Alibaba Killer? Chinese Ministries Unveil New B2C Website

Zhengjiaweb.com, a new B2C portal website jointly promoted by China's Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Commerce, has been formally unveiled.

The website, which is jointly created by China International E-commerce Center, Guangzhou Zhengjia Network Modern Service Company and Guangzhou Zhengjia Square, is expected to open formally in June this year.

According to Lin Jianguo, chief operation officer of zhengjiaweb.com, the project will be completed in three schedules with a total investment of about RMB1.6 billion. The part that will see an opening in June is the first phase of the project and will consist of about 20 channels centered on retailing. Lin says that different from Alibaba and Taobao.com, zhengjiaweb.com is strictly a B2C website, so all the businesses on the website must also have offline stores. To ensure goods quality, the website will cooperate with four logistics companies of EMS, ZJS Express, YTO Express and Shentong Express and have the businesses undertake the goods delivery fee acquisition.

Zhengjiaweb.com will be first based in Guangzhou and it will later expand across the country with branches set up in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Wuhan. Lin introduces that the Beijing branch will be set up in July, Shanghai branch in October, Chengdu branch in February 2009 and the Shenzhen branch in July 2009.

The company plans to get its businesses fully listed in Nasdaq between June 2009 and December 2012.