Tmall, formerly Taobao Mall, is a Chinese website for business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail, spun off from Taobao, operated by Alibaba Group. It is a platform for local Chinese and international businesses to sell brand-name goods to consumers in Greater China. It has over 500 million monthly active users, as of February 2018. In the last few years, it has opened its features to brands, not only for online sales but also for developing brand awareness. According to Alexa Rank, it was the third most visited website globally in 2021.[1]
History
Tmall.com was first introduced by Taobao in April 2008 as Taobao Mall, a dedicated B2C platform within its consumer e-commerce website. The key difference between Tmall and Taobao is that Tmall is a B2C platform, while Taobao is C2C.[2]
In November 2010, Taobao Mall launched an independent web domain, tmall.com, to differentiate listings by its merchants, who are either brand owners or authorized distributors, from Taobao's C2C merchants. Meanwhile, it kicked off a US$30 million advertising campaign to raise brand awareness among consumers.