China’s Jingdong (formerly called 360Buy) is expanding yet again from its original Amazon-style offerings, this time adding a supermarket channel (see here) to its e-commerce site. The addition brings more than 5,000 types of groceries, packaged foods, beverages, and snacks.

This move is a direct challenge to Yihaodian, the country’s largest food-only specialist e-store, which is majority owned by American retailer Walmart. Like Yihaodian, Jingdong ships its foodstuffs direct from its own warehouses. In contrast, Jingdong’s main rival, Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao sites, serve as intermediaries for food retailers, and those stores then dispatch the items to online buyers.

Jingdong says that shoppers can buy a single item if they wish, and there’s no obligation to buy a huge virtual basket of groceries. Aside from some common food staples, Jingdong’s new supermarket stocks some interesting imported items that most regular brick-and-mortar stores wouldn’t have, such as Spanish olive oil, or dried mangoes from the Philippines.

Jingdong switched to its current branding in March. The company’s latest funding round in February this year raised $700 million.

One Chinese e-commerce site that recently branched out into global sales has added what could be its hottest item yet – the newest Xiaomi phone. JD Global, the international version of China’s Jingdong, has stocked up on the latest Xiaomi Mi2 phone, which is now available in the 35 countries to which it ships.

Xiaomi’s phones are probably best known to overseas gadget fans for running MIUI, a popular Android skin that can also be flashed onto a number of other Android phones. Since MIUI has a strong global user-base with over 10 million users, the China-made Xiaomi phone actually works well in English. It’s not clear if this version will come equipped with Google apps like the Google Play store.

Only the 16GB version of the recently revamped Xiaomi Mi2S is available on JD Global right now. But, priced at $355 for overseas customers for the WCDMA version – and a further $30 more for the CDMA one – JD Global’s price tags (see here) are not quite so tempting as the RMB 1,999 ($320) price that it sells for in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Pretty much every time we write about Xiaomi, we get commenters from around the globe asking how they can grab hold of one of the devices. However, there previously wasn’t an easy answer to that. While this global launch is not backed by Xiaomi itself, I get the feeling the phone will get a warm reception from Android fans around the world.

Back in October last year, China’s second-biggest B2C e-commerce site launched a global version of its store that ships items from China. Now, after half a year of operations and a rebrand for the entire company from 360Buy to Jingdong, I was curious how the overseas sales were going, and asked the company for an update.

We’re told that the international site (see here) is handling the rebranding by focusing on the acronym JD, though the frontpage URL of the revamped site hasn’t been updated yet. In its early stages, the Amazon-esque JD Global, which sells everything from iPad cases to wedding dresses, shoes to CDs, is proving popular with overseas Chinese. Jingdong VP of retail and overseas markets, Shi Tao, explains to TechinAsia:

We are getting great early traction selling Chinese language books overseas. Given the number of Chinese living abroad, the challenges of carrying books internationally and the desire of people internationally to keep in touch with Chinese culture, books were a logical early target product. The JD.com Global site has a catalogue of more than half a million Chinese language books for consumers abroad, which is something you just can’t find in foreign markets.

It seems like a good niche market to cater to, as the China-only Jingdong business effectively gives JD Global a larger collection than Amazon’s line-up of Chinese language books in the US or the UK. Plus, there’s an element of trust and brand recognition among this audience and the well-established Jingdong site. Plus, books are generally not a time-sensitive product – which is just as well when global shipping from JD’s China warehouses can take a couple of weeks.

“A bite of China”

Jingdong explains that most of its book buyers are in the US, and that buyers tend to be individuals, not small businesses. The current best-seller on the site is A Bite of China, the DVD and book combo version of the popular cookery program by state broadcaster CCTV. Second is a book on the programming language Java. It’s an odd mix, but it’s apparently what overseas Chinese want. Plus, they get free shipping on purchases over $29, which includes those two popular titles.

Aside from that early traction, Jingdong representatives point out to us that the JD Global site is still at a very early stage, and they’re exploring different demands in different markets and trying to remain flexible.

While JD is unique in shipping to overseas customers from its own warehouses in China, it’s not the only option for consumers looking to buy stuff from China. Jingdong would not compare itself with ‘source from China’ platforms like Alibaba-owned AliExpress or smaller rival LightIntheBox, but there is some overlap in terms of products available on all three, such as things people overseas might really want to buy from China (knowing how much cheaper they are to make in mainland China) such as smartphone accessories or wedding dresses. But JD Global is the only one shipping books, movies, and music to an international audience. Plus, JD would argue that it’s safer to buy direct from them, rather than from other sites that are a conduit for Chinese factory suppliers.

Presumably Jingdong wants a broader audience for its JD Global site eventually, but the Chinese diaspora seems like a good kickstarter.

Jingdong is second only to Alibaba’s Tmall in China’s massive B2C e-commerce market. Jingdong wrapped up a funding round worth $700 million in February, and is said by some analysts to be preparing a US IPO later this year.

Chinese e-commerce giant 360Buy — which I suppose I ought to be calling Jingdong now — quietly picked up the domain wangyin.com on Friday. That may not mean anything to you if you don’t speak Chinese, but it’s the pinyin romanization for the term “online banking” in Chinese, and as such, it sends a pretty clear message about what Jingdong is planning to do with the domain.

Last year, the company acquired the third-party payment company Online Banking, so it seems pretty probable that this domain is meant for that team. But insiders also have said that the company is working on its own payment platform, so it’s possible the domain will also be used for that in addition to whatever the Online Banking team will be doing with it. Or perhaps Online Banking’s services will be merged into the new platform.

So we’ll have to wait and see to find out exactly what Jingdong does with its shiny new domain name, but it’s pretty clear it’s going to have something to do with e-payments. Could it pose a threat to Alibaba’s Alipay?

(via TechWeb)

Jingdong’s new logo

One of the largest B2C e-commerce sites in China has rebranded to JD.com from 360buy.com. The old domain, 360buy.com, remains and will be redirected to JD.com upon visiting.

The rebrand will make it easier for local customers to remember the URL, as there was previously a disparity between the Chinese name and the website address. Now it makes makes more sense. Also, I know some foreigners who are confused between Qihoo 360 and 360buy. But it should be easier to remember now with JD as the abbreviation of Jingdong. The rebrand is also accompanied by a new logo in the form of Joy, a mascot dog.

Earlier this year, Jingdong raised $700 million from Ontario Teachers’ Retirement Fund (OTPP) and Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding. Prior to that round of funding, Jingdong raised $400 million at a valuation believed to be of $7.25 billion. The company is also believed to be preparing for a US IPO this year.

This rebranding exercise from 360buy to JD will help foreign investors to make more sense of its corporate naming. Richard Liu Qiangdong, founder and CEO of Jingdong said in today’s statement:

Jingdong is delighted to streamline its corporate brand and launch the simpler JD.com domain, which will be easier for our Chinese customers to remember.

U.S.’s Amazon also made the same move by launching Z.cn which helps Chinese customers to remember the domain name better. About a year ago, Alibaba’s Tmall also rebranded to 天猫 (loosely translated as sky cat in English) but with its Tmall.com domain name intact.

One merchant, a clothing manufacturer, told the IT times that his relationship with the 360Buy operations manager — whose job it was to liase with merchants, discuss activities and promotions, etc. — started out well enough, with the merchant providing the 360Buy manager with free clothing in return for being promoted on the site. This was meant as a friendly gesture, the merchant says, and it wasn’t something the 360Buy manager demanded; the merchant just wanted to give back in thanks for the promotion his site was getting.

But slowly, the 360Buy manager started asking that the clothing company buy him items — expensive items. Plane tickets, laptops, and phones were all on the menu, but the manager was careful enough never to ask directly for the items, rather referring to it as “borrowing” or “purchasing it on behalf of [the manager].” When he received money, it was almost always via friends’ accounts. Still, he never paid back the money spent or returned the items, even when the clothing manufacturer coughed up 30,000 RMB ($4,615), ostensibly to help the 360Buy manager’s friend purchase a house.

Last October, the clothing supplier decided it had finally had enough, and stopped fulfilling the 360buy manager’s demands. Almost immediately, things went south. The company’s traffic dropped, all kinds of problems arose, and payments from 360Buy for purchased items came through slowly, or not at all. The 360Buy manager had an excuse — ‘the purchased items have unresolved complaints filed’ — but that had never caused a delay in payment before the clothing supplier stopped giving him what he wanted.

According to a former 360Buy operations manager in the same position who spoke with the IT Times on the condition of anonymity, an operations manager may have 50 to 100 merchants under their jurisdiction at any given time and they have quite a bit of leeway in terms of who they can give allotted resources like access to the highest profile events and promotions. And the abuse of that power is apparently not uncommon.

It’s a problem that 360Buy and other similar e-commerce sites are aware of, but may have some difficulty combatting. The IT Times report claims that 360Buy CEO Liu Qiangdong addressed the problems in an internal meeting and suggested he was not satisfied with some team members attitudes. Publicly, the company has already responded to the IT Times report with a fairly boilerplate statement about how it is increasing internal controls to eliminate corruption and how it also welcomes oversight from consumers.

But how effectively 360Buy will actually be in combatting internal corruption remains to be seen. More merchants willing to blow the whistle would be an excellent start, but ultimately it seems like this is something Liu Qiangdong and his team will have to address at a more fundamental level.

(IT Times via Sina Tech)

It was only three months ago that 360Buy, China’s second-largest online store, wrapped up $400 million in funding. Today 360Buy has confirmed an even bigger injection of capital with a fifth round of funding worth $700 million. [UPDATED: The April 2011 round turns out to have been the largest ever, worth $1.5 billion in total, with $500 million of that from Russian investors, DST; the headline and first paragraph have been amended to reflect this].

It means that 360Buy, which is second in the B2C e-commerce sector in China to Alibaba’s Tmall site, has raised well over $2.5 billion since it first got investment back in 2007.

The massive new round saw participation once again from Ontario Teachers’ Retirement Fund (OTPP) along with new input from Riyadh-based Kingdom Holdings, which was founded by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud.

360Buy’s previous round effectively valued the store at $7.25 billion, but there’s no indication of its current valuation.

360Buy told Chinese media that the newest financing will be used to bolster day-to-day operations, as well as to build up its fledgling logistics service.

CEO and founder Liu Qiangdong has indicated in the past that 2013 was likely a good time for an IPO, but it’s not clear if the new investment would delay that timeline.

China’s e-commerce sector is marked by a ferocious burn rate for companies, as well as vicious price wars. 360Buy has diversified into a few areas where monetizing is a bit simpler in the past few months, such as by shipping some products to overseas customers, and launching an online music store within China.

(Source: iHeiMa – article in Chinese)

The figures suggest that China’s e-commerce scene will not grow exponentially in 2013, and growth will slow every year as the realistic saturation point is finally reached. While the growth in online shopping in the country was over 100 percent from 2011 to 2012, it’ll be down to just 22.8 percent expansion from 2015 to 2016. By 2015, Chinese e-tailers will be taking in 7.4 percent of China’s total retail value.

Aside from all the growth, the infographic gives a good summary of the current players [2] in the B2C e-commerce sector, which is dominated by Alibaba’s Tmall and the perhaps-soon-to-IPO 360Buy. There’s also market share info for e-payments providers in China, again dominated by an Alibaba company (Alipay), along with Tencent’s Tenpay. Here’s the full thing:

(Infographic source: Go-Globe)

For more fun graphics like this one, check out previous entries in our infographic series.

2011 saw economic turmoil and financial scandals that led to only two Chinese tech companies venturing to IPO in 2012. But 2013 is looking up. This year there’s the distinct possibility of there being nine major Chinese web company IPOs, among which will be the biggest ever that China has produced.

Buoyed by the solid progress of the small class of 2012 (VIPShop and YY), these are the names to look out for in the year ahead. Inspired by a longer list on QQ Tech, we’ve pruned that down to nine realistic contenders. Some of these Chinese internet companies have been more candid than others when it comes to intent or timing, but they are, to varying extents, likely to be hitting the stock tickers in New York or Shanghai in the months to come.

1. Alibaba

Let’s start with the big daddy, Alibaba Group, which runs market-leading e-commerce sites like Tmall and the iconic Taobao. Just yesterday we wrote of how Alibaba, according to rumor, has already hired two underwriters for its public listing in Hong Kong, thought to be coming mid-2013. Alibaba could well raise US$3 billion to $4 billion at a valuation of $35 billion to $40 billion. Yahoo owns a 20 percent stake.

2. 360Buy

It’s difficult to determine which would be the second most valuable company to go public, so the rest of this list is in no particular order. Though I think 360Buy is the next largest. It’s the main rival to the afore-mentioned Tmall in China’s fiercely competitive B2C e-commerce industry. In November of last year 360Buy attracted $400 million in series D funding, which effectively values 360Buy at $7.25 billion.

2013 has long been pegged as 360Buy’s IPO year, so it’s a case of the online store balancing its ability to attract investors despite a lot of losses on the books with the need to raise a realistic amount. Last year’s reports of it raising up to $5 billion by a public listing might prove to be seriously exaggerated.

3. Sogou

Sogou is the search engine and software division of Sohu (NASDAQ:SOHU). It’s third in China’s volatile search market with 7.92 percent share of pageviews (a few percent above Google) at the end of last year.

Sogou is Sohu’s top earner and has been for 10 consecutive quarters. Sohu bought back Alibaba’s 10 percent stake in Sogou last summer. It’s now ripe for being spun off and floated.

4. Qunar

Qunar has been rumored to be working towards an IPO this year for quite some time, and the CEO of this online travel site even said in January of last year that a listing made sense as soon as “the market stabilizes.”

China’s top search engine, Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), invested $306 million in Qunar in the summer of 2011, thereby taking a major stake in the travel store.

5. Vancl

You’ll notice that all but one of the list so far are e-commerce companies. And here’s another. Vancl runs both an own-brand store (like GAP or Uniqlo) online, as well as the V+ open platform mall. Vancl CEO Chen Nian explained recently how its cancelled US IPO at the end of 2011 turned out to be a bullet that he very narrowly dodged. There’s an interesting anecdote about how George Soros helped out.

