Alibaba Raises Fees and Faces Internet Protests

Posted by Joachim Bartels | Oct 25, 2011 | Alibaba, China, E-Commerce, Taobao.com | 0 |

Steep rises in pricing entails risk – even for the market leader. Alibaba Group has triggered internet protests of small online vendors by introducing steep fee increases on its business-to-consumer site, highlighting the weight the e-commerce group carries in the Chinese economy.

Close to 50,000 people were logged in on Thursday to an online voice chatroom for small vendors on Taobao Mall, China’s largest business-to-consumer marketplace, complaining about the price hikes and arranging attacks on large Taobao Mall vendors.

Alibaba’s Tmall.com site experienced malicious attacks that continued for several hours disrupting service.

Source: Financial Times

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Joachim Bartels

Joachim C Bartels is a co-founder, director, head of information resources and Editor-in-Chief of BIIA. In his capacity as Editor-in-Chief he is responsible for the selection of relevant information content concerning industry insights, trends, technological developments, standards and policies impacting BIIA members in particular and the business information industry in general.

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