MSN Mall Closes, as Microsoft Rethinks its E-Commerce Strategy in China

MSN's YoBrand e-commerce site before it closed.

MSN China has shuttered its MSN Mall, a B2C e-commerce site, in an apparent restructuring of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) approach to China’s cut-throat online shopping sector. It was established in 2009 with a local company named YoBrand, and focused on women’s fashion items, such as clothing, bags, and skincare products from numerous brands.

The shutdown means that both the standalone yobrand.com site and the msn.yobrand.com domain have now closed, and contain only an official notice telling consumers what’s going on (pictured below). It advises people to find one certain jewelry brand on its Taobao Mall storefront.

That’s an unintended giveaway as to how fierce the e-commerce industry is in China – especially for women’s fashion and luxury brands – where B2C market leader Taobao Mall battles with Tencent’s (HKG:0700) QQ Buy and lots of other more specialist e-tailing sites.

Thank you, and goodnight...

Nonetheless, it’s quite surprising that one of China’s most high traffic web portals couldn’t sustain its e-commerce venture. Microsoft takes MSN China – at cn.msn.com – very seriously, and it’s filled with local content that’s put together in China. YoBrand was one such local initiative. Just last October it gained a US$10 million round of funding from US-based Richmond Management, to say nothing of the backing given it by Microsoft.

Now that the MSN Mall in China is dead in the water, we’ll have to wait and see what else Microsoft has to offer in the B2C segment. Likely, the catchy ‘MSN Mall’ name will resurface pretty soon.

[Source: TechWeb]