As with Qunar, the wait for markets to improve is surely over for Vancl.

6. UCWeb

The UCWeb listing is one of the most likely of this bunch. The makers of the hugely popular UC Browser for smartphones, which has over 400 million global users, have made it clear that 2013 is their ticket. CEO Yu Yongfu has already explained that “It would be better for us, branding-wise, to be listed in the US. It would expand our brand name and make us better known.”

7. Cloudary

A particularly likely US venturer is the Shanda (NASDAQ:SNDA) spin-off Cloudary, which is its e-book platform subsidiary. A ringing of the bell at the NYSE sometime in April is rumored to be in the cards. Shanda Cloudary – formerly dubbed Shanda Literature – recently appointed a new chairman in ‘Robert’ Qiu Wenyou, a former investment banker at Merril Lynch.

Cloudary, as we saw with Vancl, is another cancelation casualty of a grim capital market towards the end of 2011.

8. Dianping

Heading back into the realm of e-commerce again, Dianping is often called “China’s Yelp” and is also the country’s third-largest daily deals site. But Dianping has not been outwardly chasing an IPO, so this one is far from certain. Nonetheless, the deals service has matured a lot in recent years and now has a claimed 40 million mobile users, so it’s at the stage where it might be ready to go public.

Dianping raised $60 million in fourth-round funding a few months ago.

9. Xunlei

Another 2011 IPO withdrawal, Xunlei is very keen to list to raise funds for its growing video streaming site. Back then, Xunlei was aiming to raise $200 million.

Trouble is, Xunlei also has a P2P file-sharing network that’s riddled with piracy. On top of all that liability, Xunlei’s main site is over-reliant on advertising, which is an unreliable source of sustenance. Nonetheless, Xunlei is very likely to resuscitate its 2011 IPO plans pretty soon, now that 2013 is looking like a much better climate for Chinese tech stocks.

(Hat-tip to QQ Tech for the partial list of names)

Chinese e-commerce giant 360Buy is taking to the cloud, or so it appears with the company’s announcement yesterday of the launch of a major cloud computing research center located in Beijing’s tech-friendly Haidian district. The new research center, founded in partnership with Renmin University, encompasses 10,000 square meters and will be able to employ up to 1,500 workers.

At yesterday’s launch meeting, 360Buy chief strategist Zhao Guoqing explained the decision:

As one of China’s most influential e-commerce websites, 360Buy is in the processof expanding its scope, and we must use scientific methods [to do so] that are based on the multifaceted demands of users and the behavior of consumers [...] in the US, England, and the other 500 strongest global companies, more than 90 percent of their important investments and strategic decisions are based on deep data analysis[.]

To that end, the cloud research center will primarily be a facility for hardcore number-crunching rather than the source of a 360Buy-branded entry into the cloud storage market or anything like that. Since 360Buy is engaged in a battle with Alibaba and a few other players for space in the Chinese e-commerce market, every little bit counts, and 360Buy will hope that this new cloud research center will allow the company to move with confidence when they’re making strategic shifts or investments.

(via Sina Tech)

Ben Chiang ¶

Ben Chiang, Adventure Capitalist

I’d highlight three major characteristics:

1. Market dominance

Taobao/affiliates have dominated Chinese e-commerce since it began. Taobao is a C2C eBay-like site, T-Mall is a B2C Amazon-like site, and Alipay is a PayPal-like payment service. They have had 70 to 100 percent market share since their inception. Only recently have other sites emerged, such as 360Buy (which has raised well over $1 billion in private capital) in general B2C, as well as vertical or specialized sites focusing on cosmetics/bags/lingerie/kids in direct B2C, flash sales, subscription, or group-buy sales.

2. Delivery expectations

Because of significant investments, mostly by 360Buy and Taobao, Chinese consumers have been trained to expect next-day or even same-day delivery for their e-commerce purchases. Amazon’s CFO recently came out to say they don’t see any way to get to one-day delivery anytime soon [1]. When I think about how Prime/2-day delivery was an inflection point in my own e-commerce buying habits, one-day is even better.

3. They have everything

Seriously. You can find some cool stuff in the long-tail through eBay, Etsy, etc. in the States, but as the majority of the world’s consumer trinkets are made in China, it makes sense that everything you’d want is on there. We recently ordered twenty scratch-n-sniff belts on Taobao for $12, fake Jeremy Lin jerseys for $15 each (rip off!!), then thirty sunglasses for a bachelor party for $15, and finally three inflatable sharks for $7. It makes costume and theme parties that much more fun/easier/cheaper.

Zach Brown ¶

Zach Brown, a Texan in China

1. As Ben mentioned, the express delivery process is one area of difference and probably the most significant of any between the two markets. I work with KuaiDi companies often, and it is firstly awesome, and secondly something that could never exist in the US or most western developed countries. It’s basically cheap labor and strength in numbers drives that industry. Quality is a huge issue though, as the large SF Express and a few smaller others are the only ones not franchised.

2. Consumer preference and product usage varies between US and China (or any other country for that matter), so the product mix and styles you see a brand in US selling may be very different from what that same brand is selling online in China.

3. TMalls B2C Platform has a low cost of entry and huge market reach for businesses, so you can see many foreign brands entering the China market on an e-commerce platform only for their first year or two until they decide to go home or invest more.

4. Security in the US is much further along than China. Whether that is due to actual IT solutions or rather a much smaller number of scam attempts in the US, I am not sure – I would guess both though.

5. Tmall is set up to allow each brand to really differentiate their selling platform. Ebay does not do that as well, and I am not sure there is a comparable platform in the US.

6. Payment terms and payment methods.

Grady Ha ¶

Grady Ha, Marketing and strategy consultant

I’m going to jot down a few quick thoughts, as we actually work very closely in this space. Most of the Chinese eCommerce activity is seen through aggregator sites such as TaoBao, Taobao Mall (T-Mall), 360Buy, etc. Aside from the points already made, keep in mind a few more significant differentiators (and this is comparing via B2C aggregator sites such as Amazon and Ebay and does not touch upon B2B, or backend logistics that may involve warehousing, IT platform integration, etc.)

1. Store and Platforms: TaoBao is essentially a China domestic copy of eBay that serves as an aggregator of C2C (Consumer to Consumer) goods. This is where individuals can set up shops using predesignated shop templates, see who browses (and some other basic tracking analytics), maintain and fulfill orders, and send them out based on local distribution/logistic networks that are only limited by physical proximity of the destination to the warehouse (we’ll get to that later). This is mostly where you will see ‘mom-and-pop’ stores as well as distributors of copied goods.

T-Mall, or Taobao Mall, serves as an aggregator of factory/brand authorized goods that require additional verification and has much more stringent regulations in order to ensure authenticity of goods and enhance trust among consumers. This is where most Chinese consumers will go if they wanted better quality of goods backed by brand authorized distributors.

Major differentiators here include a relatively good search algorithm (although it is lacking in cross-shopping/selling features), goods that are tailored to the Chinese consumer (which includes a wide variety of products and product lines that would contribute to point 3 that Ben made), and what I perceive to be a major integration of social messaging/instant messaging utilizing WanWan/QQ for customer support before/during/after the shopping process.

2. Distribution: Here is where it gets very interesting. I won’t get into the specifics about SKU distribution, or product line decisions and warehousing – but logistics and distribution is a whole different animal as compared to the U.S. In the U.S., essentially both customers and shippers have three major options (USPS, UPS, and Fedex). All of them have varying degrees of shipping speed, tracking, and drop-off/pick-up options. In China, despite recent attempts at standardization and consolidation of logistics, there are still a multitude of companies that operate via motorcycles/courier networks that can deliver with relative speed accuracy. That is to say, you live next to where the product is actually being shipped out.

Despite all the touting about one-day or same day shipping, if you don’t live in a city that has a warehouse where the product is coming out from and where the courier can pick up relatively soon/effortless, you’ll get the product within a few days to a few weeks. I witnessed first hand as the coordination between shipper and logistics company was a cross-calling mess as we tried to ship a product by calling the logistics hub, and the hub called the delivery driver (who physically had to come to the warehouse and pick up the item) – and in the middle of all this it requires coordination by all parties just to have the item shipped outbound. If the warehouse was located farther away from the city, or if you lived in a more remote area, the product will simply take an extraordinary longer period of time to arrive (without an accurate tracking mechanism to boot).

3. Trust: Trust means both trust in the website itself, products, and payment platforms. Recently with Alipay, it’s become much better as consumers load credits onto their Alipay account, which makes Alipay (or other payment platforms) serve as the middle man, and therefore take on some of the inherent risk. Previously, direct transactions by credit card weren’t regulated by industry security standards and simply served to dissuade consumers from shopping online, and requiring a COD option, as handing physical cash (or returning the item directly if the consumer was dissatisfied) felt more secure than sending financial information electronically.

T-mall additionally provided an aggregator of verified distributors that sold goods that consumers can be sure of. Due to the availability of counterfeit goods, Chinese consumers are simply more wary and concerned about if they are really getting what they pay for.

There are a huge amount of counterfeit sites that sell counterfeit goods. Even on T-mall/TaoBao, we are seeing stores set up by unauthorized retailers (which T-Mall subsequently takes down) that erode consumer trust.

More questions on e-Commerce:

• What are the recent trends that are revolutionizing Chinese e-commerce industry?
• Which online grocery website in India is popular?
• What trends are revolutionizing Social E-Commerce?

Chinese e-commerce site 360Buy seems to be cranking out new features on a daily basis. Yesterday, an e-bookstore; today an app store. 360Buy’s newly-launched apps market offers Android applications and games, and is yet another alternative to Google Play in China.

It enters a very crowded market for third-party Android app stores in the country, while also giving 360Buy a more Amazon-esque line-up of digital offerings.

This new app marketplace (at play.360buy.com) is all part of 360Buy’s digital diversification, which will eventually cover nearly all the bases in online entertainment: e-books, online games, music, and video. So far, it’s three down and one to go – streaming video must be next.

‘360Buy Apps’, as it is called, comes with a market app for Android phones, and there are also upcoming apps for Android tablets and for Windows PCs. The PC app will offer an iTunes-like syncing experience for Android users, something that Google avoids, instead prefering to do syncing in the cloud. But Chinese users have never been so keen on that. Indeed, lots of Chinese sites have opted to fill this niche with their own syncing apps, such as the startup Wandoujia, right up to China’s biggest web company, Tencent, with its App Assistant.

Putting our skeptical hat on – which is, by the way, our favorite hat – some might say it’s wise for 360Buy to offer more digital content at a time when it’s still struggling to turn a profit. That’s because it’s relatively cheap to expand its line-up in this way – perhaps the cheapest possible area of expansion of them all. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Indeed, it’s a very late entry into the third-party app market scene, and it doesn’t make much sense to try such a low-profit portal. My colleague Willis is less charitable and reckons that this is “seriously stupid” and diluting the company’s focus on e-commerce sales of books, clothing, and electronics.

360Buy, despite its recent series D funding worth $400 million, is thought to be really in need of greater cash-flow.

One of China’s top e-commerce sites, 360Buy, has opened an online music store that promises music downloads as cheap as one-tenth the price of CD songs. It has come online with the name LeMusic, and already has apps for iOS, Android, and PC.

360Buy’s new MP3 store – at music.360buy.com – has a fairly small selection of licensed music that’s either free or paid-for, depending on the songs or albums. This will presumably grow with time. The e-tailer has said that its music will “cost one-third to one-tenth the price of CDs” and marks the continuation of the site focusing on more digital content; it has already ventured into online games and e-books, and will likely also push into software and online video.

The 360Buy LeMusic service also offers streaming music, and its apps can additionally serve as a general player for any music you already have in your laptop or smartphone. It’ll be up against a variety of local rivals – from social sites like Xiami, to search engine behemoth Baidu and its newly re-branded Music service. Neither Amazon not Apple’s iTunes sell MP3s in the China market.

The 360Buy LeMusic homepage. Click to enlarge.

We recently looked into the likelihood that China’s era of free MP3 downloads (even of licensed and ad-supported songs) will soon be at an end, and that a group of Chinese sites and web portals are banding together to roll out paid music subscriptions next year. It’s not clear if 360Buy will be part of that joint effort.

Last week 360Buy confirmed $400 million in fourth-round funding.

[Source: Sina Tech - article in Chinese]

[UPDATE 1: This was all confirmed by the company later in the day. The story's text has been amended to reflect this just in the first and final paragraphs].

Earlier this year we suggested that 360Buy, China’s second-largest B2C e-commerce site, was focusing on a major new funding round rather than prepping a US IPO. And that is now a reality today with earlier rumors on ChinaByte being confirmed by the company that it has secured series D funding worth $400 million.

The huge fourth round of funding for 360Buy is led by Ontario Teachers’ Retirement Fund (OTPP), with participation from the Tiger Fund. As large as the investment amount is, it effectively values 360Buy at $7.25 billion, which is a lot less than the $10 billion or more that the e-tailer was pegged at after its $500 million injection from DST in April of last year. Indeed, means 360Buy’s valuation has been slashed by a quarter. [UPDATE 2: A DST spokesperson has reached out to clarify that, at the point of DST's investment in 360Buy in June 2011, "360Buy was valued at $6 billion" - and not $10 billion, a figure which was bandied about last year. So the suggestion here (though DST cannot confirm the size of its stake) is that 360Buy's valuation has actually grown].

Ontario Teachers’ Retirement Fund is Canada’s third-largest retirement fund. Bloomberg reported last week that the OTPP is planning to open a Hong Kong office in 2013 as a part of its strategy to diversify the group’s investments.

This summer I asked what on earth 360Buy is truly worth, amidst wildly fluctuating numbers of its eventual evaluation when it finally lists publicly. Some in the e-commerce industry in China reckon that 360Buy should not be evaulated on the same price-to-sales ratio as Amazon, since 360Buy is in a much less stable a position compared to Amazon in the US and many other markets. To cut a long story short, some industry experts reckon that a valuation of $5 to $6 billion is closer to the mark.

