Alibaba.com and Taobao.com, the two subsidiaries of the Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba, jointly announced plans to launch a new Internet shopping website under the domain name of Lp.taobao.com.
The new website, which will reportedly be launched on January 6, 2011, is a comprehensive shopping website jointly developed by Alibaba.com and Taobao.com. Focusing on the marketing of products, it will recommend cheap and quality goods to buyers of Taobao.com while nurturing the brands of its sellers. Like offline department stores and large supermarkets, the new website will serve consumers with a unified image and service standards.
The new website will first open to Alibaba's designated members, aiming to help them quicken the development of their retail businesses and open the trading market in China. Vendors who join the new website will gain resources in three areas: for traffic, these vendors will enjoy the traffic from Taobao.com's independent search engine services; for credit, these vendors will gain free-of-charge credit accumulation services in addition to the benefit brought by the unified website image; and for recognition, the shops and products of these vendors will have unified marks that are different from ordinary Taobao shops and products.
According to the rules listed on the website, vendors who want to join the website need to pay three payments, including an annual fee of CNY2,980, a technical service fee, and the consumer service earnest money of CNY1,000 for each shop.