Results tagged “taobao”

Our favorite method of buying things online now has its own search engine, and is it just us or does it remind you of Google? As of yet, it only searches for things on Taobao, but apparently it'll include organic searches with "bid-ranked positions." The company said it created the search engine, and blocked search results to Baidu, Google and Yahoo in an attempt to eliminate fraud. Personally, we can't see how it's much different from just searching things on the regular site, but we're intrigued by the fact that it may be offered on mobile phones as well. Buying things on the go? Egads, that sounds dangerous... for our wallets.

There are certain Western traditions that just don't quite translate - customs that the majority of Chinese people don't understand and indeed do not even try to understand because the tradition itself seems preposterous. One such ritual is Halloween. And yet that hasn't stopped the foreign population (and us!) from celebrating it.

Taobao - the place where you can buy everything... even, it seems, babies. An anonymous seller put an infant up for sale on the online auction site yesterday for the low price of 1RMB. Of no surprise to anyone who's read of unwanted babies in China - this one was a girl.

And several of the other GFW-themed shirts available at their store.

Imagine this scenario: You're having a party and you realize the morning of that the one thing that would elevate your party from awesome to super duper fantabulous is... fake mustaches. So you go on Taobao to try and order some... only to realize that if you wanted it delivered today, you should've come up with this idea two days ago.

• Online Market Flourishes in China [NYTimes] "Taobao fever has swept the school Mr. Yang attends, Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College, where administrators say that a quarter of the 8,800 students enrolled operate Taobao shops, often from dormitory rooms. And across China, millions of other ordinary people — recent college graduates, shopkeepers and retirees — are also using Taobao to sell clothes, mobile phones, toys and just about anything else they can find at neighborhood stores and wholesale markets or even smuggle out of factories."
• China turns back Xinjiang plane [BBC News] "An Afghan aircraft bound for Urumqi in China's restive Xinjiang region has been turned back, reports from both countries say. Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported first that the plane had been hijacked, then that it had been the subject of a bomb threat. An Afghan diplomat said the plane's operators had not been told about a threat, just ordered to turn it back. "
• 3,000 China mobsters sentenced since 2006 [UPI] "Chinese officials say more than 3,000 reputed gang members have been locked up or executed for organized crime activities since January 2006. The tally was announced Sunday by the Supreme People's Court and was part of a continuing effort to curb violent crimes and the organizations behind them, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported."

• Secret Meeting Between U.S. and China Broke New Ground on Climate Change [NYT] "Loy said the group was able to delve into the positions of both countries and gain better understandings about the political realities both countries face. Yet as to reaching a global deal in Copenhagen, Loy said, little progress was made."There were things that we learned, but it wasn't a totally radical or surprising conversation. We knew a great deal about China's views before," he said. The discussions were "more informal and occasionally more substantive and frank, but Mr. Xie is a cautious person"."
• Students protest in lead-up to June 4 Tiananmen anniversary [The Australian] "Thousands of students are reported to have protested in the streets of Nanjing, in central eastern China - one of the centres of protests in 1989 - following an incident on Monday night in which government security guards enforcing restrictions on peddlers allegedly attacked classmates who had set up footpath stalls."
• China's top legislator meets with Italian premier [Xinhua] "The Italian leaders expressed the willingness to expand cooperation with China in various fields, saying China's economic growth will hopefully provide new energy for the recovery and rally of world economy. Both sides agreed that the two countries should coordinate their stance on reform of the international financial system and work for an early recovery of global economy from the financial crisis."

Paying off bills here is as easy as going to a convenience store with some cash... but in case you thought even that was too much of a hassle, Shanghai's one of the few cities in China that also allows you to pay online. How? Taobao, of course.

Sure, here in China there's legitimate download sites and there's mp3.baidu.com, but if you've ever wanted to straggle the fence between legality and piracy, there's a way to do that too. Taobao has long been harboring many iTunes store gift voucher hackers, selling $200 USD (1,368 RMB) gift cards for as little as 18RMB.

Ever tried to check out Taobao, but couldn't make heads or tails of it?

Recent actions by the Alibaba Group and Taobao to protect their market share may not be enough given the multi-front strategy taken by search engine juggernaut Baidu. With their profits up by 91% in the last quarter, Baidu seems to be using their financial success to attack other Chinese online markets.

Well, you might want to check out these Chinese website search plugins for your browser. Some work for IE7, too. [Source]

By Benjamin Cohen