EcommerceBytes-NewsFlash, Number 2566 - June 16, 2011     5 of 5

Chinese Auction Site Taobao Announces Reorganization

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Chinese P2P auction site Taobao is reorganizing into three separate companies targeting distinct segments of the ecommerce market. Taobao will be split into Taobao Mall (http://www.tmall.com), a shopping website allowing major retailers and internationally known brands to sell directly to Chinese consumers; Taobao Marketplace (http://www.taobao.com), China's leading website geared for smaller "consumer-to-consumer" transactions, online auctions and group shopping; and eTao (http://www.etao.com), a specialized search engine launched by Taobao last year that allows consumers to scour the Internet at large for products and services.

eBay had tried a similar strategy a number of years ago when it launched "eBay Express" for brand-new retail items in fixed-price format, leaving eBay.com as a traditional auction marketplace, but it soon changed course and has since brought large retail brands to eBay.com and de-emphasized the auction format.

Alibaba said the three companies will have their own management and will operate as wholly owned subsidiaries of Alibaba Group, Taobao's parent company.

As part of the reorganization, Alibaba Group announced that Jonathan Lu, who since February has served as CEO of both Taobao and Alibaba.com, will devote his full executive duties to serve as CEO of Alibaba.com.

About the author:

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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