Taobao Tongxue(tongxue means schoolmate in Chinese) , an online course market, was launched recently. Teachers, education organizations or agencies, or third-party online education services can set up Taobao stores to sell live broadcasts, recorded videos, offline courses or events, or courses on third-party sites (including Tmall) — in short,  anyone is allowed to set up a store selling online educational content or related physical goods such as offline event tickets.

Just the same with buying physical goods on Taobao, consumers need to log into Taobao and pay with Alipay — not a problem to the majority of Chinese. There is, of course, no delivery fee unless a store charges you for delivering physical tickets and the like.

Some well-known online education services have joined in offering courses ranging from language learning to makeup. Actually a large number of online course or service providers already set up Taobao stores to sell their offerings. What more Taobao Classmates can provide is having consumers watch video courses without leaving Taobao.

On its introduction page, Taobao Tongxue estimates the unique visits will reach 500 thousand by the end of September. Dao Zhengone, director of the Alibaba Local Life BU which built the marketplace, estimated that transactions on the platform could possibly reach one billion yuan in a year.

Tracey Xiang is Beijing, China-based tech writer. Reach her at traceyxiang@gmail.com

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16 Comments

  1. Just
    the same with buying physical goods on Taobao, consumers need to log
    into Taobao and pay with Alipay — not a problem to the majority of
    Chinese. There is, of course, no delivery fee unless a store charges you
    for delivering physical tickets and the like. – See more at:
    http://technode-live.newspackstaging.com/2013/08/19/taobaos-online-education-market-launched/#sthash.qZEiTF8u.dpuf
    Just
    the same with buying physical goods on Taobao, consumers need to log
    into Taobao and pay with Alipay — not a problem to the majority of
    Chinese. There is, of course, no delivery fee unless a store charges you
    for delivering physical tickets and the like. – See more at:
    http://technode-live.newspackstaging.com/2013/08/19/taobaos-online-education-market-launched/#sthash.qZEiTF8u.dpuf

    Datastage Online Training

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