Taobao, China's largest consumer ecommerce company, announced that its parent company, Alibaba Group, will invest RMB5 billion (US$732 million) over the next five years to further strengthen the Taobao marketplace. The company said the investment would be used for building a world-leading platform for merchants and providing the best online shopping experience for consumers. Taobao will continue to offer its services for free to buyers and individual sellers.

Taobao will soon open its technology platform to independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop applications that include advanced product display and special visual effect functionality.

Taobao has 80 million registered users and over 1 million sellers, as well as third-party service providers in payment, logistics and verification and a network of 400,000 web publishers in its affiliate marketing program.

In related news, RedOrbit.com published a report that Chinese search engine firm Baidu has begun closed beta tests of an ecommerce site to compete with Alibaba.

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