360Buy confirmed the news later on Tuesday after many initial reports about the new funding round being secured. CEO and founder Liu Qiangdong has been unusually quiet on social media in the past month and hasn’t commented personally on this.

[Source: ChinaByte - article in Chinese]

We recently suggested that China’s biggest e-commerce sales/discounts day could beat America’s Cyber Monday in value – and that’s precisely what happened during yesterday’s “Double Eleven” online shopfest. Indeed, two of China’s biggest sites, Tmall and Taobao (both owned by Alibaba Group), beat out all US e-tailers by themselves, seeing sales transactions worth RMB 19.1 billion (US$3.043 billion) during the 24-hour promotional period.

That makes Tmall and Taobao’s Double Eleven sales worth more than double America’s entire Cyber Monday shopping spree, which brought in $1.25 billion in 2011. With Cyber Monday in the US growing at only about 22 percent per year, it’s unlikely that the next one, on November 26th, will see American consumers outspend their Chinese counterparts.

Back in 2011, Taobao and Tmall brought in $830 million in sales transactions on that special shopping day, so the two sites saw that figure grow by just over 360 percent.

Alibaba said this morning that it saw more merchants than ever take part on the sales day, with even major brands like Nike and Uniqlo offering discounts on their Tmall virtual stores. This year, a total of 10,000 sellers on Alibaba’s sites joined in the action, up from 2,200 last year. [UPDATED: Here are a couple of extra stats from Alibaba related to m-commerce purchases yesterday]:

The ratio of Taobao users using PC to those using Taobao Mobile on November 11th was 3:1, and the ratio from last year was 5:1. In the first hour, nearly 7 million registered users logged onto their Taobao Mobile app and reached RMB 100 million in transaction volume. Taobao Mobile hit RMB 940 million [$149.8 million] in transaction volume [in whole 24-hour period].

Of course, all of China’s top e-commerce sites took part in the event, with sales of up to 50 percent on some items, and a host of other offers and gimmicks. But other major sites in the country have not revealed sales figures for the full day, making it hard to piece together exactly how much was spent online during yesterday’s Double Eleven. Tmall’s closest rival in the B2C market, 360Buy, has not yet given any clues as to its performance, while the electronics retailer Suning (SHE:002024) revealed only that it got nearly three million orders and saw twenty times more sales this year than last.

51Buy, which is a much smaller Amazon-esque site, was a bit more forthcoming with its stats and said that RMB 50 million ($7.97 million) worth of stuff was sold up to 4pm yesterday, which was up 630 percent on its performance the year before. The online shopfest ran to midnight, so 51Buy will reveal updated figures later.

Wait… Is this how e-commerce works? I’ve been doing it wrong. (Photo: Getty Images)

November 11th became a bizarre and jokey Single’s Day in China in the 1990s, celebrated as a sort of anti-Valentine’s day. But back in 2008, the iconic date – 11/11 – got a new meaning, and a greater urgency, when China’s top e-commerce site, Tmall, decided to turn it into a huge online shopping sales day. It quickly became a new national institution, and now all the country’s e-commerce sites join in the cut-price e-commerce spending spree that’s known as Double Eleven. 2012’s Double Eleven looks set, for the first time ever, to surpass America’s Cyber Monday in terms of sales volume.

Last year’s Cyber Monday in the US, in data from ComScore, saw $1.25 billion in sales, which was up 22 percent from the previous year. But China’s Double Eleven, with discounts of up to 50 percent on many items – is poised to pass that huge stat. 2011’s 24-hour online spending spree in China raked in US$830 million in transactions for just the two largest sites in the country, Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao – and that figure was up 373 percent from the previous year. Sadly, nationwide stats for all sites are not available.

So – brace yourselves for this – China’s Double Eleven online shopfest tomorrow will not only be bigger than America’s comparable day, but just two Chinese sites will likely beat that $1.25 billion sales figure by themselves.

Shop Till You Drop

Tmall’s special sales page…

… and this is 360Buy’s. Nobody said it’s gonna be pretty.

Looking at China’s top B2C e-commerce sites, they’ve all put up promotional pages ready for tomorrow (pictured above), and for months beforehand have been stockpiling inventory, hiring extra staff, and making sure that their site is up to the task of being hit by hundreds of millions of shoppers all at once.

The top five B2C shopping sites in the country – Tmall, 360Buy, QQ Buy, Suning, and Amazon China – are all pushing their Double Eleven deals to varying extents. The brick-and-mortar electronics retailer Suning (SHE:002024) is being particularly aggressive – as it has been in general for the past year or two, pushing its business more online – by giving away a small selection of stuff for free; plus, some of its other deals are available for three days, not just the regular 24-hour window.

China’s e-commerce market is also a ferocious area that has seen a few specialist sites fail earlier this year as the major e-tailers consolidate power and market share. It’s also a sector that sees a lot of price wars, so the Double Eleven shopfest is actually one of many chances for consumers to get a discount. Hopefully consumers will be looked after and not exploited tomorrow – we don’t want a re-run of some previous price wars that have seen stock for some items severly limited, leaving e-commerce shoppers feeling angered by an apparent bait-and-switch tactic. After all, sales should not be a blow-out, but a chance to win over new customers.

The new 360Buy global frontpage.

China’s second-largest e-commerce site, 360Buy, has opened up an English-language site that will ship items to 35 countries worldwide. The site has just gone live minutes ago at en.360buy.com. The site’s help center points out that it’s only accepting Paypal as a payment method for now, and all goods will be shipped out of China, causing lengthy delays.

As I first suspected when I heard this news, 360Buy is not truly launching in lots of markets, with warehouses and stock in numerous countries – as Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has done. Rather this sees 360Buy using its existing resources in China to reach out to customers worldwide. But it remains to be seen if prices can be kept competitive – and if length shipping times will prove off-putting. The new 360Buy help center in English says that shipping can take three to six days with DHL or UPS, but as long as “15 to 20 business days” for “supersaver” options like China Post or Singapore Post.

Click to enlarge.

360Buy’s new global site says it’s trying to offer free shipping where possible, but “Free shipping is only available for the SuperSaver shipping method.” So free shipping can doom you to waiting nearly a month for something to arrive.

But the site has some charms. It could be used as a way for individuals to source cheap items from China – sort of like with the Alibaba.com service, except you don’t need to be a business that’s buying wholesale amounts.

I notice the 360Buy global site is heavily marketing things like wedding dresses – a prime example of something that can be made cheaply in China and that would be in demand in a lot of markets at a healthy profit margin. Same for smartphone and tablet cases.

To back up its global efforts, 360Buy now has social presences on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ as a way of dealing with customers.

China’s 360buy has been something of an anomaly late, as the e-commerce giant has been expressing interest in other areas like advertising platforms, e-payments, and even games. My colleague questioned the company’s commitment to e-commerce a few weeks back, speculating that exploring other business models might be a potential ‘plan B’ if its fortunes in China’s e-commerce wars take a turn for the worse.

But according to China Daily interview with the company’s vice president Shi Tao, 360buy is about to double down on e-commerce, doing so on a global scale. The company will reportedly launch an English version of its website (the ‘coming soon’ placeholder is at en.360buy.com), with the goal of delivering products to over 36 countries, particularly in North America and Europe. 360buy has also opened up social presences, with Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus accounts now active.

360buy will be an interesting case study among all the other Chinese internet companies looking to do business abroad. I would posit that unless you are in e-commerce where the perception of cheap is to your advantage, the made-in-China brand will be a toxic one for most Chinese companies set on global expansion. China’s failure to develop soft power, combined with the government’s perpetual dickishness [1], is creating significant impediments for Chinese businesses abroad. The recent troubles of Huawei and ZTE, as well as Baidu’s issues in Vietnam are examples of this.

Conversely we can look at the success of Tencent’s WeChat, which is being marketed without any hint that it is made in China save for a small Tencent link in the footer.

Stay tuned over the coming days, as we see exactly how 360buy’s plans unfold.

Update 16:43 Beijing time: 360buy just sent out this message via its Twitter account, specifying when its English site will launch.

Thanks for following 360buy. Our English website will launch in the morning of October 18 (EST time).

— 360buy (@360BuyOfficial) October 18, 2012

According to the aforementioned sources, 360Buy is looking to buy out an online banking company that already has a government license to operate an online payment service, and then use that license to operate its own e-payment service. Insiders say that the purchase is “basically complete” and that details should be announced soon, but at present it remains an unconfirmed rumor and there is no indicate of which online banking operation 360Buy may be looking to purchase.

Regardless of the veracity of this report, it’s pretty clear by now that 360Buy is looking hard at ways to increase revenue and is not limiting itself just to expansions of its e-commerce operations. The company is reportedly in some financial trouble and seems to hope alternative business models will help dig it out of the hole. If 360Buy still exists in ten years, will it even be an e-commerce company?

[via Sina Tech]

It’s not clear yet when 360Buy’s platform will be released, what payment will be like, or exactly how the thing will work; 360Buy is still in the process of researching and developing it. But from what 360Buy reps have said, it sounds a lot like Taobao Express, the Alibaba advertising platform that helps sellers market their products to users. That service, now split into the separate services Taobao Express and Tmall Express, has become a significant source of revenue for Alibaba. It certainly makes sense that 360Buy would want to replicate that formula.

And thanks to Taobao Express’s success, 360Buy’s ad platform will likely have plenty of interested sellers. One merchant on both sites told Sina Tech:

We tried Taobao Express and the results were not bad, so when the time comes we will probably also try promotional ads on 360Buy.

With 360Buy reportedly under some financial pressure, the added income could be a lifesaver. Although no release date for the ad platform has been announced, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it pretty soon. The company will also reportedly be expanding into games, again with the hope of improving the look of its financials. It’s not clear just how big a financial hole the company is in, but it certainly seems to be grasping at every potential revenue stream it can imagine.

[via Sina Tech]

(Original photo: news365.com.cn)

The home-improvement chain Home Depot (NYSE:HD) recently admitted defeat on the streets of China, failing to replicate the success of Ikea in the nation, and closed all seven of its remaining big-box stores. But the US retailer has one more plan of attack in China: e-commerce.

A representative of 360Buy, China’s second-largest B2C e-tailer, said yesterday that it has agreed a deal with Home Depot that’ll see 360Buy’s open platform play host to a virtual store for the US firm. Rival online store Tmall was rumored to be in contention, and there’s no reason why a retailer can’t have a presence on both.

360Buy is said to be in the process of adding Home Depot items to its inventory, and they’ll appear on the site in due course.

Home Depot, which has over 2,200 stores in total, is not the only major US chain to flunk its Chinese test. Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) did the same in early 2011 – though it’s seeking a smaller-scale comeback in China, this time focusing on mobiles.

Of course, just because Home Depot is shifting things online, it doesn’t mean things will magically work. Chinese consumers are really not into DIY home improvements for lots of reasons, such as a lack of storage space for tools in apartments, and plenty of manual labor in the country that makes it cheaper to get someone to do stuff for you.

[Source: 21CBH - article in Chinese]

China’s B2C e-commerce specialist 360Buy is stepping onto new ground. According to Yicai, the online shopping giant will be launching its very own online games. The new expansion is still undergoing production and it will be tested internally starting on the 20th of this month.

This project has been pretty much kept under wraps and ostensibly 360Buy wants to keep it quiet for the time being, at least until their games are ready for launch. The first launch will see about four to six games on its platform. However, it remains unclear the type of games that 360Buy will be experimenting with (i.e. mobile, browser-based, MMOs, etc).

As reported in the article, a 360Buy representative revealed that this new project has been in the works for three to four months. The company, China’s second-biggest B2C shopping site, will outsource the games to third-party developers and they will play more of a “platform” role in this project.

This is an interesting move for 360Buy as engaging games will generate a new revenue stream for the company. More importantly, it will also improve the current system of payment collection. According to 360Buy, 70 percent of its payment comes only after users have received goods. The issue with “after-collection-payment” system is that it requires high capital as the company needs cash liquidity for logistics, delivery, and more problems when users reject the items for whatever reasons. It’s part of the reason that 360Buy tries to pay for the stock it buys as late as possible – a source of tension between the e-tailer and some of its suppliers.

However, games by nature are not items you pay for after consumption. Most of the time, payment is made when you purchase the game. As such, 360Buy’s cash-flow might improve.

As e-commerce and games usually attracts different crowd of users, 360Buy will be hoping to increase its user-base. I would reckon that this is a good move for 360Buy, especially after a bloody price-war in which I’m still very unclear who – if anyone – really won.

[Source: Yicai, Image]

That mobile spending spree will amount to RMB 11.64 billion (US$1.84 billion) in bought items in Q2 – that’s 487.9 percent higher compared to the same period in 2011. The very strong growth in Android and iOS in China will help push that forward even more, especially as nearly all of the country’s e-commerce players have very nice apps for those two mobile OSes.

So who are the main players in mobile commerce in China? Perhaps it’s no surprise that the two large online malls from e-commerce behemoth Alibaba – Taobao and Tmall – lead the way with a monstrous 75.6 percent share of mobile shopping [1]. Second is 360Buy, the B2C rival to Tmall with 6.2 percent. Those stats suggest that 360Buy is seriously underachieving in its mobile strategy, as Analysis International market share data for China’s B2C market shows that 360Buy’s share is more in the order of 15.5 percent.

The specialist e-tailers Vancl (for clothing) and Maobaobao (for handbags) stand out strongly in these m-commerce stakes:

[Source: iResearch]

Prof Zeng Ming, Alibaba’s chief strategy officer

“Our competition with 360Buy is over. […] They’re struggling.” So said Alibaba’s Zeng Ming in a talk with media this morning, dismissing the closest rival to its Tmall site in China’s fierce business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce sector.

“I no longer look at 360Buy at all,” added Prof. Zeng Ming, Alibaba’s chief strategy officer, before wondering aloud if 360Buy can even make enough money to survive. China’s B2C sector is worth nearly $100 billion in terms of sales. While Alibaba’s Tmall leads with 41.5 percent market share, 360Buy seems a strong second with 15.5 percent of the pie.

