China C2C Taobao fosters growth in offline shopping

China largest C2C (Consumer to Consumer) online retailer Taobao.com diverifies its business to offline shopping consumers by authorizing stores to be the middle man of its online suppliers. The company, which currently boasts 180 million registered users in China C2C marketplace, plans to reach more potential customers by covering different media platforms and markets. 

It was in Decemeber last year, Alibaba Jack Ma and his team have signed a joint-venture deal with Hunan TV broadcaster to market their platform in traditional media.  Aliuser at Alirens.com reports this in the post of  China C2C Taobao to invest in TV online shopping.

Taobao-goes-for-offline-stores during Chinese Lunar New Year

Taobao.com has announced that it has started to deploy 150 offline authorized stores to faciliate China consumers who are cautious about shopping online. By paying a small service fee, consumers can ask these authorized stores to help them buy various products from Taobao.com and they can pay for these purchases in cash.

In addition, consumers will be free from concerns about fraud that are common when Internet shopping since, in the event of a problem with the purchase Taobao.com will compensate the customer directly.

The Internet retail platform says it plans to deploy over 30,000 such stores in communities and schools across China before the end of 2010. Taobao.com is said to be preparing for a public listing next year, but Ma declined to comment on that.

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