Analysis of Taobao Mall (Tmall): Strategies, Ethics, and Challenges

This case study delves into the operational and strategic challenges faced by Taobao Mall (Tmall), a prominent B2C online platform in China established by Amazing Corporation. It highlights the company's initial focus on selling branded women’s apparel and its subsequent struggles with understanding the clothing industry, accurately forecasting market trends, and managing competition from platforms like Taobao Marketplace and Amazon. The analysis covers Tmall's strategic strengths, including low costs, user-friendly website features, and strong promotional efforts, as well as ethical and sustainability issues arising from increased vendor fees. Proposed action plans emphasize improving customer support through website updates and staff training, along with reviewing the customer base and competitor offerings to maximize sales, ultimately aiming for enhanced technological investment for diverse product customization and improved customer convenience. Desklib provides access to similar case studies and solved assignments for students.

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TAOBAO MALL (TMALL) CASE ANALYSIS 2
Introduction
Taobao Mall (Tmall) is a popular online B2C platform in China, set up in July 2011 by
Amazing Corporation founders namely; Becky Huang, Wilson Liu, and Eric Chen, with a major
business of selling branded women’s apparel. Tmall is focused on facilitating e-commerce for
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and has been constantly improving its services to SMEs
(Yukun et al. 1). Therefore, the paper seeks to analyze the problems faced by Tmall, strategic
and operational techniques, ethics and sustainability issues, and action plans that improve the
company’s productivity.
Background of the Company
Taobao Mall was formed by Amazing Corporation and marketed accessories, trousers,
upper garments, skirts, and coats at its start. The company exercised six customer service guides
which worked for the company. These included one for wholesale consulting, two for after sale
consulting, and three for presales consulting. Due to the changes and policies, the required cash
deposit for each individual store bearing the TM trademark increased. Additionally, Amazing
Corporation also ran another wholesale clothing business on Alibaba.com which dealt in Korean-
style clothes.
Problems Faced by Taobao Mall (Tmall)
Taobao Mall (Tmall) is facing a great challenge of lacking a full understanding of the
clothing industry, hence facing tough times in the market as it tries to survive in the flooded
online industry. The lack of understanding in the industry slows down their process of capturing
trends accurately, market patterns and market forecasting (Yukun et al 3). Sometimes, the
company strategized on producing large volumes of certain styles or products but the sales

TAOBAO MALL (TMALL) CASE ANALYSIS 3
turnover became low. Furthermore, all expenses occurred in the promotion of cloths such as
employees, temporary staffs, like photographers, models and editors became the sunk cost.
The company also faces a stiff competition from other companies offering the same
services such as Taobao Marketplace, ShopQQ, and Amazon which are considered to have high
market shares and attractive market segmentations (Hu et al. 325). Furthermore, some
competitors have most functions for supporting e-commerce on a platform such as managing
warehouse, uploading product information and distributing goods, and organizes free marketing
campaigns for small stall sellers which are very costly when Tmall exercises them due to the
difference in profit margins.
Strategic and Operational Analysis
The operational and strategic strength of Taobao Mall enables the company to operate on
a competitive edge against other alternative e-commerce platforms (Liang et al. 1530). Tmall’s
strengths include low costs for buyers and sellers, user-friendly features of the company’s
website, corporate cooperation with banks, promotional efforts that are powerful, and the
diversification of its marketing models. Since the founding of Tmall, the company has evolved
from a simple online storefront to a massive online platform that hosts and serves millions of
consumers in a very competitive environment, with created features outcompeting international
opponents like Amazon and eBay.
Ethics and Sustainability Issues
Taobao Mall has experienced two successive online rioting waves since its significant
increase in online vendor fees on Tuesday. The unrest which was organized reflected the
discontent of merchants by the company’s increased tendency of overreliance on bigger
merchants for the supply of goods hence highlighting the crisis of the monopoly rampant in the

TAOBAO MALL (TMALL) CASE ANALYSIS 4
industry. The company announced its plans to overhaul its management system for the business,
with an intention of significantly raising the rate of commission and the premium fees which the
company charged on online shops (Yan 26).
Proposed Action Plans
Tmall should look for an effective way of improving customer and client support through
updating its website and keeping it current so that both new and existing customers can be in a
position to identify the arrival of new products. Furthermore, the company should also provide
effective training to the staff for customer delivery purpose. The firm should also review
customer base through reviewing of the competitors’ offer and target their weakness so as to
maximize the sales.
Conclusion
Taobao Mall operates in a very competitive industry through the integration of client
support for survival in the competitive market. The user interface of the website is friendly and
offers some variety of products to the customers although all payment plans need to be offered to
customers. Tmall needs to invest more in advanced technology such as customization of its
website so as to provide different product varieties which is convenient for customers while
shopping for items online.

TAOBAO MALL (TMALL) CASE ANALYSIS 5
References
Hu, J., Marques, J., Holt, S., & Camillo, A. A. "Marketing Channels and Supply Chain
Management in Contemporary Globalism: E-Commerce Development in China and its
Implication for Business." Handbook of Research on Effective Marketing in Contemporary
Globalism. IGI Global, 2014. 325-334.
Liang, B., Tu, Y., Cline, T., & Ma, Z. "China's E-Tailing Blossom: A Case Study." Mobile
Commerce: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. IGI Global, 2018. 1530-1555.
Yan, Zhang. "A study of factors affecting purchase intention on mobile shopping towards Tmall.
Com of University Students in Kunming, China." (2015).
Yukun, Y., Yulin, F., Ning, S., Haibin, Y., & Xin, Q. "The Entrepreneur's Dilemma: Alibaba,
Tencent and Amazon as e-Commerce Platforms." (2015).