A plan to re-brand and expand the business-to-consumer platform of Alibaba Group's online retailplatform Taobao.com could lead to higher profits for the company (see yesterday's story in The Wall Street Journal here).

Taobao is re-branding its B2C platform Taobao Mall, giving it an independent web address, Tmall.com, and spending $30 million in an advertisingcampaign to attract more users. The move is meant to differentiate listings by Taobao Mall merchants, who are either brand owners or authorized distributors, from Taobao.com's consumer-to-consumer, or C2C, merchants, who are mostly individuals or small to medium sized businesses that don't have to go through the same verification process to open a store on Taobao's platforms.

Daniel Zhang, Taobao's CFO, said at a press conference on Monday that the company intends to launch more sales categories, such as a category for groceries, and to create unique features for each category, like a price guarantee for air tickets.

Taobao Mall currently has more than 20,000 merchants who sell products from more than 30,000 brands, Zhang said.

Expanding the Taobao Mall product could translate to higher profits for Taobao, which charges fees to B2C merchants for listings while allowing C2C merchants to list products for free (revenue on C2C listings comes from advertising and additional services value added services--see below). Taobao's free listingshave made it difficult for other companies including eBayto compete in the Chinese C2C market.

With Taobao Mall expanding rapidly (the company expects to quadruple its transaction value this year), Zhang said fees will be one of four main sources of income for the company going forward. The others: Keyword advertisements so merchants can advertise their listing when users search for related products, other types of advertising, and value-added services such as aiding merchants with warehousing and other logistics issues.

So far, Adidas, Lenovo, Uniqlo, and Procter and Gamble products are all sold in Taobao Mall.

Zhang reiterated that the company has no plans for an initial public offering, and told reporters during an interview that the new plans for Taobao Mall are not an indication of any plans for a listing.

Loretta Chao

• platform [´plætfɔ:m] n.(平)台；讲台；站台 (初中英语单词)
• journal [´dʒə:nəl] n.日记；日报；杂志 (初中英语单词)
• advertising [´ædvətaiziŋ] n.广告a.广告的 (初中英语单词)
• mostly [´məustli] ad.主要地；多半；通常 (初中英语单词)
• medium [´mi:diəm] n.中间；平均 a.中等的 (初中英语单词)
• conference [´kɔnfərəns] n.讨论(会)；会谈 (初中英语单词)
• additional [ə´diʃənəl] a.附加的，额外的 (初中英语单词)
• compete [kəm´pi:t] v.比赛，竞争，对抗 (初中英语单词)
• income [´inkʌm] n.收入，所得 (初中英语单词)
• interview [´intəvju:] n.&vt.接见；会见；交谈 (初中英语单词)
• indication [,indi´keiʃən] n.指示；征兆，迹象 (初中英语单词)
• expand [ik´spænd] vt.张开；膨胀；扩大 (高中英语单词)
• campaign [kæm´pein] n.战役；行动 vi.从军 (高中英语单词)
• launch [lɔ:ntʃ] vt.发动 n.发射；汽艇 (高中英语单词)
• unique [ju:´ni:k] a.唯一的 n.独一无二 (高中英语单词)
• guarantee [,gærən´ti:] n.保证；担保 vt.允诺 (高中英语单词)
• translate [trænz´leit, træns-] v.翻译；解释；说明 (高中英语单词)
• advertise [´ædvətaiz] v.登(做)广告；通知 (高中英语单词)
• related [ri´leitid] a.叙述的；有联系的 (高中英语单词)
• gamble [´gæmbəl] v.&n.赌博；投机；冒险 (高中英语单词)
• initial [i´niʃəl] a.最初的 n.首字母 (高中英语单词)
• offering [´ɔfəriŋ] n.提供；礼物；捐献 (高中英语单词)
• retail [´ri:teil, ri´teil] n.&a.&v.零售(商品的) (英语四级单词)
• category [´kætigəri] n.种类；部属；范畴 (英语六级单词)