Taobao rocks!

12/05/09 12:21

Taobao.com, described as China’s biggest auction/shopping website, delivered a rather disappointing sales report for iPhone this week. iLounge says that Taobao has sold a total of...five iPhones. Five. Which is a pretty sad number, considering that the site has a potential audience of a billion people.

MacInquirer’s international researchers say there are probably several reasons for the low number:

- The Chinese iPhone has the wi-fi disabled
- Cheap iPhone knockoffs are more plentiful than chopsticks
- Most Chinese citizens don’t have credit cards
- Chinese PayPal is even nosier than the American version
- The country is stretched a tad thin from buying up massive amounts of American debt
- There’s just so much stuff to choose from!

That last item may be the most pertinent theory. While Taobao’s content is a tad opaque for people who don’t speak Mandarin, the Lorem Ipsum quality of the site allows English-speaking audiences to ignore the marketing copy and focus on the thousands of truly remarkable products being offered. Some of our favorites:

minishovel

The lockable corkscrew/mini-shovel: Appears to require either C or D batteries, so it may have some sort of sexual function as well.

producttrio

1. Santa Elvis Stick-On Sideburns. 2. Self-Powered Pressure Washer. 3. In-Car Magnetic Shelf, perfect for holding a recently-dunked iPhone knockoff and a blinged-out pack of NASCAR cigarettes.

meltyjeans

A Lee Jeans promotion whose point is apparently meaningless to Occidental eyes.

ituneschina

And here’s a rare peek at the splash page for Taobao’s knockoff of the iTunes store. Top seller is “Visitors From The Sui Dynasty,” which appears to be some sort of mashup of “Harold & Kumar,” “Honey I Shrunk the KIds,” “Wall-E,” and a Tyler Perry movie where Medea becomes a Pentecostal minister.

Given such formidable competition, five iPhones starts to look pretty good.

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