Taobao to launch Dec 12 shopping gala

Taobao Marketplace, the country's top customer-to-customer website under the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, will offer a variety of discounts to Internet shoppers on Dec 12, the company announced on Monday.

Small-scale merchants can leverage Taobao's data analysis system to precisely advertise products and provide discounts, said Zhang Yu, president of Taobao.

For example, downloading a Taobao marketing tool enables vendors to identify popular merchandise frequently added to customers' virtual shopping carts and provide discounts to entice consumers and perk up sales.

The software has been installed by more than a million Taobao sellers since October. Taobao is distributing 100 million yuan cash incentives to encourage the use of its mobile app.

The gala came just a month after an online shopping spree on Tmall, another subsidiary of Alibaba, set record sales of 35 billion yuan after more than 20,000 merchants promised to slash prices.