Baidu to close YouA e-commerce platform
Shanghai. April 1. INTERFAX-CHINA - Baidu Inc.'s YouA, a customer-to-customer (C2C) e-commerce platform, announced March 31 it will close its online shopping mall within a month.
YouA will continue operating Baidu's online payment service, Baifubao, according to the announcement.
YouA's existing merchants will be migrated to another Baidu e-commerce site, Yaodian100, and to Rakuten China, an e-commerce joint venture between Baidu and Japanese online mall operator Rakuten Inc.
YouA's decision to close its e-commerce platform was expected after it failed to take market share from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Taobao, ChinaBusiness News reported April 1.
Launched in October 2008, YouA held a 0.1 percent share of China's online retail sector last year, compared to Taobao's 73.8 percent share, according to Analysys International.
-LC