It is interesting to study the path of some major e-commerce companies, such as eBay and Amazon in Asia. Back in the early 1990s, eBay entered the Chinese market and soon found themselves been slaughtered by another local Chinese company, Taobao (also known as “treasure hunting” in Chinese). One of the major reasons of its falls is because of the listing fees it charges to customers. Clearly, the Chinese online market at the time was not mature enough to accept customer service fee and it was more important to nurture the market than to charge listing fees. Taobao, on the other hand, understood the situation and started its advertising campaign among young college students who are the main drivers of online shopping. It focused more on building a shopping community by posting articles and offering discounts on popular online forums.
I could not help but wonder what is the appropriate marketing strategy for e-commerce. Although e-commerce center around the concept of promoting a no-boundary shopping experience, it could not afford to ignore the local culture and market. To some extent, e-commerce demands more interactions among buyers and sellers than the traditional retail business.
