“No matter who you are, or where you have been, he is watching from the screen; keeps a keen eye on the in-between; from the people to the Queen,” from Play God by Sam Fender.
What do you want? A tomato shaped lamp?
Taobao has it in different shades of red.
A vacuum cleaner just to clean up after your cat?
Taobao has different sizes.
A pirate costume for the winter?
Taobao has a special offer!
It’s a great wonder of China, which you will come across once you reach these shores.
The addictive online shopping website known as Taobao!
With over 600 million monthly active users, this monumental website can get you anything your heart desires – except cigarettes.
“We are the ant army,”
This is the company’s battle cry to the rest of the world.
Customer satisfaction is priority in China, to any and all companies reaching out to future customers through this online portal.
This is a world where you can directly talk to the suppliers and get the items you so desperately want, all to your precise specifications;
With the added bonus of receiving it within five days or sooner!
Each item has customer ratings added to it and it is the prerogative of the suppliers to maximise the good reviews and cut out the bad reviews.
Not only can you view how much of an item was purchased, it can also be compared to other similar items.
And you only have to transfer the money to the intended party once you have received your item and you are satisfied with it.
There is also a three to four day window in which you can return your item and get your money back. The best part is that they don’t only deliver the item; they also collect any returned items when it suits you!
It does not require a physical exchange of cash; with the technological advancements in China, they have almost rendered physical money useless. With the advent of Alipay and WeChat Pay, any and all things can be paid for using your phone. Street vendors selling sweet potatoes have barcodes you can scan, and restaurants turn you away if you only have money.
This phenomenon has only reinforced the cellphone’s importance to human being – it’s no longer just an extension of your arm, but a vital cog in your daily survival.
Now leaving your house does not involve the reflex activity of checking if you have your wallet, you don’t need one here. What you do and have to do is check your phones battery life, and all is good.
You will see people walking around with portable phone chargers, which is necessary in this technology-dependent landscape. The phone is the hardest worker here!
Another thing Taobao has introduced to make everything easier and faster is image searching. You no longer have to type out the item you seek in English hoping the system will pick it up.
Now you just search for something you like on the internet, save the image, and drop it in the image searching device on Taobao. It will almost always find the exact item for you, along with many different deals and suppliers for your choosing.
This ant-nest has grown so much and has become so habitual for people that third party companies have seen a gap in the market. Now, as a foreigner, you can subscribe to a Chinese company whose sole job is to search Taobao for you!
All you have to do is send them the image of the item you need, the location where you would like it to be dropped off, and the money it costs. They make sure everything flows smoothly, telling you which suppliers are more trustworthy, which suppliers are situated further away, and they usually charge less than 5% of the total price for their work.
All of this is done through WeChat; a normal conversation turns into you receiving a longed-for item in less than a week, at a place that is convenient for you, at a time that is convenient for you.
I am subscribed to one such company, but it’s not as clinical as it sounds. In fact, all you do is add a person, who does this sort of thing, as a contact on WeChat. Then simply send them the image of what you want and they do the rest.
I have one such tiger, and she has tracked everything I have ever needed – and I have made some unusual requests.
For example, I needed a pen with white ink in order to write on black paper.
I couldn’t find it in any mall. And yet my tiger found multiple different sorts within half an hour! The package I purchased included five different kinds and it only cost me 10Y – 12Y (R21.51 – R25.81)* for the package and 2Y (R4.30)* for the delivery, including my tigers share.
Everything is fast and easy here.
The Taobao experience is just the embodiment of what China is striving for as a society.
Or rather the one they have arrived at, for better or worse.
Only the future knows the answer to that question.
For now nobody cares, and why should they?
I have made the mistake of asking Chinese people the dumb question of “where did you buy that?”
The answer will inevitably be:
“Taobao”
The question should rather be:
“Do you have a link for that item?”
Adapt or die I guess!
Barefoot Maverick 