I recently made my first foray into the world of online shopping in China. I needed a pair of winter boots, and it’s pretty much impossible to find shoes for my foreign-sized feet in regular shops. So I went to taobao.com, a website roughly equivalent to ebay. There were lots of choices, and I ultimately settled on a pair of “Uggs” that seemed like a safe bet.
The seller went to great lengths to prove that they were originals, providing a lengthy explanation on how to tell real Uggs from fake Uggs, complete with a picture of dead sheep being skinned. At 180 rmb though (as opposed to the US price of $180), I’m pretty sure mine are not authentic. But the seller had a very good rating on the website and had already sold something in the region of four or five thousand pairs, so I kept my fingers crossed that the quality would still be ok.
Next step was payment, which proved a little bit trickier, since I don’t have a Chinese credit card, and I haven’t set up online banking with my Chinese bank account. Not to worry though — they also accepted cash or credit card payments at pre-approved payment spots (like grocery stores or shopping malls), as well as refill cards for pay-as-you-go cell phone plans. I went for the refill card option — a really good way to make online shopping available even to people who don’t have a credit card (which I assume doesn’t just include hapless foreigners like me).
The next step in the process was a little bit more surprising — it turns out that Taobao is also a social networking site, and after creating my account, I was prompted to fill out my profile information, upload a profile picture, and connect with friends. For each day that you log onto your account, you get rewards points, which in turn, it seems, can be used on the shopping section of the website. It seems like a brilliant (and dangerously addictive) way to drive shoppers back to their website — one of my friends told me a few weeks ago that she spends most of her online time on Taobao, which makes more sense to me now that I know there’s more than just shopping. There’s even a Taobao Happy Farm.
My shoes arrived in a very professional-looking box, with a free scarf as a bonus, so I completed the transaction by giving the seller a top rating. I can see why Taobao has been so successful — I may need to spend some more time “researching” their model in the future, it seems like I’ve only scratched the surface of what Taobao has to offer…
Fresh out of the box