Alibaba’s retail platform Taobao is dedicating a new area in its app to promote products which are of “premium value” but come at comparatively low prices, the firm told KrAsia.
It’s a move to take on social commerce site Pinduoduo, which is famous for its bargain deals.
On Taobao, sellers can now showcase goods that meet certain criteria such as that their authenticity is guaranteed and that they’re currently sold at a record low price within 90 days, in an area right under the search box of the app.
This placement will allow vendors of these products to be more visible to Taobao’s 699 million monthly active users, Taobao said. Right now, these products are only visible to a part of these users though, the firm said, without elaborating which group already has the feature.
70% of Taobao’s 120 million newly-added users in 2018 came from China’s third and fourth-tier cities and rural areas, said Taobao, indicating that the “value for money” product feature was introduced to meet their needs.
However, budget-savvy shoppers are also the ones who have helped Pinduoduo grow into China’s third largest e-commerce company in just a few years. It had 418.5 million “active buyers”, an increase of 71% from 244.8 million in 2017, Pinduoduo’s annual report shows.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad
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