But the slam on 360Buy was aimed more widely – at the whole B2C sector in China. In the talk at Alibaba HQ in Hangzhou, eastern China, this morning, Zeng stressed that Alibaba likes to be a platform, not a buyer of goods – and the same extends to the online shopping site Tmall. While 360Buy acquires all its goods and keeps them in its own warehouses – and is even now moving into delivering them via its own logistics company – Tmall does none of that. If you buy, say, a Nike T-shirt on Tmall, then Nike or its local partner sends that to you. In that respect, Tmall is B2B2C. The implication is that it’s cheaper, more sustainable.

Asked by a Forbes reporter if Alibaba might get into logistics itself, Zeng replied, “Definitely not.” Well, since Tmall doesn’t buy any goods itself, it doesn’t really have anything to deliver.

Zeng emphasized that the platform approach is better for the company – and, he claims, for the e-commerce sector as a whole. The attack on the centralized B2C ethos comes at a time when a few specialist, vertical Chinese sites have gone under, apparently weighed down by the costs involved. In recent months we’ve seen Vcotton hit financial troubles, and the once-promising Yaodian100 vanished off the web in mysterious and worrying circumstances.

Earlier this summer we reported that 360Buy might launch its much-anticipated US IPO – albeit at perhaps half the value of its previous funding round. Failing that, series D investment might be the way to go. The official line from 360Buy’s CEO, Liu Qiangdong, is that he has nothing but money – enough, even, for the controversial recent price war.

It looks like a new China internet war is brewing. And this time the headlines revolve around B2C e-commerce powerhouse, Tmall and 360buy – China’s two biggest online malls. According to Nbdaily, Tmall and 360buy have each asserted pressure on their own brands and suppliers to choose just one platform for the upcoming sales and promotion season.

The situation is not looking good for the small- and medium-sized brands who rely on selling their products on the two huge sites. Some suppliers reflected that they were sort of “caught” in the middle and some of them claimed that they were forced to take part in the price war between the two. A representative from the Chinese jeans brand Jasonwood revealed that their products remained online despite declining to take part in the 360Buy price cut promotion. The rep commented, “Such actions are not acceptable.”

Other brand labels are feeling the pressure as well. Some of them claimed that Tmall enquired if they had taken part in the 360Buy price cut promotion. Most of the labels chose to remain silent regarding this incident, as they wish not to “offend” any of the parties involved. According to Nbdaily, Tmall and 360Buy have both responded to this speculation by insisting that the rumors were not true and that they did not “force” the numerous brands to take part in any of the price-slashing promotions.

The report cites a Tmall Pr manager as saying:

Tmall as an e-commerce platform has always given our clients the freedom to choose how they want to operate their sales.

Personally, if this kind of Tmall and 360Buy battle is indeed going on, I’d say that any intention of a price war should first consider the interests of consumers. By placing such fears and pressure on the brands who are their major suppliers, I don’t see how it is going to benefit and grow the entire e-commerce community.

[Source: Nbdaily via TechSina, Image]

Other violations include failing to meet sales promises and failure to have advertised goods in stock. The Commission has not announced which companies are guilty of what — it is investigating 360Buy, Suning, and Gome — but it has promised that these violators will be punished in accordance with the law. Specific details and fines have not yet been determined.

Separately, a government investigation of Liu Qiangdong’s weibo claim that 360Buy goods would be sold at cost for the next three years was total crap, with the fifteen types of products checked all still being sold at a profit, some with margins as high as 22 percent.

In response to these announcements, 360Buy has already apologized for its failure to meet its promise of zero profits, and claims it has already developed a plan to rectify and improve its behavior. Suning has stated it has kept its sales promises, but admitted that there were “flaws” in the way the price war was managed. Gome does not seem to have made a public statement yet but all companies seem to be cooperating with investigators.

[Beijing News via Sina Tech, Image via Shutterstock]

There are thousands of e-commerce sites in the Chinese market, where literally almost anything can be bought online. So which ones have made the biggest impact in China’s online shopping space? We have shortlisted over 20 e-commerce sites below which we think you should look out for. Read on!

C2C

1. Taobao.com

Alibaba-owned Taobao is no stranger to e-commerce industry. The C2C giant sells almost everything, literally, from notebooks to vehicles. Unlike its western counterpart, eBay, Taobao owes its success as the market leader in this industry by notably offering free registration for its users.

B2C

2. Tmall.com

Another Alibaba-owned business, Tmall focuses on B2C services. Its a virtual mall that plays host to many brands’ main online retailing presence, notably companies like Gucci, Calvin Klein, Burberry and many more. Our most recent market share report notes that Tmall is the leader by a wide margin with 41.5 percent of revenue in 2012 Q2.

3. 360buy.com

360buy, the ‘other’ giant in China’s e-commerce industry, covers mainly electronics, home appliances, clothing, and books. The site also has its own online travel service, and a mall for luxury brands at 360Top.com.

4. Suning & Gome

Suning, is an electronics retailer that operates stores across the country. But it is transforming itself into an e-tailer so as to avoid the disastrous fate of the brick-and-mortar industry. It is interesting to see how the company uses its experience in the industry to conquer e-commerce in China. Our recent stats suggests it’s now up to fourth place in the B2C sector. Gome, a close rival of Suning and 360buy, also principally operates retail shops selling electronics and electrical appliances. As the market slowly diversifies into e-commerce, and as more customers turn to online shopping, Gome is also transforming itself into an e-tailer to keep pace with the market.

5. QQ buy

QQ buy, an e-commerce site owned by Tencent, aims to bring competition to the industry that is heavily monopolized by Tmall and 360 buy. QQ buy focuses on brands and labels, and also allow rival, specialist e-commerce sites to open up virtual storefronts on its site.

6. Dangdang

DangDang, the e-tailer specialist that sells almost everything from clothing, shoes, to gadgets, also has an e-reader and e-book service which launched recently in April. Called the Doucan, the Kindle-like e-reader is highly integrated with Dangdang’s own e-book store. Customers are able to purchase e-books from within the Doucan device.

7. Vancl

Vancl is China’s largest clothing e-tailer. It sells its own brand of clothing and makes them affordable for shoppers. It has recently started shifting production overseas in an effort to cut labour rates and beat the country’s rapidly rising production costs. The company also runs the mall-like V+ site which hosts other clothing brands.

8. 51buy & Coo8

51buy is an e-commerce site selling mostly home appliances and gadgets. The site is heavily financed by Tencent, China’s internet giant. Coo8 is a subsidiary of the electronics retailer, Gome. The site mainly sell gadgets and IT-related products as well. It has a very similar product area to 51buy.

9. Yihaodian

YiHaoDian is the country’s largest food and consumables e-commerce retailer. Products range from food to toiletries, and recently it has been diversifying into clothing and electronics. Walmart has a controlling stake in Yihaodian and the partnership became official last week.

Group Buy Sites

10. Meituan & 55tuan

Meituan and 55tuan are long-standing market leaders in the group-buy industry. They offer deals and discounts that are usable in many cities, such as at restaurants, cinemas, traveling agencies, etc. The two sites account for approximately 26 percent of the daily deals market in China according to the most recent data, with a monthly revenue of 200 million RMB.

11. Dianping

Dianping is a group buy site that offers more than just deals and discounts. It is similar to (but actually pre-dates) Yelp in the US, and it started its online journey with reviews and listings. As such, Dianping has been expanding exponentially, with its revenue growing at thirty percent since the start of the year.

12. Taobao Juahuasuan

Juhuasuan is a deals site owned by Alibaba, and located at a subdomain of Taobao, ju.taobao.com. Despite the slump in the group-buy industry, Juhuasuan continues to perform exceedingly well. The site sold 57 percent of all product-based deals, more than all of its rivals combined. It’s the market leader at present, with 21.5 percent market share by revenue.

Vertical Commerce (also B2C)

13. Mbaobao

The ladies will love this one! Mbaobao is a specialist e-commerce site in China that focuses on women’s bags. The e-tailer has received a fourth round of funding and we’ll likely see expansion coming up.

14. Redbaby

Redbaby specializes in baby-products, and was one of the early leaders in the B2C e-commerce industry in the country. As competition steepened, its market share decreased, raising questions about the feasibility of its business model. There were rumors that Gome or Suning, the electronics retailers mentioned above, are interested in acquiring the baby-product retailing site. Nothing has been confirmed yet.

15. Jiuxian

Jiuxian is an e-tailer that specializes in selling wines and spirits. The wine retailer has expanded its storefronts this year, and it has a virtual store on Tmall and Dangdang as well. It wrapped up major series C funding just recently.

16. La Miu

La Miu is a specialized e-commerce site that focuses on selling lingerie. It is not just an e-commerce site, but one that designs and manufactures its own underwear. The founder aims to provide a sort of luxury shopping experience like Victoria’s Secret in US, but yet make it more affordable as well.

Flash/VIP Sales

17. Vipshop

VIPShop focuses on discounts and flash sales. The online retailer partners with over 1,000 brands to bring certain amounts of items at a lower price for consumers. The site mainly covers clothing and electronics. It was one of very few Chinese tech stocks to list in the US this year.

18. FClub

FClub operates on the same model as VIPShop. It got $30 million in funding very recently and might well follow VIPShop along the IPO route. The site was launched in 2009, and it sells mainly mid-range clothing and accessories, as well as some luxury items. The site has partnerships with over 1,500 brands to buy up items and re-sell them to members within a period of five days.

“Referral” Commerce

19. Meilishuo, Mogujie

These are the sites that drive traffic to other sites, mainly to Taobao.com. Mogujie and Meilishuo are more than just Pinterest clones. They are e-commerce referral startups that function as aggregators of different products listed on other e-commerce sites. Online shoppers will select and pick the items they want, perhaps led there by someone sharing an item via social media, and they will be redirected to the product’s original site for payment. According to Mogujie’s own stats in April this year, the site attracts 2.2 million visitors each day who browse 750,000 items on Taobao every day, and end up buying 60,000 of those.

20. eTao

eTao is a prices comparison site owned by Alibaba. The site aims to help consumer compare price and eventually bring them to the cheapest e-commerce site to make the final purchase.

So that’s it folks, if you have any other sites to recommend, kindly add them in comments below.

360Buy’s robots.txt file — a public file that controls which web-crawling bots can mine a website for information — now disallows the bot EtaoSpider, as you can see from the image above. This has actually happened before, but 360Buy had since re-allowed indexing of its site, which is what enabled ETao to compile its price comparisons for the warring websites last week.

360Buy, of course, claims that Alibaba’s price comparison engine is unfair, and given that Alibaba isn’t exactly neutral in China’s e-commerce wars, that makes some sense. But since it just recently revealed a third, uninvolved party to have better prices than 360Buy, the move to block Etao now looks childish and petulant. Which is probably how Jack Ma would describe this whole price war anyway.

[China Business News via Sina Tech]

Actually, a nasty price war hurts consumers’ interests the most. If the firms involved aren’t making profits, or are even operating at a loss [...] they can’t possibly provide after-sales service, let alone innovate new things [that would ultimately be good] for consumers.

And a price war isn’t just bad for consumers. Ma clearly thinks that it’s not going the companies engaging in it much favors, either. He said that the supposed branding value of this kind of price war is overstated, and although he was pretty polite, it’s clear he’s not a big fan of the way that 360Buy CEO Liu Qiangdong launched this war on a whim:

When I learned from 360Buy CEO Mr Liu’s weibo that this large scale price war was a ‘snap decision,’ I was very surprised. A large scale enterprise with tens of thousands of employees and billions of dollars in business launches a big price war, and it’s because a leader made a snap decision to do it! I admire Liu’s courage and his warrior spirit, but I don’t know how he’s going to be able to deploy his troops and allocate his resources to fight this price war for the next three years.

If the price war is real, is [360Buy] fully prepared for that? If it isn’t real, it will be difficult for the leadership to get a swift response of out its employees after this, because employees will be confused about the sincerity of the orders they’re getting. We’ve all heard the story of the boy who cried wolf.

So, depending on who you ask, China’s e-commerce price war is either good for everyone or bad for everyone. Of course, the whole thing looks to be a bit of a fraud anyway as it turns out Amazon — which isn’t participating in the mud-slinging price war — has prices lower than all of them!

[via Techweb (the image too)]

Fun. That’s the one word that I would use to describe the continual online wars in China. The most recent is between Baidu and Qihoo’s new 360 Search. Sometimes the Chinese tech scene sounds like a never-ending stream of smack-talk.

Here’s a list of eight wars in just the past year or so, listed in reverse chronological order:

1. Qihoo’s 360 Search vs Baidu, Google, Sogou

This week the search wars are pretty much dominating the tech media headlines. Qihoo dropped a bomb by launching its own search engine which is now thought to have 10 percent of the Chinese market share. That’s in just one week since its launch!

2. 360Buy vs Suning vs Gome

The price war between 360buy, Suning, and Gome could well be a fake war for the sake of publicity. I still suspect it is.

3. Qihoo’s CEO vs Xiaomi’s CEO

This war of words (and products too, after Qihoo unveiled a budget smartphone to counter the Xiaomi M1) looks very real given that Qihoo’s CEO Zhou Hongyi has made quite a name for himself in wanting to compete (or have a spat) with most other Chinese internet leaders.

4. Suning vs anyone selling electronics

The brick-and-mortar retailer has been aggressive in pushing into e-commerce where there’s much more growth potential.

5. Dangdang vs 360Buy

Yes, electronics sure are a hotly-contested sector!

6. Tmall vs anyone selling electronics

Though not the most profitable sector, the country’s biggest online retailer, Alibaba-owned Tmall.com, has been cutting prices on its own electronics portal, hoping to take chunks out of the market share of many rivals, such as 360Buy, Dangdang, Suning, and Gome’s Coo8.

7. Tencent vs UCWeb over mobile browsers

China’s biggest web company, Tencent, pushed into mobile browsers, allegedly breaking a contract partnership with UCWeb, makers of the popular UC Browser. That went all the way to the courts.

