After topping eBay China, Taobao takes on China’s Amazons

[mandy]

Chinese online auction site Taobao.com announced its official entry into the business-to-consumer market on Wednesday, where it will compete with leading e-commerce site Dangdang.com and with Joyo.com, which is owned by U.S.-based Amazon...

Taobao has surged since its launch in 2003 to become China’s leading consumer-to-consumer site, according to results announced earlier this week of a survey conducted by the China Internet Network Information Center. That survey put Taobao’s total share of the C2C market in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou at 67.3 percent to No. 2 eBay’s 29.1 percent.

The company said that in keeping with the model it has used to gain dominant share in key Chinese markets, Taobao will not charge either merchants setting up online storefronts or online customers...

full article: http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=16821&hed=Taobao%E2%80%99s+B2C+Move§or=Industries&subsector=InternetAndServices

[mandy]

Article on C2C rivals eBay Eachnet and Taobao's move into the B2C arena:

Ebay China and Taobao.com have expanded their intense competition from the customer-to-customer (C2C) market to the business-to-customer (B2C) market. Both have launched online stores in cooperation with dozens of premium brands...

As always, Taobao.com does not charge any fees to companies who want to set up shops on its website. Nor does it take commissions from any deals that have been successfully completed...

Unlike Taobao.com, Ebay China has several strings attached to its cooperation with other companies...

full article: http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/855/2006/05/...@92934.htm

[xppman]

Taobao.com does not charge any fees to companies who want to set up shops on its website. Nor does it take commissions from any deals that have been successfully completed...

Gotta love Taobao for kicking ebay's asp but how does one generate revenue
if giving it away?

I guess it will all boil down to who can outspend each other in covering
these FREE plans. I think ebay has invested 10M.

If they wish to stay and fight in China by years end they
will propbaly need to re generate revenue and up the 10M ante.

Wonder will they would go to get the extra dough?