Just what the heck is McDonald’s doing on Taobao?

After our initial confusion, we took another look. The main event on mcd.taobao.com is a reverse auction prize promotion, where they take expensive products such, as mobile phones, cameras, and Swiss Army knives, and let people bid them down towards the buy price of 16.50rmb. You can click once every five minutes in hopes of being the lucky one who hits the magic number.

Calling the McDonald’s hotline is not really that difficult. But it always results in some sort of minor confusion. Asking your friends what drinks they want. Supersize one meal but not the other. Switch fries to corn. Switch to corn on which meal, the big or the small?  Heaven forbid if you had to ask them to omit the sauce on one Big Mac. You will be crossing your fingers hoping that sauce hasn’t been left off of all of them. 

Contrast that with what elementfresh.com is doing. It’s clear, simple and appealing. Convenient enough to be the default lunch option for busy people. Why didn’t McDonald’s create a system like this and have it feed into their existing delivery center? Taobao already has my address and an easy payment method.

Determined to impose my broken perceptions on reality, I forged ahead and did the closest thing to buying a hamburger on Taobao. I bought some sort of 40rmb voucher for a value meal. But I haven’t received it yet. I think it’s coming in the mail.

Thanks Sina (中文) for helping confirm my suspicions. 

Also, the links to actually order food go to some Taobao Seller with the random name amingsa. This Seller has no feedback on except for four purchases, including one for World of Warcraft points.