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The story. Taobao.com was founded in 2003 by Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company, as a defensive move against its US rival Ebay, which had set up in China the previous year. 故事。2003年，中国电子商务企业阿里巴巴(Alibaba)创建了淘宝网(Taobao.com)，此举旨在防御2002年进入中国市场的美国竞争对手eBay。 The challenge. When Ebay launched in China it had global revenues of more than $2bn. As a young, domestic entity, Taobao was taking on a huge rival while also fending off many similar small competitors in the sector, where barriers to entry were low. 挑战。eBay进入中国之际，其全球收入已经超过了20亿美元。淘宝则是一家年轻的本土企业，在面对来自eBay的强大竞争的同时，还要应对业内众多与自身类似的小型竞争对手。电子商务行业那时的进入门槛很低 The strategic response. Noting that Ebay in China was charging users to list products and services, Taobao allowed them to list for free in order to build a big cohort of sellers and buyers. Critical mass would eventually attract revenue-generating activities, such as online advertisements. 战略对策。淘宝注意到，eBay在中国向在其网站上展示产品和服务的用户收取费用，而淘宝却不收费，以此建立起庞大的卖家和买家用户群。只要用户数量达到一定规模，就会最终带来能够产生收入的业务，如在线广告等。 | 