8. Tencent vs Qihoo over anti-virus

But the biggest and most bruising tech war ever might have been this one, from back in late 2010 over PC-based anti-virus products. It was lengthy and it got very ugly very quickly.

Of course, amidst all that there has been lots of interesting and healthy competition – some of it without needing any smack-talk! Tell us your favourite China biz wars in the comments.

[Image source: Quickmeme]

Me the cheapestz Credit: LA Times

In the taxi here in Beijing, radio hosts are discussing the publicity and price war between 360Buy, Suning, and Gome, three of China’s top electronics e-tailers. In the subway and in cafes, I hear people talking about it. And of course, the topic has gone wild on Weibo and among the media and blogosphere. On the radio, 360Buy CEO Liu Qiangdong claims that 360buy has nothing but money to spare to support this e-commerce price war. He also commented that as an e-commerce company, he could refresh the prices every 30 minutes, but brick-and-mortar shops like Suning and Gome probably can’t match that speed. (Note that Suning and Gome have e-commerce ventures too).

But have the prices really changed? Yes, but not greatly. If you check around the weibosphere, some folks are dubious of 360buy prices. This Weibo user, for example, questioned 360buy’s iPad prices (translated):

Didn’t you [360buy] say that your products would be 10 percent cheaper than Suning’s? Why is Suning’s iPad 140 yuan cheaper than yours!?

One place to compare local prices is eTao.com, Alibaba’s price comparison search engine. As if this is some kind of Olympics, eTao is amusingly tracking each product’s prices and “awarding” each B2C e-commerce site gold, silver, or bronze for the top three lowest price points. So who is winning this battle? According to eTao’s leaderboard, Gome’s overall offers are cheaper then 360buy’s and Suning’s. But the cheapest of all (according to the number of gold medals) is Amazon.cn at the time of this writing. So yup, none of the folks who started this price war is winning it, for now, in eTao’s eyes.

Now, back to reality. Seeing this from a outsider’s point of view, the price war feels a little awkward, though a little fun at the same time. It doesn’t take an extreme skeptic to doubt if all this is just a publicity stunt by 360buy or even one performed together with Gome and Suning. This Sina Weibo poll suggests that a large group of netizens are indeed suspecting that this is a joint act. The price war could have some detrimental effect on all the companies’ bottom-lines. But if that’s in the name of publicity, then it could still be a worthwhile investment. But this Weibo poll seems to suggest that the price war has the potential to generate negative publicity for all three companies, too. And perhaps the winners could be Amazon, eTao, and other product search engines, who are smartly riding on this frenzied wave to show their price comparison capabilities.

Red = They are ganging up for a show, Blue = They are fighting to the death

And while getting all muddy on this price war. I do hope that all these price cuts don’t translate to sub-par customer service or product quality. Because that would be dumb. It’s encouraging to see Chinese consumers and netizens paying attention to this price war, and doing so with scrutiny. But beside the price tag, I’m pretty sure that consumers are also concerned about the quality of the service and products. One Weibo user has had a bad experience, as suggested by his comment at Liu’s message (translated):

While you’re an entrepreneur, please kindly deliver the orders on time. If your orders are late, then that’s not at all a competitive advantage.

That Weibo message sums things up pretty well. It would be nice to have a battle of who provides the best customer service too. That, in my opinion, would be something really worth watching.

360Buy puts on its massive price war armor

Ah, weibo. Without you, life would be so dull! E-commerce CEOs would carry out their fights behind closed doors and all we’d see would be the lower prices. Thankfully, we don’t live in that world, so we got to see the mudslinging play out in real time when 360Buy CEO Liu Qiangdong launched an all-out price war on Weibo.

Offbeat China has a great rundown of the full exchange, and you should click that link and read it, but if you’re pressed for time, here’s the short version: Liu declared on his weibo that 360Buy would henceforth sell all home appliances at cost, and employees found marking up those products would be fired. He also announced the company would be hiring spies to check Gome and Suning brick-and-mortar stores to ensure 360Buy’s prices were lower and to hand out coupons to Gome and Suning customers to convince them to buy on 360Buy instead.

Needless to say, Gome and Suning were not amused. Gome announced via weibo that it would be selling all products at a lower price than 360Buy. Suning did the same. Then 360Buy fired back with its own promise to sell at a lower price than anyone else, even if it meant they were literally giving appliances away.

One day into the sales, it doesn’t seem anyone is actually giving away free refrigerators or anything like that yet. But the B2C one-upsmanship can only benefit consumers, who are understandably pretty happy with this apparent race to the bottom. In the time since the battle, Liu has been answering questions on his weibo account, and nearly all of them are related to this price war. He has said that he isn’t worried about Suning expanding the price drops into its 3C business because 360Buy could handle that.

Liu has also sought to set customers’ minds at ease when it comes to counterfeit products:

If you buy a counterfeit product from 360Buy, congratulations because you just hit the jackpot! You will get at least ten times what you paid back as compensation!

But perhaps the best summary of his attitude about this whole thing is this post of his, which reads:

All companies that lack competitive ability will die off sooner or later! If you choose to do a startup, you must constantly exercise your own competitive abilities!

Although it’s doubtful that anyone can survive giving away consumer products for long if it actually comes to that, it’s hard to see how 360Buy could come out of this incident a loser. Liu has undoubtedly raised his company’s profile and put the focus on prices. Suning and Gome may be able to compete in the short run, but in the long haul, the fact that they operate massive brick-and-mortar businesses in addition to online services means that they are going to have a very hard time keeping up with a mostly online business with (comparatively) low overheads and unrivaled convenience from a consumer standpoint. Who doesn’t prefer buying things from their couch to buying them in a store, especially in China where they often get delivered the same day you make the purchase anyway?

[via Offbeat China, Liu Qiangdong's weibo]

Of course, 360Buy representatives paint a slightly different picture. When questioned by a reporter from Yicai, 360Buy reps said that the company never planned to IPO before 2013 and that the IPO rumors were “definitely spread by one of our competitors.”

Attacks from competitors are nothing new in the cutthroat world of Chinese e-commerce, but 360Buy does face a significant problem: how to convert growing sales numbers into actual profit. The company has stopped sharing official performance numbers with the press, which some interpret as a sign that things aren’t going as well as the company might like them to be. If the company ever was actually planning an IPO, that would certainly be as good a reason as any to stop it and instead seek private funding, especially since filing with the SEC means making all of the company’s financial data very, very public.

[Yicai via Sina Tech]

360Buy's express delivery trucks are now licensed to hit the roads nationwide in China. (Image source: Eguan.cn)

We reported recently on a significant strategic shift in China’s e-commerce industry whereby a number of leading e-tailers wanted to start logistics companies so as to deliver their own products to customers. Now, China’s State Post Bureau has evaluated all their applications and it’s good news for only one of them: 360Buy. It was the only e-commerce site granted a license to expand into the courier industry, thereby dashing the hopes of Vancl, Coo8, and VIPshop.

In response to the news, 360Buy’s CEO Liu Qiangdong took to his Weibo account to say that his company’s express delivery service will launch at the end of August. It marks the end of a battle that has actually rumbled on for two whole years when the site – China’s second-largest B2C e-tailer – first applied to expand into logistics.

The strategic move being made by some of these sites reflects a desire to crackdown on the weakest link in its chain to customers, the assortment of hundreds of private and state-run courier businesses that deliver billions of dollars worth of items each year. The recently-listed VIPshop (NYSE:VIPS) claims that the company hits a successful delivery rate of just 95 percent with its current logistics partners, and that it needs to up those percentage points in whatever way it can – even if it means a phenomenally expensive shift into a new industry.

But the e-commerce market leader in China, Alibaba (with its Taobao and Tmall businesses), is sticking with the current system, and has made no sign of moving into logistics itself.

In total, the State Post Bureau approved 260 licenses for logistics companies in this initial round of audits, with all but one of them being conventional courier firms. The likes of Vancl and other hopefuls might be luckier next time.

[Source: Eguan - article in Chinese]

360Buy, China’s second-biggest B2C e-commerce site, is said to be preparing for its American IPO right now, with a view to listing in September. The business news website ChinaVenture recently reported rumors of 360Buy executives holding a lengthy meeting with analysts, and that a resultant SEC filing could be coming this month.

But, after a year of turmoil for Chinese tech stocks, and right after the controversially over-inflated Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) listing, the highly contentious issue of of what 360Buy is worth will come to the fore. If we think back to March of last year when Russian investment group DST committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Chinese online shopping website, that effectively valued 360Buy – or Jingdong Mall, to translate its Chinese name – at US$10 billion.

That huge figure syncs up nicely with a calculation of 360Buy’s worth according to Amazon’s price-to-sales ratio of 1.18 based on 360Buy’s sales estimate of $11 billion for 2013. Trouble is, Amazon – which 360Buy resembled strongly in its initial stages – is a much more mature company in a more stable (and, I’d dare to say, less fiercely competitive) American market. Plus, Amazon is pulling in profits, while 360Buy is still bleeding 5 percent operating losses.

So, tweaking that ratio to a more reasonable 0.5 would value 360Buy at $6 to $7 billion. Some would say that’s still too high. The last time the rumor mill whirred into life for 360Buy, it was being valued at way over $10 billion, with talk of raising as much as $5 billion. Surely the recent blunders and mis-steps among Chinese tech IPOs – and with Greece and Spain staring into the kind of financial abyss that could drag down global markets – will curtail such excess this time round.

Timing remains crucial. In the past, 360Buy’s founder and CEO, Liu Qiang-dong, has talked publicly of 2013 as making sense for a public offering for his company. Throughout 2012, it looks to be busy hiring 25,00 new staffers; by 2016, he wants the e-commerce site to have usurped Alibaba’s Tmall as the market leader. Somewhere in the middle, the time has to be right. Making this happen in September – rather than waiting for 2013 – might come down to a bunch of odd factors. These include avoiding the market upheaval during an American election period (November this year), getting in before a hyped re-appearance of a Game of Thrones-esque “winter” of investment freezes, a fast-changing e-commerce landscape in China, and pre-empting a downturn if the Chinese economy really does hit the kind of “hard landing” that some economists are predicting.

Until 360Buy’s IPO roadshow creaks into life, estimations of its valuation will vary wildly, which in itself speaks a lot about economic conditions.

[Sources: iResearch, ChinaVenture (article in Chinese)]

When a Chinese consumer buys something on one of China’s very numerous B2C e-commerce sites, the item in question is whisked off by a private express delivery company, zooming the product from one city to another in a van, and than stuffed onto – usually – an electric scooter for the final to-the-door delivery. But two of China’s top e-tailers, 360Buy and Vancl, look ready to upset that system by starting up their own express delivery companies.

According to Chinese media citing industry insiders, electronics site 360Buy and fashion-oriented Vancl have applied for the necessary business licenses to enter the logistics sector and could well be granted permission to do so next month. After that, in a strategic need for speed, their own trucks, e-bikes, and deliverymen would do the final logistical leg of a purchased item’s journey. According to QQ Tech, China’s mostly online shopping focused express delivery sector was worth 1.04 billion BMB (US$163.4 million) in the first quarter of 2012 alone, and so it will blow away the 2011 full-year market value of 3.67 billion ($576.6 million). With e-commerce in China set to expand to generate 18 trillion RMB ($2.8 trillion) in revenue in 2015, there’s still room for courier companies to grow in unison.

Final leg of the journey: A courier at work. (Image source: CNbeta.com)

But in good news for the private courier sector, market leader Alibaba – which runs Taobao and Tmall – has reaffirmed its backing of its delivery partners and the ecosystem as a whole. The company renewed its partnerships with nine Chinese logistics firms last month, including the likes of SF Express, and EMS. When I heard Alibaba’s Jack Ma give a speech in his native Hangzhou last year, he spoke in depth about how competition is good for society, raising quality and lowering prices. He also singled out state-run China Post for mockery, pointing out how the new business culture brought about by e-commerce had shaken up the dinosaurs, and spurred a huge new boost in employment and business opportunities at courier companies.

360Buy and Vancl – and perhaps some other e-tailing companies who might make the same in-house delivery move – might argue that the sector, with its often ramshackle vans and duct-taped e-bikes (pictured left), is ripe for pumping in some professionalism, perhaps with companies like UPS or DHL in mind.

Of course, this business switcheroo can go two ways. Indeed, on May 31st, SF Express launched its own e-commerce site that uses its own resources to get products into customer’s hands.

And so there’s likely a battle ahead in China as the formerly complementary logistics and e-commerce sectors turn competitive on one another.

[Source: QQ Tech - article in Chinese]

Photo: 360buy

There have been numerous reports out there today that Lenovo is going to announce its Intel-powered, Android-rocking smartphone, the K800, in the next few days. But any shoppers out there who are eager to get their hands on it might have noticed that the much-anticipated handset is already available for pre-order right now on 360buy.com.

Headlining the hardware specs, of course, is the 1.6 GHz Intel Medfield processor. After Lava International launched its Xolo X900 smartphone in India just over a month ago, the K800 is the second smartphone in the world to be powered by an Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) processor, and the first one for Chinese consumers. It has a 4.5-inch 720 x 1280 HD display, and an 8 megapixel camera on the on the back, with a 1.3 megapixel camera around front.

It is currently priced at 3,299 RMB, or about $520 over on 360Buy.com.

It will be interesting if the K800 can find a niche to settle into though, with high-profile smartphones like the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy already out there. Will consumers see it as an attractive alternative at that mid- to higher-end price point?

[Via PCpop]

Photo: hktaobao.net

A report earlier in the month from the folks over at Analysys International indicates that China’s B2C e-commerce market could be worth as much as 81.8 billion RMB (or $12.9 billion).

Looking at the Analysys’s breakdown of the companies who hold the biggest share of all that cash, Alibaba’s (HKG:1688) Tmall is way out front with 37.38 percent of the B2C online retail market. As great as Tmall’s dominance is, it’s actually down from its even more dominant Q4 position, when it held 39.9 percent share.

