You can’t be an Internet king without being connected

Jack Ma, king of Taobao and Alibaba, and our personal hero recently jumped on board Weibo. Ma is a subject of fascination. A entrepreneurial and internet hero, Ma’s biography is a best seller.  So far, more than one week in, he has stuck with his Weibo habit. His posts are long (for Weibo posts) and meditative, with topics like: “Zen and the art of environmental conservation.”

From May 29:

There was a dream I had when I was a child. Travel around the world. I would be eating breakfast in Rome, lunch in London, and dinner in Paris, then I would have evening stroll around the Eiffel tower. My friends all said, “There’s a giant toad that wants to eat you!” I would then run around all day scared of the frogs and my dream would never come true. I would then think to myself,” Why do toads always want to eat me? Frog hearts are delicious maybe be bird’s eat the frogs to become “Invincible.” Swans have long neck over their thighs and feet bigger than their head. They are like aliens from another world. . . Why do they eat frogs? “ Riiiibbbbiiiitttt!

If you are interested in what he has to say, check him out (Weibo account required.)

http://weibo.com/mayun

Taobaotopia?

I have, for a long time, imagined a Taobaotopia. A world where online shopping has drastically reduced the need for retail brick-and-mortars. Less demand for retail real estate means cheaper office and housing space. Or more space for parks. Swimming pools. Unicorns.

But now, Taobao has thrown my world into a tailspin by opening a giant showroom. Not an online showroom, but a real, physical showroom. Has my Taobaotopia gone wrong?

The Taobao furniture showroom: a half an Ikea

It turns out, Taobao understands me better than I understand myself. One of the few real-world places that I still shop is Ikea. But it is always a half-nasty experience.

The crowds are terrible, and can be especially dangerous when you introduce shopping carts full of curtain rods and overstuffed bags of pillows.. Making the journey from the showroom to the warehouse is like descending into the dark pits of hell. And the weekend checkout lines are a disaster. Would you like it delivered? A second checkout line awaits!

The Taobao Furniture Showroom promises to scrub all that by putting transaction Online where it can be handled cleanly. Taobao, you have done it again!

Apart from the pack-it-flat, build-it-yourself principle, one of Ikea’s big efficiency innovations was to let customers find their own stuff in their big warehouse. But that part always sucks, as does the negotiation with the SUV drivers waiting outside Ikea.

Time to give it a try

I say it is time we head on over to Taobao’s 25,000-square-meter Beijing mall. This mall displays 22,000 items from over 300 suppliers. Orders and payment only take place online. Taobao says it plans to open similar showrooms in other major Chinese cities.

If you ever wondered just who it was you were buying all that Taobao stuff from, say hello to my friend here. This great photo came from the New York Times, which just did a story about Taobao.  Most of the article is pretty boring, with way too many sentences beginning with ‘Analysts say…’ But the photo above and the few details about this guy are pretty interesting.

Yang here is still attending university – Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College – and it seems like Taobao has become something like a final project for most of the students there.  All the students there are interested in selling online, but Yang’s success has made him Big Man on Campus.

His shop started with yoga matts (I am pretty sure I bought one) and now sells cosmetics and shampoo and stuff like that. The product that he is holding is one of my favorite too. It’s called Face Up, and it is designed to rejuvinate saggy faces.

Another interesting part of the story is a quote from a Taobao shop that sells computers, and that clearly did not understand the reason for the reporter’s inquiry.  The Taobao shop admits to using their connection with a Sony OEM factory to sell laptops with Sony-similar components.

Seems like a pretty dangerous claim. Sony’s gonna have your ass if they find out! Don’t worry, your secret’s safe, right? Not so much. The reporter quickly tattled on their source to try and get a reaction from Sony, but Sony gave a big ‘no comment, we’re looking into it’.

I doubt they will find what they are looking for. The only reason this shop would say this is as a selling point for their computers. It is the kind of thing you hear all the time from a Taobao shop that wants to justify higher prices.

可贴SONY HP 联想 三星等

Sony, HP, Lenovo or Samsung stickers available

Interested in finding out more about all the sweet stuff you can buy on Taobao? Check out our Cool Stuff to Buy, or contact one of our friendly Taobao Agents for your international Taobao connection. They can get you anything!

Anything.