[photopress:Taobao_auction1_.jpg,full,alignright]According to a report by China IntelliConsulting Corporation (CIC) Taobao.com controls two-thirds of China’s business-to-customer (B2C) and customer-to-customer (C2C) market. That is a major slab to acquire and hold on to.
Taobao is a subsidiary of Alibaba Group and may have as much as 80% of the C2C market which is a totally dominant position.
C2C online shopping increased from 16.2% in 2005 to 23.0% in 2006; substantially higher than the penetration rate of B2C (business to customer) online shopping at 13.5%.
Of 4 million Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou residents who shopped on the Internet in 2006, 2.9 million shopped on Taobao.com, 0.9 million on EachNet.com, 0.9 million on Dangdang.com, 0.8 million on Joyo.com, and 0.3 million on Paipai.com.
Porter Erisman, Alibaba.com’s vice-president for corporate affairs, said, ‘Our main challenge is to continue to innovate in the absence of any close rivals. We’re the leader today but we also realize that, in the Internet world, leaders can become followers quickly if they fail to innovate. Customer satisfaction is still more important to us than market share.’
Source: Interfax