Taobao

Taobao is a Chinese consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce marketplace launched in 2003 under Alibaba, built to digitize merchant supply and connect it with the growing pool of online consumers . Its early growth was shaped by a price war against eBay in 2005–2006, competing for merchants rather than end users . The platform operates on a light-asset model: it datafies sellers and lets them manage their own storefronts, with supporting services ranging from Taobao Partners (TPs) who handle photography and store design to live-streaming, which as of 2020 was Taobao's only traffic channel with directed promotion support . Juhuasuan, a group-buying feature, functions as a key merchant tool for new customer acquisition and marketing within the Taobao-Tmall ecosystem . Beyond its core marketplace role, Taobao has also appeared as a backer: it is listed among the entrepreneur-LPs in Gaorong Ventures' funds, alongside founders from Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi and others .