On the other hand, the other major play in this space, 360Buy, has risen to 17.23 percent from 14.7 percent in the previous quarter.

It should be noted that the global e-commerce behemoth Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is only clutching just over two percent of the market in China, down with a number of other also-rans. But a few months back Amazon China’s CEO Wang Hanhua noted that he figures this sector to be more of a marathon than a sprint. Nevertheless, it certainly looks to be a two-horse race right now between Tmall and 360Buy [1].

[Via Technode [2]]

Price war!

Following in the wake of Suning’s shot across the bow of online B2C retailers, Alibaba’s Tmall is launching an offensive that looks to challenge relative newcomer 360Buy. Tmall will offer major savings in consumer electronics by subsidizing 200 million RMB ($31 million) in sales.

Tmall’s Tan Biao expects the move to succeed — you’re shocked, I’m sure — and told Sina Tech that he expected Tmall’s volume of business to nearly double from Q1 to Q2 of this year. He also spoke of the move as a strike against traditional retailers, saying that the advantage of e-commerce is that consumers can connect more directly with manufacturers and save on the costs of all the middlemen involved in brick-and-mortar retail electronics. However, given that Tmall is subsidizing its new low prices, it doesn’t seem like this move is the result of any sort of streamlining of distribution services so much as an attempt to build loyalty with customers by undercutting competitors.

In the short term, this sort of price war is great for consumers, as various e-tailers lower their prices in an attempt to attract more business. In the long term, though, if a clear winner emerges, there’s a fairly good chance prices will rise again and the only impact on consumers will be that they now have fewer choices when it comes to buying something online. For now, though, get out there and enjoy those low, Tmall-subsidized prices!

[via Sina Tech, Image source]

There’s a new trend in the e-commerce and group buying – aka: daily deals – space in China for former rivals to work together, outsourcing a part of their business to another site that has great expertise in that area. It’s complementary, efficient – and quite unexpected; a tacit admission that the industry is both vicious and exorbitantly expensive, with intense pressure to cover every product area in a manner that most sites cannot realistically maintain.

An insider in the business, who’d like to remain anonymous, has told us that consolidation will only accelerate this year in China, with new partnerships and outsourcing deals even among major B2C e-commerce or group buy companies. Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) knows the risks all too well, with the failure of its joint-venture with Rakuten just last week. We’ve already seen four pretty large tie-ups in this area, with one other rumored to be about to take place. These are:

Dangdang + Gome

E-commerce site Dangdang (NYSE:DANG) recently decided to work with Gome (HKG:0493), the big-box electronics retailer which is trying to shift more of its business online, to set up a store-within-a-store on Dangdang.com that would sell much of its range of gadgets and home appliances. As part of the deal, Gome will promote its Dangdang storefront as well as take care of after-sales servicing. (Press release).

Dangdang + Jiuxian

Earlier this week, Dangdang opted to outsource its alcoholic beverages portal to the expert drinks retailer Jiuxian.com. Similarly with the Gome tie-up, it means that Jiuxian will take care of all the liquor that Dangdang’s customers order in terms of shipping and after-sales. (Read more on ChinaTechNews).

55Tuan + Ganji

Meanwhile, in the local group buy industry, the classifieds site Ganji recently ceded control of its deals portal (where it’s a very minor player) to 55Tuan, which has now risen to be China’s second-largest deals site. Though a relatively small bit of outsourcing, it’s indicative of how this path is chosen rather than Ganji abandoning that non-core part of its business. (Read more on BusinessInsider).

360buy + 55Tuan

This would be a major one, though for now it’s a rumor. Essentially, as we outlined last week, 360Buy – which is the country’s second-largest B2C e-tailer – might try to outsource its group buy portal to 55Tuan so as to save on costs on that aspect of its non-core products.

Tencent’s QQTuan + FTuan

Web giant Tencent (HKG:0700) has entrusted its QQTuan deals aggregator to be run by FTuan, one of China’s top ten group buy startups.

It’s not just happening in e-commerce in China. Video-streaming sites in the country – another highly competitive yet fragmented sector – are going through a major shake-up as well. First there was the bombshell of a merger between Youku and Tudou, the two top players; then just this morning, three smaller video sites formed a strategic alliance for buying movie and TV show rights, and they might work together on social elements of their sites as well.

And so the online retailing industry in China could see a major acquisition or two – but consolidation via outsourcing and partnerships seems to be the path that many more will follow. That’s because they lack the funds to acquire a rival, but need to work together in order to survive.

There’s a rumor in China’s online retailing industry that 360Buy, the country’s second-biggest B2C e-commerce site, is seeking to outsource its daily deals business, perhaps to 55Tuan or Lashou.

The rumor suggests that 360Buy is not looking to get out of daily deals per se (which is but a small part of its overall offerings), but might instead be wanting to outsource the localised elements of the labour-intensive business. Apparently the company has approached a number of group buy sites who might make good outsourcing partners, though only 55Tuan and Lashou have been mentioned by name.

The last time we looked at market share among deals sites, we saw that 55Tuan had 11.8 percent of the market (for February 2012) in terms of total revenue, putting it in second position behind only Meituan with 15 percent. Lashou, meanwhile, has been on a bumpier course of late, and is now the fourth-largest deals site in China.

55Tuan’s co-founder is Singaporean James Tan, who spoke at our Startup Asia event earlier this year, where he revealed that “every day we transact more than $1 million.” We’ve reached out to Mr. Tan and will update if he’s able to comment.

360Buy’s deals portal (pictured above) is currently running in only 21 major cities across China, making it much shorter in reach than all the leading deals sites.

[Source: Sina Tech news - article in Chinese]

Although Alibaba (Taobao, Tmall, etc.) is still the 800 pound gorilla in the world of Chinese e-commerce, 360Buy has been building up some momentum. At a press conference earlier today, 360Buy CMO Lan Ye shared the company’s latest (and most impressive) numbers.

Specifically, he said the site now has over forty million registered users, and that over the past two months they’ve been processing around 400,000 orders per month. He also said sales income was increasing at a rate of about 200 percent per year. That sounds pretty impressive, but it’s not a huge surprise when you consider the additions the company has been making, like hotel bookings and other travel services.

Of course, 360Buy still has a ways to go before it can become the e-commerce king. This chart, of Q4 2011 market share in the B2C space in China show’s 360Buy playing a clear second fiddle to Alibaba’s Tmall. But it also shows there’s tons of room for consolidation in this market.

[via Sina Tech]

History will soon come to be littered with retailers who failed to make the switch to the internet age, and instead declined to the point where their shelves gathered more dust than fingerprints, and cash registers fell silent. But China’s Suning (SHE:002024) is making it clear that it wants as significant a presence on the country’s e-commerce scene as on its city streets, starting a promotional price war aimed at its rival etailers of gadgets and home electronics.

Next week, on April 18th to 20th, Suning plans a sale on every item on its website – a promotional price battle that will put the pressure especially on Dangdang (NYSE:DANG) and 360Buy. To succeed in e-commerce, Suning is aiming to topple such internet upstarts, and put its bricks-and-mortar retailing skills to full use in the digital age. There’s no significance to those dates next week – it seems that Suning is just spoiling for a fight and some free publicity.

Suning this weekend tweeted on the social network Sina Weibo the orders of its chairman, Zhang Jindong, saying – in curiously militaristic language – that he had ordered an e-commerce “general offensive” by the company that would “not be just a marketing campaign,” but an all-out effort to gain market share from the B2C e-commerce elite. Suning exec Min Juanqing delivered the head honcho’s words on his own microblog [1]:

According to chairman Zhang’s instructions, for this full year it would not be a problem to achieve 20 billion RMB in sold items, but we implore the team to sprint towards 30 billion RMB.

That presumably includes High Street shops as well as its web retailing efforts, but that growth is being marked out as coming from its online store.

The CEO of rival Dangdang, Li Guojing, was unimpressed – yes, Weibo is a fun way to get some quality business bitchin’ – saying [2] that this “is 360Buy’s problem” – with the implication being because that site relies more on sales of electronics.

360Buy’s CEO and founder, Liu Qiangdong has cut back on his tweeting of late, and didn’t weigh in on the debate.

So, while bricks-and-mortar retailers are struggling in the UK and the US – with Comet, Circuit City, and Borders going down in recent years – Suning is determined to make the leap from mere commerce, to future-grabbing e-commerce. But of course, in China’s already mature and cut-throat industry, three days of price-cutting means nothing – the war will be won over years of ruinously expensive ad campaigns and major investments in logistics.

[A part of the top image was sourced from the Cat Fights Tumblr]

Shortly before the 360Buy ticket sales shutdown, the Railway Ministry stated publicly that 12306.com is the only official ticket sales site, and that the Ministry has not authorized any other websites to sell tickets.

By necessity, 360Buy (as well as other sites that are still offering tickets online including Qunar) had been approaching train ticket sales in a rather roundabout fashion. When a customer orders a ticket, the sites access publicly available data to determine whether that ticket is still available, and if it is, they attempt to purchase it on the customer’s behalf. However, since there’s a delay between the customer’s order and the actual time of purchase, tickets that appear available can be sold out by the time the sites are actually able to make the purchase.

If the Railway Ministry were to grant a third-party company the right to sell tickets officially, these problems could presumably be bypassed as this third-party company would be able to integrate its systems directly into the Ministry’s ticket sales system.

I have no strong feelings about 360Buy one way or the other, but if the Railway Ministry is incapable of creating a functional ticket sales website — and we have already seen pretty significant proof that it is — it should allow someone competent to sell tickets directly. I know that idea is unappealing to the bureacrats who man the desks at the Ministry when they’re not busy being massively corrupt and incompetent, but I don’t care. If you can’t do the job — and clearly you can’t — just get out of the way.

[Southern Metropolis via Sina Tech, Image Source]

The major Chinese e-commerce site 360Buy has expanded its travel offerings even further today, launching a service for buying train tickets online. The new ticketing portal might take the strain off of the government’s own online train reservations site, 12306.com, which has been plagued by slowdowns, web crashes, and other problems since its inception.

But 360Buy’s train ticket service – see it here – won’t come cheap, costing 20 RMB (US$3.18) on top of the price of the ticket to cover admin and home delivery. That might prove off-putting to the migrant workers, students, and some lower-paid office workers, who are the kinds of folks who scramble most desperately to get train tickets during major Chinese holidays – especially Chinese New Year. 12306.com, in contrast, just charges the flat ticket fee, while bricks-and-mortar ticket vendors generally only charge a 2- or 3 RMB admin fee. Perhaps 360Buy’s solution is more aimed at middle-income locals who’d like to avoid the queues and the hassle.

Just last month, 360Buy added hotel bookings to the air tickets that it already offered on its site, making it a threat to established travel sites in China such as Ctrip (NASDAQ:CTRP) and eLong (NASDAQ:LONG). Last week we head a rumor that authorities in Beijing might persuade a Chinese web giant such as Baidu or Alibaba to run its current booking site. That might still be on the cards, however, as today’s roll-out on 360Buy is not really about helping the struggling 12306.com.

One other way in which 360Buy’s train ticketing system is different, is that it’ll try to get you a ticket even if one is not immediately available. If the ticket destination and date you desired does suddenly appear in the system (because, say, somebody somewhere cancelled theirs), 360Buy will snag it for you. If not, you’ll get a refund.

[Hat-tip to Techweb (article in Chinese) for spotting this]

China’s second-biggest B2C e-commerce site, 360Buy, has revealed that its mobile shopping app has been downloaded over 10 million times. The 360Buy app is actually cross-platform – across iOS, Android, Symbian, WP7, and even web TV – and allows people to browse and purchase items right from their smartphone (or TV).

Its apps only began rolling out in February of last year. But now the company claims that, after a year of being downloaded by Chinese consumers, it saw the 360Buy app accelerate in growth by 100 percent in the last three quarters of 2011. 360Buy customers tend to use either cash-on-delivery or online payment via 99Bill or UnionPay, all of which are do-able from within the app. 360Buy ditched Alipay, the payment platform of its corporate nemesis, Alibaba, last year.

360Buy also said that it anticipates mobile e-commerce to become more substantial in future, predicting that 20 to 25 percent of the site’s sales might eventually come from its mobile apps. But the company did not reveal any current figures for sales made via the apps.

The 10 million download figure was collated from cross-platform app stores – such as Apple’s iTunes and Nokia’s Ovi store – as well as local alternative Android app stores like Wandoujia and AppChina.

Bizarrely, 360Buy seems to have removed its mobile shopping app from Google’s Play Store (née the Android Market) – in line with a trend for Chinese companies to issue the Android app ‘.apk’ file directly to consumers, or via some of the afore-mentioned alternative app stores – so it’s not possible to check its downloads stats from there.

360Buy expanded aggressively in 2011, adding a luxury fashion store and securing major funding from Russian investment group DST.

[Source: QQ Tech news - article in Chinese]

Chinese product search engine eTao, which is run by Alibaba, has revealed the rate of price inflation on China’s top e-commerce sites.

Just as with the nationwide inflation rate [1] – better known as CPI in China – eTao has analyzed a set collection of goods and then compared how the prices have risen from the end of January to the end of February. It was found that the average rate of price inflation over that month was 1.43 percent, up from an infinitesimally small 0.19 percent hike that occurred between December 2011 to January.

Only one local e-commerce site saw its bundle of goods rise by more than that 1.43 percent baseline – 360Buy, China’s second-largest B2C site, saw its own CPI figure rise by 4 percent. Market leader Tmall saw its price average remain the same, while Amazon China saw its commodity prices fall 1 percent. The biggest drop was on Suning’s (SHE:002024) website, where the bricks-and-mortar retailer aggressively dropped prices by 4 percent as it aims to make a bigger name for itself online.

This report will no doubt enrage execs at 360Buy, who have in the past slammed eTao’s e-commerce inflation stats as slanderous. At the core of the beef between 360Buy and eTao is the fact that the product search engine is owned by Alibaba, which is itself China’s largest e-commerce company – the rival here implying that it’s not entirely impartial. Last year, 360Buy blocked eTao’s web spiders from indexing products on its site.

