The General Manager of Yahoo Taiwan Charlene Hung posted an entry on the Yahoo corporate blog on Thursday that said that auction listings on Yahoo Taiwan Auctions have greater traffic and sales when they use young female models to model their products. Yahoo Taiwan Auctions first held a modeling contest in 2005 to find a solution for sellers who were seeking new ways to market their wares. "Today there are 30 full-time professional online mannequins like Jia-Jia modeling for the e-stores on our platform. Many are college students fitting the shoots between classes. Some earn more than US$6,000 per month."

Yahoo said the models dramatically impact sales - "items that are modeled by these young women are viewed 30 times more often and sales are 30% higher than merchandise that's merely displayed via product images," according to Hung's blog post. "As a result, more than 95% of our VIP sellers are now using these models."

http://ycorpblog.com/2008/03/27/online-mannequins-of-taiwan