Tencent VS Alibaba: A Scramble For B2C Businesses

Taobao Mall, the B2C arm of Taobao which brought in RMB30b ($4.6b) in sales last year and topped the list of B2C initiatives according to a report by market researcher iResearch announced its long-awaited B2C partnership strategy “Open B2C Platform” yesterday with local B2C sites including NYSE-listed Dangdang.com, Walmart backed Yihaodian.com, electronic retailer Gome’s online arm Coo8.com. internet fashion brand VANCL.com and maternity-children products e-tailer RedBaby.com.cn onboard alongside other 38 major Chinese independent B2C sites ranging from online general stores to verticals.

The 38 sites will operate their flagship e-stores on Taobao Mall through the strategic partnership, which is expected to put Taobao Mall in a better position against 360buy and QQ Shop, the B2C arm of Tencent’s Paipai, both are major competitors to the Hangzhou-based B2C powerhouse. Taobao Mall already claims 48.5% of China B2C market while 360buy comes in second with 18.1%.

According to Zhang Yong, head of Taobao Mall, the service is more of a platform provider than online retailer. So there’s no competition between Taobao Mall and other independent B2C sites. For this year Taobao Mall’s transaction volume is about to hit a record RMB100b ($15b) and is expected to surpass RMB200b ($31b) in 2012.

What you get

Full access to all premium content and our full archives

Members'-only newsletters

Preferential access and discounts to all TechNode events

Direct access to the TechNode newsroom