[Source: Chinabyte - article in Chinese]

Contrasting screenshots of 360Buy's iPad listings yesterday and today.

Yesterday we first broke the story in English of how Amazon China had quit selling the iPad as part of the Apple vs Proview litigation over the iPad trademark. And now a much larger e-commerce store has also cleared its virtual shelves of iPads: 360buy, the second-largest such site in China. At this rate, Apple’s tablet will be facing a blanket e-commerce sales ban.

Luckily I grabbed a screenshot of 360Buy’s iPad listings yesterday, and so we can compare it with the scene today where every single iPad model has had the price removed and replaced with the notice “temporarily not reporting the price” (pictured above). Who knows how ‘temporary’ it’ll be. On the item page, the checkout button still works, but if you add any iPad model to your cart, it just vanishes when you try to checkout.

The nation’s most-used online B2C retailer, Alibaba’s Tmall, is still stocking and selling iPads.

But it’s not just 360Buy that has bowed to legal pressure to safeguard itself – Gome (HKG:00493), which is tiny in terms of internet retailing but huge on the High Street, has removed iPads from its e-commerce site though has not yet done so from its bricks-and-mortar stores.

Proview (HKG:0334) seems to have a very legitimate and strong – ie: a practical, not troll-ish – claim to using the iPad brand in China after Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) apparently failed to resolves its right to use it in the territory.

Proview is also a manufacturer in its own right – though not an OEM partner of Apple – making old-skool CRT and LCD monitors mostly for sale in developing markets. Judging by the pictures from Caixin (see below), its facilities in Shenzhen are somewhat shambolic. Proview was placed in the third-delisting stage in December 2011 and could be kicked out of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange if it doesn’t have its papers in order by this June. But that doesn’t affect its ongoing litigation with Apple.

In the final picture from Caixin, a worker sleeps in a messy corridor at Proview's factory in Shenzhen.

China’s second-largest e-commerce site, 360Buy, continues its very aggressive expansion today with the launch of a hotel booking site. It’s quite a break away from the company’s usual focus on books, electronics, and clothing, and is a significant threat to the country’s main travel services, Ctrip (NASDAQ:CTRP), Elong (NASDAQ:LONG), and Qunar. The B2C e-commerce site started selling plane tickets last summer, and so now it has augmented its offering to the point that it has a fully-fledged travel service.

The new portal, at hotel.360buy.com, also includes discounted daily deals on hotel bookings, making this something of a challenge to the country’s leading group-buying sites, Lashou, and Meituan.

360Buy said in a press release accompanying the launch that is has 20,000 hotels on the new site, across mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.

In recent months we’ve seen the company make acquisitions, plan to open an e-book platform, and launch a luxury brand clothing store. It’s all a part of 360Buy’s stated aim to expand well beyond its initial product range and challenge Alibaba’s Tmall.com, the current market leader, for top spot in China. It may seek to IPO in the US, if economic conditions improve, in 2012.

Could this sign be appearing in the windows, er, on the homepages of e-commerce sites in China this year?

2012 is still young, especially in China, where the new year doesn’t really start until Spring Festival has wound to a close. And while the last few years have seen massive expansion in the e-commerce market and new companies springing up right and left, could 2012 be the year that sees that trend reverse? The China Business Journal thinks so.

The paper ran a lengthy article today with predictions for 2012′s e-commerce market. While e-commerce as a market is likely to continue to grow, that may not be enough to rescue smaller e-commerce sites, which the paper predicts will close in droves this year.

In part, that’s because many of these sites are nearing the average life expectancy for a small or mid-size company in China: three years. It’s also because as the biggest e-commerce companies — Alibaba, 360buy, Amazon — continue to grow and strengthen their own positions this year, smaller sites are likely to get left out in the cold. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Chinese consumers, though; the paper frames it as part of the natural process of the maturing of the e-commerce market in China.

In fact, B2C sites are likely to speed their growth in 2012 — the big ones, anyway — because the massive investments that have been made in these companies over the last year. Investors, it turns out, put twice as much money into Chinese e-commerce (mostly B2C) last year as they did over the previous five years combined, and all that money should manifest itself in the market in the form of better services and faster growth. Of course, for the many smaller companies that didn’t get big investments in 2011, this is only going to leave them further behind than they already are.

The paper also suggests that the battle for the C2C market is already over, and Taobao has won.

We still don’t know for sure what 2012 will bring, but further e-commerce growth seems almost inevitable. Will this benefit the big guns but leave smaller companies out to dry? Only time will tell.

[China Business Journal via Sina Tech, Image via Shutterstock]

360Buy.com, China’s second-largest B2C e-commerce site, has acquired Minitiao.com, a specialist online mall for imported Japanese products. It gives 360Buy – also known as Jingdong Mall – a whole new range of supply channels from Japan for items such as clothing and cutesy toys.

The acquisition of the small Chinese company reportedly took place earlier this month but is only now being made public. The financial details have not been revealed, or whether the site will continue at its own domain or be absorbed into the 360Buy domain.

Minitiao gives 360Buy a boutique-like range of stylish inventory to add to its arsenal of product categories in its ongoing battle against B2C market leader, Alibaba’s TMall.

It also points to 360Buy having a more global outlook for its sourced products, with rumors that the company – which might go for a US IPO later this year – is aiming to have Korean and Japanese collections for various product categories – especially clothing, shoes, and home decorations.

360Buy looks to be continuing its aggressive growth strategy into 2012 having confirmed that it’ll hire 25,000 new staffers during the course of this year.

[Source: DoNews - article in Chinese]

The vice-president of 360Buy, one of China’s leading B2C e-commerce sites, has said that it is currently testing out an e-book service that will launch later this year. Shi Tao claims that 80,000 titles will be ready upon its public debut, and will stock 300,000 e-books by the end of the year.

360Buy’s most direct rival, Dangdang (NYSE:DANG) launched its own e-book platform – a section on its site, plus mobile apps for iPhone and Android – a few weeks ago. It debuted with 50,000 titles, and will presumably expand its library by the end of the year as well. Plus, Dangdang has an upcoming e-reader of its own – in the manner of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) with its Kindle – which will launch in a few months’ time. It’s not clear if 360Buy will tap an OEM to produce hardware of its own.

In the ongoing intense rivalry between the two firms, it’s no surprise that 360Buy is aiming to launch with more e-book titles that Dangdang has at present.

Shi Tao – formerly a VP at Amazon China before shifting to 360Buy – told the China Daily yesterday:

Our customers are used to e-commerce, and many registered book buyers purchase books and videos at least twice a month.

And so he feels that now’s the time to start the transition to e-books, as more people in China get into the swing of paying for digital content – and an increasing number have smartphones on which to read e-books.

On the upcoming 360Buy e-book platform, revenue will of course be shared with publishers – 200 of whom are on-board with this already – but no breakdown of the revenue ratio has yet been revealed.

360Buy is currently China’s second-largest B2C e-commerce site, behind only Alibaba’s Tmall.com. Dangdang is in third position.

[Source: China Daily]

(Image source: Chinaluxus.com)

The CEO of 360Buy, China’s second-biggest e-commerce site, has announced that his company will create “over 25,000” new jobs next year. That public Weibo message from Liu Qiang-dong (pictured right) led to speculation that 360Buy might be about to buy its rival Vancl, which specializes in only clothing – but 360Buy representatives moved quickly to quash that rumor.

It’s not the first time we’ve heard of hiring plans at 360Buy – also known as Jingdong Mall – as the company said it would hire 20,000 new staffers for 2012 back in October of this year. So it seems Mr. Liu’s company is now even more confident and has raised that figure. It is said that 360Buy currently has 15,000 people on its payroll. Analysts, meanwhile, say the company could double its revenue in 2012.

The rumor that it might acquire Vancl was likely triggered by the latter’s weaker position recently, after missing its planned US IPO schedule – and which is thought to be delayed or cancelled for the time being – and the sudden departure of its VP, who it is rumored might soon resurface at none other than 360Buy.

The B2C e-commerce site has been one of the most aggressive on the Chinese web in the past few years, rising to surpass its older rival Dangdang (NYSE:DANG), and is now second only to Alibaba’s Tmall online store. Just last month it made a move into the luxury retail sector when it opened 360Top. And the company’s purported 25,000 new hires look set to perpetuate that growth in 2012.

[Source: Business China]

The hits just keep on coming. After CDSN, Tianya, Netease’s email system, and a number of other major sites saw massive leaks of user data, e-commerce giant 360Buy is the latest company to get caught up in what’s now being called Hacker Leak Gate on the Chinese internet.

Specifically, data leak reporting website WooYun, which has broken the news of several of these hacks/leaks, reported yesterday that 360Buy had suffered a leaking of user data thanks to a security flaw that allowed access to users’ names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails, among other things. 360Buy confirmed the leak, labeled it a medium-level security threat, and promised to handle it immediately.

Yesterday, we wrote about a possible motivation for all these attacks and data leaks: they may be an ideological challenge to the increasing prevalence of real-name registration systems that are being implemented on lots of sites, most recently microblogs. Regardless of whether that’s the reason, though, leaks of data from e-commerce sites are particularly concerning because of the amount of sensitive financial information stored on those sites and their integrated services. As yet, the target doesn’t seem to be users’ money, but you’d still be a fool not to change the passwords to any Chinese e-commerce and payment services you use.

It’s also worth noting that because most of these leaks have been publications of username/password combinations, any user who uses the same login credentials for more than one site is especially at risk. If that’s you, change your passwords now. Don’t wait until it’s too late. In fact, even if that’s not you, change your passwords. Better safe than sorry.

[via Sina Tech]

Liu accepts his award; image via Sina Finance

Each year, CCTV — China’s state-owned television conglomerate — announces awards honoring successful businessmen and economic contributors for their achievements over the past year. It should be no surprise, then, that there are some tech companies in the mix.

Officially on this years list are HTC’s Wang Xuehong and 360Buy’s Liu Qiangdong. The former has enjoyed a year in which smartphones became more popular than ever in China, and the latter has seen a year of impressive expansion and now ranks among China’s biggest e-commerce outlets.

Other awardees came from other industries, but Vancl CEO Chen Nian did turn up on the “nominated” list. We can’t be totally sure why he didn’t make the final cut, but we’re guessing it has to do with this (and maybe this, too).

Congratulations to the winners!

[via Sina Tech]

Mr. Liu's Weibo

Today, 360buy CEO Liu Qiangdong took to Weibo to share a story from several years ago, back when his company wasn’t the ascendant e-commerce giant it is today. We thought we’d share his words of wisdom with you since they’re probably applicable to lots of startup situations (and also since Friday afternoon is where news goes to die).

Three years ago, a certain industry investor wanted to buy a controlling stake in [360buy], and gently threatened me: ‘If you don’t work with me, do you think that with $500 million I won’t be able to kill you off?’ I said: ‘when I founded this company I didn’t have any money and I wasn’t scared, so why fear [that] now?’ and he angrily responded ‘this is your last chance in life to enter the retail industry.’ Today the news says that B2C website is stopping operations.

You heard the man. You had nothing when you started, so there’s no need to fear thuggery or threats about losing something you didn’t even have a few years ago anyway? Go your own way, avoid scumbag mentors and sketchy investors, and if things still don’t work out, hey, it’s not the end of the world anyway. In other words:

[Via DoNews]

The specialist e-commerce site Vancl was supposed to be on course for its US IPO in December, but rumors in the industry suggest it will be either delayed or cancelled, and that its vice-president, Wu Sheng (pictured right), has left the company and could well be headed to join its largest rival, 360Buy.

Wu Sheng’s departure from Vancl is still shrouded in mystery, and it’s not clear if it is linked to a possibly scuppered IPO. Sina Tech reckons Mr. Wu will be at 360Buy as a senior VP before the end of the year. But none of the three parties involved have yet commented on the matter.

Though of no consolation to Vancl, it is thought that all major Chinese IPOs for the rest of the year are unlikely to proceed owing to the volatile stock markets and the difficulty in raising funds.

Vancl Group comprises its own-brand fashion store Vancl.com, and a more open B2C platform at Vjia.com. Both those have grown in the past year to be China’s biggest fashion-only online store, with a two percent market share of the entire B2C e-commerce sector in China midway through this year.

[Source: Sina Tech news - article in Chinese]

360Buy, the Chinese B2C e-commerce site that’s currently in second place in that sector, has now diversified from its usual fare of books and electronics with a new venture – 360Top.com, which sells luxury brand cosmetics, handbags, and clothing for both men and women. You can even buy more ostentatious products, such as slabs of gold. It’s a major play in its battle against Alibaba’s Taobao Mall and other upcoming specialist online shopping sites.

We rather saw this coming, after last month writing of rumors that the fast-growing e-commerce site was about to leap into this sector. But speculators got the URL wrong, thinking it’d be TopLife.com. But now we know it’s not. Perhaps a good move to keep the ‘360’ moniker for some immediate brand recognition.

A typical 360top.com product page; this one for a Gucci bag.

The 360Top site comes with all the luxury brand names that Chinese consumers are increasingly seeking out, such as Chanel, Hermes, and Miu Miu. It also boasts a monthly online magazine.

It spells bad news for smaller competitors in China with a similar line of products, such as The Luxury Club and the late-arriving Gaojie. Even Chinese web giant Sina (NASDAQ:SINA) arrived at the brand-oriented party this summer, in a sign that such high-end e-commerce sites are about to hit the big-time.

Crazy half-off sale at Tmall

In the West, November 11th isn’t much of a holiday, although it may soon be celebrated among gamers as the day that Skyrim was released. But in China, the day is a celebration of singledom, the anti-Valentine’s day, chosen because the date is 11/11. This year, Alibaba’s Tmall and some other online retailers have planned pretty significant sales for today, and it seems pretty clear that Chinese customers have taken notice.

