If you read recent entries on Singles' Day, you know that most of the online shopping frenzy took place on Alibaba's websites, namely Taobao, a C2C platform. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't until living in China; come to find it out, the term is just as commonplace as "Googleing," and it's a likely bookmark or "page most visited" on a majority of computers here.
It's eBay and Amazon and Etsy combined but bigger, offering a marketplace for small businesses and entrepreneurs to sell new and used goods at a fixed priced (auctions do exist, but they're few and far between). And believe me when I tell you that you can find anything on there -- or believe City Weekend (giant penis costume, anyone?). I've also heard you can get loans through Taobao, or hire someone to redesign to your signature in case you don't like what you've done with yours.
It's a bit of challenge for non-Chinese readers to navigate the site, but don't worry, this too has turned into a profit. Tao-how acts as a middleman, but Mike and I prefer a combination of Google Translate, guessing, and help from his mom.
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