I'm surprised this one got overlooked so let's catch up: This Chinese site sold more goods in 2010 than Ebay, which had already turned tail and fled from China when Taobao's parent company, Alibaba, acquired Yahoo! China in return for Yahoo getting a 40% stake in the business. That was back in 2005 and since then, there have been ongoing rumors that Yahoo and Alibaba weren't getting along, and there were alleged negotiations involving a break between the companies as Yahoo's investment in it wasn't working out. Rumors as late as the end of last year forecast doom for the "unhappy marriage".

So, in the inverted nature of such things, it should have come as no surprise when, just a couple of days ago at the time of writing, Yahoo USA received a huge boost from a big investment from a famous American hedge fund. The reason? The fund managers had done their sums and figured that Yahoo's share in Asia, and especially Alibaba, and especially Taobao, is going to be worth more than the entire company's declared public value today. Yahoo shares immediately shot up, something that probably doesn't happen as often as it might these days, and the fund made some money, naturally, and the owner of Alibaba declared that Taobao would be the next Walmart. Which it may well be, since everything at Walmart is probably already made in China anyway.

The site is in Chinese, naturally, but still worth a look for its, well, Chinese-ness, and for the joys of running it through Google Translate, which does a truly awful job. I found my way to the adult section at once, just at random of course, where I discovered that unlike Ebay, the site offers such delights as "Inflatable doll half shake entity male vocal apparatus", and "Semi-solid high explosive section 2011 inflatable doll real voice chiling special spike Japan". The Chinese appear to have overcome their long enmity with Japan when it comes to cutting-edge inflatables, and I'm not too surprised that there are none of the female tractor drivers and construction workers that you might expect from a purely Chinese range.

Spurred on by the prospect of another 99 pages in this category alone, I mused over "Japan semi-solid inflatable doll - gentle voice of female", which looks scarily like Ozzy Osbourn, was thoroughly turned off by "2011 latest buy a real shot to send ten feet high with" (don't ask), and amused that the site uses little images of steaming cups of tea to cover up the naughty bits. "100% genuine lovers doomed to be thrown swing male" was a puzzle even with the photo, but after much deliberation I settled on "2011 latest models have finger toes burst halfling entity" as my choice of imaginary evening entertainment. Although I declined the invitation to "cument the recent turnover" I did find many previous "cuments" and according to the translation, they were all good, Ebay-style, with plenty of "fast delivery", "great service", and so on, plus one "quick recharge" which may not have been correctly translated at all.

Anyway, there you are, the next Walmart and likely to be a tad more interesting than the current one, by the looks of it.

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K D. Now that's what the world really needs - a nice cup of tea....

5/5/11  •  Votes (0)

Alicia B. This is the site TC used to scam me of $400.00
He said he always uses them and they are super!
I hope this sitejabber hasn't conned more people looking for help and advice!
Alicia

5/19/11  •  Votes (0)

Chris O. Living in China, TC would naturally use Taobao, which is the biggest online market there is over there. It's no more unusual than recommending someone to look on Ebay over here.

There's no immediate reason to suspect the TaoBao site itself had any part in this.

And I also hope it doesn't turn out that too many others have lost money by giving it to TC or anyone else. It's bad enough you lost yours, and I know you're not alone, but as far as I know it doesn't seem to have been a major scam. That's just as far as I know, but I hope it's true.

You know, if there were any way to get that money back for you, I'd be the first to suggest it.

5/22/11  •  Votes (0)

Alicia B. Thanks for info Chris!
I am sure this site had nothing to do with it. TC just used it as a reference of which products he could get me. No matter who posts on this site or for how long noone should ever wire money to anyone. I have always used paypal and just this time trusted the wrong person! I only order through eBay now!!

5/22/11  •  Votes (0)

THIS is the eBay killer. I am based in China and use this website for almost everything... from buying groceries to top-up codes for my mobile phones. It's incredibly safe, fast, and the vendors on this site have an internal system (called AliWangWang) for customer service. Again, it's super safe... but YOU NEED TO SPEAK CHINESE or no chances to use it. Taobao also offers a "trusted" platform for business called Tmall.com, which is something like a walled Taobao for 100% legit businesses. For example I constantly buy a lot of shoes from this shop on Tmall called Tstage.cn and through AliWangWang I can ask details about styles and sizes, or return something.. and returns on Taobao are almost always free and included in the service. I wish a marketplace like Taobao existed in the West.. I will be lost the time I return home from China!