We’ve heard from the folks at Alibaba that in just the first hour of the sale, Tmall has taken in 439,000,000 RMB (about $68 million). Moreover, this was the hour between 12:00 and 1:00 AM, meaning that it was only the nighthawks who were up late making their sale-priced purchases.

[UPDATE: The sales day ended, says an Alibaba representative, with Tmall and its sister site, Taobao, totalling $830 million in sales transactions].

There were apparently plenty of people staying up late, as Alibaba says that 3.4 million users accessed the online store within the first minute of the sale. Sales broke 100 million RMB within eight minutes, and then 200 million within the next 13 minutes. 11 minutes after that, they’d broken 300 million.

The sale got so much attention because many items within Tmall are half off, and as if that weren’t crazy enough, they’re also giving away money, in the form of 30 million RMB in coupons. Sadly, the big discounts only seem to apply to items like clothing — if you were hoping to find a half-off Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone, you’re out of luck.

Last year, Tmall held a similar sale, and did over 900 million RMB in sales over the course of the day. If their one-hour numbers are any indication, they look set to shatter that number this year, even with 360buy.com running a similarly crazy sale. We’re not sure how that one’s going, but we’ll try to get in touch with the folks at 360buy to see how their numbers stack to to the competition!

(Image source: Chinaluxus.com)

The CEO and founder of 360Buy.com, Liu Qiang-dong (pictured right), reckons that his site will hit 10 billion RMB (US$1.57 billion) in sold items in 2012, and that his B2C e-commerce platform can surpass its larger rival, Alibaba’s Tmall.com, just before 2016. Them’s fightin’ words.

His rationale seems to be that 360Buy – also known as Jingdong Mall – is currently growing at a rate three-times faster than Tmall, and so is on a trajectory to be larger in the B2C sector than the current market leader.

360Buy has expanded very aggressively in the past few years (and says it’ll hire 20,000 new staff next year) by focusing on low costs for consumers – and thereby angering its adversary Dangdang.com (NYSE:DANG), which has IPO’d but has been surpassed in market share by Liu Qiang-dong’s company. By the end of Q2 this year, Tmall had 48.5 percent of the B2C sector, 360Buy had 18.1 percent, while Dangdang had 2.2 percent (behind third-placed Amazon, with a fractionally larger 2.4 percent).

Renaissance Capital reckons that 360Buy will achieve US$4.4 billion in revenue by the end of 2011 (see here), and is reportedly heading towards the world’s biggest web/tech IPO next year which could raise $4-5 billion. That would give it a lot of cash to further strengthen its growth, which is perhaps what’s making Mr Liu sound so very confident these days.

[Source: DoNews - article in Chinese]

China’s second-largest B2C e-commerce site, 360Buy – also known as JingDong Mall – appears to have blocked Alibaba’s product search-engine Etao.com from indexing its site. Looking at the ‘robots.txt’ file for 360Buy, it now says “User-agent: EtaoSpider Disallow: /” (pictured above) in a move that signals heightened rivalry between the two companies. Indeed, 360Buy is second in the B2C sector to Alibaba’s own Tmall.com.

There are still products from 360Buy listed on the Etao product search results at the moment.

Alibaba created Etao.com as an agnostic search engine that, they say, fairly indexes all e-commerce sites. CEO Jack Ma referenced his search product obliquely in a recent speech, where he said that this would give Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) “sleepless nights.” Etao, unlike Baidu, doesn’t (yet?) accept adverts.

Note that Alibaba already blocks Baidu from indexing individual C2C or B2C product pages on both Taobao and Tmall, and has done so for some time.

The two companies have been over-lapping more and more this year. First, Tmall decided to open its platform to fellow e-commerce sites, which gave smaller ventures a greater chance to challenge 360Buy (note that 360Buy is not one of those on-board); and more recently we heard rumors that 360Buy will open a fashion e-tailing site, which would encroach on the purview of Tmall’s many clothing vendors.

With this move, 360Buy seems to be trying to diminish Alibaba’s search engine by taking the B2C sector’s number two site out of its reach.

[Source: TechWeb - article in Chinese; via iChinaStock - in English]

360Buy's graphic, posted to its Weibo account, to celebrate its 100 millionth order.

360buy – also known as Jingdong Mall – is now China’s second largest B2C online market place. Yesterday afternoon, 360buy announced on its official Sina Weibo account that the company had just received its 100 millionth order. Also, its number of registered customers has reached 28 million. The site sells primarily 3C products, but it has diversified into books as well

The order was placed by someone in Changsha, central China, who will, as a reward, get the whole order will be free of charge. Let’s hope that person ordered a plasma-screen TV, not a 5-dollar USB stick.

360buy’s fast growth is partially due, the company insists, to taking orders via its microblogging account – plus its social media engagement with the public there – which it terms “w-commerce.” On September 15th, 360buy said in reply to an online article that in that past few days, its Weibo account – take a look here – had had over 300 thousand new followers, and over 5,000 orders placed directly through it, which were worth over 2 million RMB (US$314,000). Thus, it claimed the new era of w-commerce had begun.

While Weibo gives another boost to 360buy’s business, it is a double-edged sword. Weibo is now a place where buyers voice their complaints and disappointment in poor quality products, delayed shipments, and dissatisfying customer service – all vocally and in public.

360Buy.com is rumored to be aiming for a US IPO in 2012. And, just yesterday, we heard that the company was prepping a move into the B2C fashion/clothing sector as well.

Chinese B2C e-commerce site 360Buy – also known as Jing Dong Mall – is rumored to have bought the Toplife.com domain in preparation for a move into fashion e-tailing. Its primary business is in 3C appliances and its online bookstore, in direct competition with Dangdang (NYSE:DANG).

If true, 360Buy’s diversification will put it onto a collision course with China’s largest B2C site, Alibaba’s (HKG:1688) Tmall platform – which features official brand storefronts for clothing, electronics, and all kinds of wares.

360Buy is China’s second-largest B2C site. Chinese tech site DoNews reports that the company bought the Toplife.com name back in December of last year for 200,000 RMB (just over US$31,000). A WhoIs check on the domain reveals that it is indeed owned by someone in Beijing right now.

Fashion e-tailing is a hotly contested sector in China, with large platforms such as Tmall and QQ Buy up against smaller specialist sites such as Vancl. And then there are also numerous high-end and brand-oriented e-commerce sites, such as Sina Luxury, and the Luxury Club.

[Source: DoNews - article in Chinese]

According to Chinese media, Chinese e-commerce service 360buy.com is gearing up to hire 20,000 new employees next year, including 5,000 new graduates and 1,000 software engineers. That’s on top of the 13,000 employees that the company already has under its payroll.

In the current e-commerce scene in China, hiring boatloads of people might be cause for concern given recent updates we’ve been hearing about Groupon’s staff cuts in the country. But 360buy appears confident and ready to expand, so we’ll have to wait and see how this announcement pans out.

We mentioned just a few weeks back, of course, that 360buy is preparing for what could be the biggest ever internet IPO. Reuters has said that the company could raise as much as $4 to 5 billion if it were to go public.

360buy is the second biggest business-to-consumer website in China after Alibaba’s Tmall, according to recent numbers from iResearch. For the second quarter, Tmall is said to hold almost half the market at 48.5 percent, while 360buy has 18.1 percent (see chart below).

360buy has over 15 million registered users and has already seen investment from Russia’s DST.

[Via The Economic Times]

“Operation Beheading” is more the kind of phrase you’d expect from cave-dwelling terrorists or vengeful Mexican narco-bosses – but it’s actually the name of the new Chinese e-commerce price-cutting war that Dangdang.com has launched against 360Buy.com.

Over the weekend, Dangdang (NYSE:DANG) decided that a 3C – computers, communications, consumer – price war would be the best way to decapitate its upstart rival.

Chinese media reports that this is aimed particularly at notebook computers, digital cameras, and mobile phones. Chatting with netizens on Weibo, Dangdang’s joint chief exec, Francis Chan, boasted of a 500 percent boost in 3C sales on his site in the past few months. He also revealed that this war is tactical, and is aimed at forcing 360Buy out of the book-selling game. Francis suggested this is a temporary ploy, and that peace could be attained if its rival were to quit selling books.

360Buy – sometimes translated as Jingdong Mall – started out in the 3C B2C e-commerce, and then diversified into books as well. Clearly this angered its more established competitor. Back in August, Dangdang’s CEO, Li Guo-qing, claimed in a TV interview that “360Buy is losing huge amounts of money on its sale of 3C,” and stated that 360Buy wasn’t impacting his own company’s sales of books.

Dangdang's (NYSE:DANG) share price in blue, compared to the Dow Jones in red; at the close of trading before the weekend.

Just a few weeks ago we heard that 360Buy is prepping a US IPO, although its CEO has publicly denied that’s the case. If it occurs in 2012 – and goes well – it looks set to be the world’s biggest-ever web IPO.

Dangdang’s shares have crashed 80 percent in the past six months (see the graph above), after hitting a peak in April of this year. It’s now trading at just $5.52, down from the sensational $32.79 from the day after it hit the NYSE tickers.

[Source: TechWeb - article in Chinese; Original image source: marchofdimes.com]

Chinese B2C e-commerce site 360Buy.com – also known as JingDong Mall – is reportedly prepping its papers for a US IPO submission next week. Reuters is saying tonight that 360Buy could raise $4 to 5 billion from an American stock market listing. That’d make it the biggest ever internet IPO.

360Buy is, by varying measures, the second or third biggest e-commerce site in China. It’s behind Alibaba’s Taobao.com and closer rival Dangdang (NYSE:DANG), which secured its US IPO in December of last year. 360Buy has quickly expanded its product scope in the past year, rushing into the 3C sector so as to secure early growth and not lose ground to Dangdang.com.

Is 360Buy ready to take to the biggest stage? Dangdang’s CEO, Li Guo-qing, might not think so. Last month he suggested:

360Buy is losing huge amounts of money on its sale of 3C. In terms of selling books, it is no match for Dangdang.

But a lack of profitability matched with worrying losses hasn’t stopped several other US IPOs for Chinese tech firms. Perhaps more importantly, 360Buy has some solid backing from the likes of WalMart and a major Russian investment group. Back in May of this year, my Penn Olson colleague reported that 360Buy was effectively valued at $10 billion by the extent of its Russian VC backing. Reuters figures suggest an even higher ultimate valuation.

The first half of 2012 is, reportedly, the timeframe for this cross-Atlantic IPO adventure. That’s both wise and sadly inevitable – the second half of this year is not looking too good. Only one Chinese firm (Tudou) went to the US last month. None are yet slated for September; some have recently cancelled plans, such as Shanda.

What’s next? 360Buy is rumored to be picking underwriters next week. Then, some time later, we’ll all get to peer into its SEC filings.

[Source: Reuters]

Chinese e-commerce site 360Buy has managed to snap up some new talent as its COO, in the shape of former Baidu senior vice-president, Shen Hao-yu (pictured above).

The appointment was made official today by a 360Buy.com spokesperson. Mr Shen left Baidu on July 8th for apparent “personal reasons,” though it now transpires that wasn’t quite the case. Shen had been instrumental to Baidu CEO Robin Li in implementing its advertising platform, and his departure was quite a blow to the search engine giant.

Earlier today a 360Buy rep said:

360Buy is in a very important period of development. We’re in a stage of rapid development, and need to have experienced, excellent management talent.

Shen Hao-yu got his MBA from the University of Iowa in 1997, and then took a number of high-ranking positions – including a stint at American Express – before joining Baidu in 2007, where he served as vice president of business operations.

This coup for 360Buy comes after a year of stellar growth, with a reported US$1.7 billion in sales in 2010 that was followed by $1.5 billion in funding in April this year, as outlined by TechCrunch.

However, just yesterday we reported on 360Buy’s bigger rival Dangdang.com, and the observations of its CEO Li Guo-qing, who claims that 360Buy is losing substantial amounts of money in its expanding e-commerce scope. He said:

360Buy is losing huge amounts of money on its sale of 3C. In terms of selling books, it is no match for Dangdang.

360Buy has been planning to IPO in 2013, but with the somewhat toxic environment for Chinese tech IPOs in 2011, it’s not clear if that’ll be delayed.

[Source: Techweb - article in Chinese]

The bricks-and-mortar retailers, including State-owned Xinhua bookstores, are accusing Dangdang.com of “dumping” books at artificially low prices, in order to drive them out of business.

Formation of such an alliance – which the retailers are describing as an “anti-dumping union” – suggests that litigation might be in the pipeline, since the dumping of goods in a market in this way is in breach of anti-unfair competition laws.

Dangdang’s CEO, Lu Guo-qing, has not shied away from this incident, himself retweeting a news article on the subject a few hours ago on Tencent Weibo.

Dangdang.com IPO’d on the NYSE at the end of last year, and was immediately hit with a similar price war from smaller online rival 360Buy.com which is valued at $10 billion. On that occasion, Dangdang’s management reacted with some anger, and even reached out to some publishing houses to ask them to boycott 360Buy.com.

Now the boot is on the other foot, and Dangdang itself is pricing very aggressively.

That suggests that DST perceives the value of the Chinese online retailer as being $10 billion, as Chinese media websites have been reporting.

DST has invested in well known internet companies like Facebook and Zynga, and its investment in 360buy is just a part of a much larger trend of money pouring towards Chinese online properties.

But Usmanov asserts that conditions have charged, saying “Investments in internet companies start to bring less profits compared with two or three years ago when we began to invest in them almost at a startup level.”

Meanwhile Chinese internet companies continue to make headlines, with RenRen filing for an IPO a few days back and Kaixin001 expected to follow soon.

360Buy, which focuses primarily on business-to-customer (B2C) online commerce, has been often likened to Amazon. It is rivaled by Alibaba’s Taobao, which has over 370 million users, although the nature of their respective businesses vary slightly.

It was reported this past December that retail giant Wal-Mart had invested $500 million in 360buy. Subsequently the Chinese internet company expressed plans to improve its logistics, marketing, and customer service, spending $1.2 billion over the next five years to that end.

360Buy.com was founded in 2004, and has over 15 million registered users.

Photo: caistv