"The future of retail is the integration of Internet and digital services with the retail network."
Charles Dunstone, founder of Carphone Warehouse

"It's hard to find things that won't sell online."
Jeff Bezos, founder, Amazon

Chatted with my ex-boss based in China via MSN, haven’t seen him for a couple of years, the conversation was quite interesting. After some making-fun-of-old-colleagues talk, we started some more grown-up chat. I asked him about current market in China. He replied that traditional advertising is struggling (although I think he is a bit overstating here), but the main focus has diverted to digital/online and retail.

Seriously, I won’t doubt anything about it and totally agree. Before I came to Australia 3.5 years ago, I already spent at least AUD400 each month for online shopping (maybe I am weird)—mostly on Taobao.com. A lot of people do that.

From the list of the most popular websites across the globe in April this year, Taobao.com (the Chinese pronunciation sounds like “dig-treasure”) was ranked NO.16 globally, together with a few other Chinese portals catching up despite having not yet branched out overseas. Yes, we are the world’s most populous nation.

Taobao, with 98 million shoppers accessing from time to time every single day, this premier ecommerce platform only likely to expand in the future. I was always amazed how many things are sold on it. Only then you feel the limitation of your imagination.

Well, I am not bragging about this site, however, I do admire the early-adopter’s courage and good work. However, there is one thing I feel frustrated--- too many products in too many categories selling there, took me ages to locate what I want to buy, although that helped the website increase the sticky time, it kinda of start making the shopping experience not enjoyable. I believe since online shopping gaining more and more prominence, all the sellers need to begin to consider more than displaying products and delivery issue.

What's next?