Alibaba.com announced the launch of business-to-consumer (B2C) services on its Taobao.com online-auction site. TaoBao is one of China's largest online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplaces and competes head-to-head with eBay Eachnet.

Taobao.com is expanding its ecommerce model to include products and services provided by major manufacturers and retailers. It has already signed up such companies as Motorola, Nokia, Haier, Aigo, Lining, Adidas, Giordano, and UT Starcom and will aggressively expand its B2C services to include additional leading manufacturers and brands in the coming months.

Taobao.com General Manager Toto Sun said, ''Taobao's growth has been based on four pillars - trust and safety, the AliPay payment system, search and an active marketplace,'' Sun said. ''With Taobao's trusted ecommerce community now leading the market, the site is the ideal channel for manufacturers and retailers to reach millions of consumers and to expand as online shopping becomes a part of everyday life in China.''

Taobao.com's announcement comes after the China Internet Network Information Center announced this week the results of a new ecommerce study that found Taobao holding 67.3 percent market share in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, versus eBay China's 29.1 percent.

Taobao.com has more than 26 million product listings, nearly 20 million registered users, and over 100 million page views per day. In 2005, Taobao's transaction volume, or Gross Merchandise Volume, reached US$1billion, up 700 percent from 2004. AliPay, China's leading online payment solution, recently reached 150,000 transactions per day.

More than 10 million small- and medium-sized businesses use other Alibaba.com online marketplaces for B2B marketing and sales, and Taobao.com says it expects to see a large number of Alibaba.com members joining its new program along with leading international companies.

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