Mascot

This section does not cite any sources. (May 2021)

Taobao's mascot is a dialogue bubble, which represents its corporate culture. Ma introduced Taobao to the outside world by stating, "We are the ant army." Ma once organized more than 2,000 employees to gather at a gymnasium to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the founding ceremony. At the party, Taobao employees waved the Taobao mascot — the flag of "ants." At the end of the celebration that lasted for four hours, all the employees stood hand-in-hand, singing "If you do not experience wind and rain, you cannot see the rainbow. The ants that be organized together can beat the elephant." ^{[citation needed]}

Shop feedback

This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2021)

A good way to investigate a Taobao shop is by clicking the shop's rating icon. For Tmall.com shops, people click the stars to view their ratings. Taobao users usually read feedback and compare items from multiple shops.^[17] Feedback can be genuine or artificial, requiring users to make their own judgments. Feedback can be posted by competitors.

Every trade deal includes a section of customer feedback. Shop owners often put effort to maximize positive comments. Negotiations may happen between sellers and consumers over their satisfaction ratings.

Taobao uses search tools and other functions to understand user demands. Customers are asked to complete surveys that ask:

• Obstacles encountered
• Advice and reviews
• Use frequency
• Importance of that particular product
• Satisfaction levels about specific aspects, including visual and typographic layout, procedure and instructions
• Overall satisfaction

Other features

Taobao Marketplace offers various features and services to create a better user experience for online shoppers and retailers.^[18] In January 2010, it launched the Taobao app, created by independent developers through the Taobao Open Platform, to be downloaded by consumers in Taobao App Store.^[19]

In March 2010, it introduced the Taobao Data Cube platform, which gives small businesses access to its aggregate consumer transactions data for insight into industry trends.^[20]

In June 2010, it partnered with Wasu Media Internet Limited to launch Taohua, a digital entertainment products platform, and interactive digital television shopping, that are operated by a joint-venture formed by the two companies.^[21]

Weitao

Weitao is a private shopping assistant/blog for Taobao/Tmall customers.^[22] It is a micro-blogging feature for brands and merchants on its e-commerce sites Taobao and Tmall.^[23]

Alipay

Launched in 2004, Alipay (simplified Chinese: 支付宝; traditional Chinese: 支付寶; pinyin: Zhīfùbǎo) is an escrow-based online payment platform. It is the preferred payment solution for Taobao Marketplace. It is the most widely used third-party online payment solution in China.^[24] To ensure safe transactions, Alipay uses an escrow system through which payment is only released to the seller once the buyer has received goods in satisfactory condition. According to the Alibaba Group website, Alipay partners with multiple financial institutions as well as Visa and MasterCard to facilitate payments in China and abroad.^[11]

Alipay systems are separate for different groups of users. For instance, Alipay users may send and receive funds if they have an account that have a credit card issued in China, whereas users with other cards may only use Alipay to pay for goods or services from Taobao.^[25] This has proven problematic for international users, as they are unable to receive refunds not issued via the Taobao system.

Regulatory changes issued by the People's Bank of China (Central Bank of China) are set to alter the Chinese online payment ecosystem. Top-tier digital payment services such as WeChat Pay and Alipay transferred all relevant transaction data to appropriate agencies starting June 30, 2018.^{[citation needed]}

AliExpress

AliExpress was created in April 2010 as an international retailing website. People who live overseas can use the service to purchase items from Chinese manufacturers online.^[26]

AliWangWang (TradeManager)

This section does not cite any sources. (May 2021)

Taobao Marketplace allows buyers and sellers to communicate prior to the purchase through its embedded proprietary instant chat program, named AliWangWang (Chinese: 阿里旺旺; pinyin: ĀlǐWàngWàng).^[27]

Baopals

This section does not cite any sources. (May 2021)

In February 2016, 3 expats living in Shanghai launched Baopals, a shopping platform that translates Taobao and Tmall into English so that foreigners living in China can access of its products and services. Over 2.4 million items have been sold on the platform.^{[citation needed]}

Happy Taobao

This section does not cite any sources. (May 2021)

In Dec. 2009, Taobao, together with Hunan TV, set up Happy Taobao, Inc for television shopping. Hunan TV launched an entertainment series called "Happy Taobao", while Taobao Marketplace created channels and independent websites.

Taobao Live

In 2018, Alibaba launched the streaming service named Alibaba Live. This service was created with the goal of allowing online retailers to market their products utilizing social shopping.^[28] This has seen significant growth in popularity and success, with the 84 stores using this service reporting $7.4 million in 2020 sales.^[29] Taobao stated that they predict live-streaming on their platform will generate over 500 billion sales transactions.^[30] Taobao Live now has over 10,000 weblebrities promoting a wide range of items including as cosmetics, apparel, cuisine, and numerous electrical gadgets. Taobao Live's daily sales have already surpassed $3 billion.^[31]

Alibaba promotes a new style of live streaming, called cūnbō (村播), that features rural sellers. Taobao has given them their own category in the app, with the purpose of making it easier for these rural sellers to find customers and followers on the platform.^[32]

Adaptive Agent

This section does not cite any sources. (May 2021)

Taobao applies a search tool named 'adaptive agents'. An adaptive agent picks up signals from consumers’ purchase records, including categories, brands, functions and colors etc.; The search engine involves the scanning of a particular bar code. Taobao tracks customers' purchasing history and reorganizes it into selections that the buyer is likely to be attracted to.

An adaptive agent works by updating prior models using new data via Bayes' theorem (Laplace's method). The possibility of the occurrence of a certain event can be estimated through the frequency of its occurrence in the past. The ranking of a product or a page can be determined by the combination of its prior information plus its posterior data of click transaction.^{[citation needed]}

The popularity of Taobao's searching model is based on the calculation of correlation rate and quality scores:

• Static score of a product's title (correlation rate).
• Matching score of the title and query of a product (correlation rate).
• Category model of a product (correlation rate).
• Transaction model of the commodity (quality score).
• Sellers model (quality score).
• Feedback (quality score).

Semantic Search

This section does not cite any sources. (May 2021)

Taobao automatically classifies product text and images and uses tags to match. Semantic search solves the correlation problem that keyword texts cannot solve, such as images, complex texts, and ambiguous texts. Semantic search is a recommendation system that presents customers with similar items that consumers might not find when searching one keyword. Entity tagging and other classifications are used.^{[citation needed]}

Taobao for Southeast Asia

In September 2013, Taobao launched its Southeast Asian site. A translation feature is available for major languages in Southeast Asia.^[36]