Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba is partnering with community site Mogujie, offering shoppers a more social way to find and buy products online.
The deal will see Alibaba’s eTao search engine offer a new social sharing ecommerce platform called eTao Faxian, which means “discover.”
Launched in beta after three months of research, the service involves social sharing of interests that help guide customers toward making purchase decisions through etao.com. The site is already attracting 60,000 viewers a day.
“Over the long run, social commerce in China has the potential to be bigger than the United States,” said Hans Tung, managing director of venture capital firm Qiming Ventures.
eTao Faxian’s target market is mostly the young female demographic, with a focus on apparel and accessories. With the service, Mogujie users can now share their items, post shopping experiences, upload pictures, participate in recommendation groups, and so on.
Visually, the new service incorporates elements that may be familiar to Pinterest users including layout, pinning, re-pinning and sharing features.
Mogujie features a buy button on every page, which aims to encourage female online shoppers to buy items pinned.
The photo-heavy interface is perceived as a means of attracting customers and keeping these engaged enough to find interesting items to buy.
More than 80% of Mogujie’s revenue comes from Taobao’s affiliate program, with its target market likewise being mostly young female shoppers. Mogujie is currently ranked 863 in Alexa China.
Taobao, the parent company of eTao is currently largest online retailer in the nation with 75% of market share, and is considered China’s version of eBay.
The company launched its search engine to bolster its position as the top online retail and auction site according to Beijing research firm Analysys International.
