Alibaba launches budget shopping channel on Taobao, intensifying domestic price war with e-commerce rivals JD.com and Pinduoduo

Taobao’s new budget channel, named 99 Temai, initially covers hundreds of thousand of items that include household goods, snacks and plants

This new section, initially available to select subscribers, is expected to be rolled out to all Taobao users by the end of April

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Increased price competitiveness is said to be one of one of the five strategies that Taobao is implementing this year. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 7:00pm, 4 Apr 2023Updated: 7:19pm, 4 Apr 2023

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding has established a new budget section on its flagship digital retail platform Taobao, as competition with online shopping rivals JD.com and Pinduoduo heats up amid a consumption-led economic recovery in the country.

The section named 99 Temai, which translates to “99 special sale”, has initially been made available to select users on the main page of Taobao, China’s biggest online retail marketplace, according to a report on Monday by The Paper, a Chinese digital newspaper owned by state-run Shanghai United Media Group.

The first batch of products on this budget channel cover hundreds of thousand of items that include household goods, snacks and plants, according to the report that cited anonymous sources. It said this channel, which also offers free shipping, is expected to be rolled out to all Taobao users by the end of April.

Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

An online shopper checks the price discount of a Xiaomi smartphone in the Chinese firm’s flagship store on Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao platform on November 10, 2022. Photo: Simon Song

Increased price competitiveness is said to be one of one of the five strategies that Taobao is implementing this year, according to a report by Chinese media outlet LatePost in February. Without elaborating, the report said other strategies involved Taobao’s live-streaming campaigns, private domain traffic, and local retail and content.