New e-commerce service takes challenge to rival Alibaba
Shanghai Media Group and Singapore-based YuuZoo are due to launch this week a new social media and e-commerce platform to challenge Alibaba Group's online shopping market leader Tmall.com.
"We are very optimistic that we can be one of the top social e-commerce players in the [mainland] China market within the next three years because of Shanghai Media Group's broad reach and our unique concept," Thomas Zilliacus, YuuZoo's chairman and chief executive, told the South China Morning Post.
"We're creating a new value proposition for both consumers and advertisers by linking social networks with e-commerce to TV shows."
Earlier this month, YuuZoo signed an exclusive 10-year partnership agreement with Great Sports Media, the sports, lifestyle and casual gaming division of Shanghai Media, and Xin Lei Network Technology (Shanghai), a company formed by Shanghai Media to enable the operation of the partnership's next-generation e-commerce platform on the mainland.
We're creating a new value proposition for both consumers and advertisers
Shanghai Media, the mainland's second-biggest media conglomerate by revenue, has an estimated domestic television viewing audience of more than 700 million. It operates 11 radio stations, 15 terrestrial television channels, 15 digital pay-television channels, and nine newspapers and magazines.