Institute For The Future

keep an eye on Taobao: China's massive online market

Taobao, which is owned by Alibaba, started out as an eBay clone but has

developed into a much broader online marketing platform that increasingly provides a place for young,educated entrepreneurs to develop their own local brands, businesses, and personal services.  A great recent piece in the People's Daily reports: in 2008 57 million people gained employment by opening online shops on Taobao, among which, 23-32 year olds accounted for more than half while 18-22 year olds accounted for

12%. Many Taobao sellers' goal is to open a real-life shop. Since Taobao is free for sellers, the entry barrier is low. The article tells the story of 26 year-old Chen Xiao, who sells her time on Taobao,letting the buyer arrange her time at a price of 100 RMB (~$14/day, 20 RMB (~$3)/hour, or 8 RMB (less than $1)/8 minutes. 

People who share their wisdom, skills and knowledge online...are called "power figures". Many graduates [are] selling their strengths and interests via the Internet earning their first pot of gold. Today, there are quite a few students performing as one of the "figure generation": the "career

figures" who help to collect employment information for candidates to find jobs; the "exchange figures" who give their expertise in exchange for others to learn skills. The graduate, Xiao Cui set up towel shop websites and ikebana factories for her hometown, collecting and exploring the demands of foreign customers by taking advantage of her

expertise in English and eventually achieving "breakout trade". In the past five months, Xiao Cui helped enterprises receive more than 200 million order forms.

Individuals are not the only ones flocking to Taobao.  ChinaTechNews reports today that P&G has opened a store on the Chinese auction site Taobao, offering daily personal care products like shampoo at 20-30% lower prices. Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung already have stores on the site. Even McDonalds recently promoted Value Meals gift vouchers there, while selling real goods like mobile phones and MP3 players.