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Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

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31–40 of 132 posts

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#31
post #19

"1hr after the promotion opened, the first package was received." I think that is the most interesting part. It's pretty incredibile how efficient taobao is in such an inefficient country.

The country can be scarily efficient given appropriate incentives and/or connections. If something is stalled beyond reasonable period, chances are there are wheels to be oiled somewhere.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#32
post #20

I think it is just a figure for advertisement or PR, please do not take it seriously. Does anyone remember the news about "Alibaba Transferred Alipay Ownership Without Yahoo Approval", by the way, Taobao is owned by Alibaba group.

What does a dispute between two corporations have to do with their reported sales figures? Racist much? Just because they are a Chinese company doesn't mean they should not be trusted.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#33
Surprised nobody is talking about the most interesting part.

Taobao runs almost entirely on Nginx-Lua-MySQL. And I mean entirely. There is no application server just Nginx. And every request is non blocking all the way from user to database and back. Very, very fast.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2390816

In fact one of the developers from Taobao wrote the Lua integration.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#34
post #19

"1hr after the promotion opened, the first package was received." I think that is the most interesting part. It's pretty incredibile how efficient taobao is in such an inefficient country.

The country can be scarily efficient given appropriate incentives and/or connections. If something is stalled beyond reasonable period, chances are there are wheels to be oiled somewhere.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to read your comment and dmoy's. On the one hand, compared to Amazon.com, Taobao sounds like a horrible shopping experience. On the other hand, compared to a shuk (or whatever the Chinese equivalent is), it is a vast improvement. Context is everything.

with all due respect to Tsagadai, I disagree. Taobao is an excellent shopping experience and I've never been ripped off there (perhaps my wife is an expert taobao-ista, which helps). (1) Shops are absolutely crap scared of a bad review. Shoppers avoid bad reviews like the plague, and there's normally so much competition that you can always find an alternative. The 1 time we gave a bad review, we had a call from the s…

Most of the time the experience is fantastic but like any shop you can get ripped off. I've been ripped off a few times on ebay and craigslist too. Certain product categories tend to attract scammers and I know many people who have never had a bad experience (other than getting things months late but that is usually caused by customs or courier services at either end). As always, until the product is working and in your hands you should be wary of the seller and take precautions to avoid becoming a mark.

Taobao has one factor that generally makes it better than ebay and most other online retailers and auction sites: it is the sole source of income for many companies that sell through it. Many Chinese manufacturers are only selling their products through the alibaba ecosystem so they really care about their reputation. That is why they get defensive or start offering all sorts of things to remove bad reviews, because it can shut down their whole revenue stream.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#36
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's web, while accessible via the "regular" internet (vs things like Iran's and NK's version of the internet) is really an internet all to its own. The average citizen in China does not use any foreign websites to do anything [citation needed]. All the services you and I consume online are replicated in China by Chinese companies. From Gmail to Yahoo!, from Facebook to twitter, from Amazon to eBay, from CNN to FO…

So, for every new Chinese startup, are there hordes of people crying about why they haven't rolled out to America? (I'm sorry, this comment isn't like me, but I couldn't resist.)

Why would people be crying that knockoffs of US sites have not rolled out to the US? Perhaps I missed your sarcasm...?

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#37
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's web, while accessible via the "regular" internet (vs things like Iran's and NK's version of the internet) is really an internet all to its own. The average citizen in China does not use any foreign websites to do anything [citation needed]. All the services you and I consume online are replicated in China by Chinese companies. From Gmail to Yahoo!, from Facebook to twitter, from Amazon to eBay, from CNN to FO…

So, for every new Chinese startup, are there hordes of people crying about why they haven't rolled out to America? (I'm sorry, this comment isn't like me, but I couldn't resist.)

People in China are well-informed about all these companies overseas and often question about the Chinese version's originality. Companies like Amazon do have their own branch in China and it's not really that isolated as you seemed to suggest.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#38

Surprised nobody is talking about the most interesting part. Taobao runs almost entirely on Nginx-Lua-MySQL. And I mean entirely. There is no application server just Nginx. And every request is non blocking all the way from user to database and back. Very, very fast. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2390816 In fact one of the developers from Taobao wrote the Lua integration.

Not all of Taobao. Most of the business logic is still written in Java.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#39
post #22
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taobao is awesome. The barrier is a bit higher without being able to read Chinese, but with someone to help you navigate the final portions, it's a damn good deal. Way more relaxing than going to the markets and getting mobbed.

Will they ship anywhere? i.e. will they send an individual item to North America? or even a whole container?

Yes they will (most of times). One thing to remember: Taobao is entirely third party sellers. Nothing you buy come from Taobao itself. So from item to item, the terms vary quite a bit.

Re: Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1 billion USD

#40
post #22
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taobao is awesome. The barrier is a bit higher without being able to read Chinese, but with someone to help you navigate the final portions, it's a damn good deal. Way more relaxing than going to the markets and getting mobbed.

Will they ship anywhere? i.e. will they send an individual item to North America? or even a whole container?

There are companies setup that will buy things for you on taobao and ship them to you overseas. They help with customs etc and have sites in English. Google 'taobao english' and/or 'taobao agent'
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