Building a Better Chinese Auction Site
Ebay China and rival Taobao.com have been
battling for the dominant position in Chinese
online auctions. As Amazon.com and others have
learned, once you are the dominant auction site,
your position is very secure even in the face of
devastating downtime, rampant fraud and high
prices. People just want to be on the largest
auction site. And, in China, the largest auction
site is Taobao.com.
Forbes.com (our #1 mover and shaker today)
recently published an article about the epic
battle between Ebay China and Taobao. Link. As it
stands today, Taobao is winning the battle,
ranked at 26 on Alexa's global list (#8 in the
Chinese list) while Ebay China is Ranked at 63
globally (#15 in China.) The rankings actually
make this sound like a closer race than it
actually is. According to Alexa's reach data,
Taobao has more than twice as many daily users.
Link. That's a solid win.
And, Taobao won't let the people of China or the
folks at Ebay China forget it. Alexa rankings are
mentioned repeatedly in press releases and on the
site itself. Apparently being noticed as #1 is an
important strategy in maintaining their #1
position.