Alibaba’s mobile commerce platform Taobao has opened the third Taobao Maker Festival in Hangzhou, China.
The largest event in Taobao’s history, the outdoor bazaar houses more than 200 exhibitors, a fashion show, concerts and a look back at 15 years of the Taobao platform.
This year’s festival features the creative young entrepreneurs in themed zones of innovation, anime, intangible cultural legacy, vintage, pets and gourmet. According to the latest CBNData report, 77 per cent of the independent designers on Taobao are aged 33 or younger. The Taobao Maker Festival serves as a stage for these young creators to experiment and commercialise their original ideas.
Visitors are able to participate in interactive activities, forest-themed concerts and try out the latest technologies. A night market is open for the first time to extend proceedings into the evening.
“Taobao has always been a pioneer in retail revolution,” said Alibaba’s chief marketing officer Chris Tung.
“When we created Taobao 15 years ago, the idea was to give customers a joyful shopping experience by uncovering their favorite items from a wide range of choices.
“Today, logging onto Taobao is a daily activity for many of us and the term Taobao has come to represent online shopping. What is fuelling this dynamic community is the creativity of our merchants. They introduce new products, develop innovative ways of marketing their ideas to customers, and reinvent traditional products to give them new lives.”
In the fourth quarter of 2017, “original design” appeared 170 million times in keyword searches on Taobao.
Fan Jiang, resident of Taobao Marketplace, said: “Innovation and ‘maker spirit’ are the most important qualities of Taobao. To attract like-minded merchants, we will on one hand empower merchants to innovate on our platform and on the other hand help them create business value. This year, innovation prizes will be awarded for the first time to recognise the achievements of the young entrepreneurs on our platform. We will continue to enable passionate and aspirational young entrepreneurs to thrive on Taobao.”
The festival is currently in its final day and will close tonight.
