Today, Baidu finally rolls out its much-anticipated C2C e-commerce platform. After a few days’“YouA” beat, This e-commerce platform is called Youa.com, together with Baifubao.com, Baidu’s online payment platform, they are the only services by Baidu which don’t use a domain name under Baidu.com.
During its private test Baidu Launched C2C online trading “YouA-beat”, about 10,000 sellers has participated in the private beta, and created shops and added goods, or copy their listings from Taobao. That’s why you can already find about 1 million listings when Youa.com is online.
I did not try the whole platform as a buyer, but I still feel its web design is very similar to that of Taobao, in terms of either UI of webpage, or design of transaction procedures. To be a seller on Youa.com, you need to submit the copy of you ID card to be verified by Baidu, and also to have your bank account verified. It is also similar to Taobao’s procedures. So generally, Youa.com is quite similar to Taobao. Moreover, Youa.com is somewhat un-related to Baidu’s core business, search business, so whether Youa can be a strong challenger of Taobao, or it just make Baidu spreading itself too thin, let’s wait for another one year.
