off-site sales.
full article: http://china.seekingalpha.com/article/19322
Quote:80% of those surveyed preferred using Taobao over Ebay. And it was not for the reason most analysts have touted as the reason for Ebays downfall in China that Ebay charges while Taobao is free. Indeed, Ebays fees were not one of the 5 biggest reasons why Chinese consumers resoundingly chose Taobao over Ebay. In fact, they were willing to pay if they felt that they were benefits for doing so.
Instead, the biggest complaint that consumers had with Ebay was the perception that it did not care about both buyers and sellers. They said that Ebay did not have a phone number that consumers could call when they had a problem. Before Ebay acquired Eachnet, sellers and buyers could call a number for service questions. After the acquisition, Ebay brought in the same practices it had in the US and did not offer buyers or sellers a phone number to call, expecting consumers to email questions or join online discussion groups.
Consumers in China view this as a major lack of customer service rather than as an efficient way to get answers and as a way to make friends with others in the Ebay sphere. They said that if they were going to pay to sell their products, they should at least have a number to call if they ran into problems...
full article: http://china.seekingalpha.com/article/19322