SHANGHAI — Adidas AG, the world’s second-largest sportswear brand, has launched an online store on China’s Taobao Mall, the business-to-consumer platform within Taobao.com.
The Adidas store on Taobao Mall will be the brand’s sole official online retail channel in China. More than 200 products will be available in the online store, with plans to increase the product selection to 800 in the near future.
Adidas joins a slew of other apparel brands, such as Uniqlo and Bestseller Fashion Group, that are going online in China with Taobao. One of Adidas’ top competitors, the homegrown Chinese brand Li Ning, also has its online store on Taobao Mall.
Taobao Mall is the latest addition to the Alibaba Group’s online empire. Taobao.com boasts more than 210 million registered users and more than 400 million product listings.
Taobao said its transaction volume for sports-related products topped 800 million yuan, or $118 million at average exchange, in 2009. But the company added its volume for those products already exceeded 700 million yuan, or $103 million, from January through July of this year.