淘宝家具展:网购价 实体质量

近来淘宝网在北京推广家具展示大厅，用户可以亲身试用沙发、桌子和其他大件商品，然后在线订购。这也是电子商务网站向中国实体零售店入侵的最新动向。据专业人士分析，在线零售商有朝一日可能会占据中国零售市场的主导地位。

The newly opened Taobao furniture store in Beijing gives buyers a chance to see what they are ordering on Taobao before making an expensive purchase. Ordering things online can be a tricky game when you must trust the sellers' reputation and not only the brand itself.

No one wants to spend money ordering a lovely antique table online that arrives as a pile of moldy, scratched, wooden fastened boards.

Zhang Jiayu from Beijing is a frequent Taobao user but also still shops at regular stores. She found some pieces of furniture online and came today to check them out at the warehouse first.

"If the advertised companies are those manufacturers the Taobao Ifeng store has promised, I would trust buying things rather than at regular stores. Regular stores sometimes involve an agency or other intermediate links that makes them less trustworthy."

The Taobao furniture E-tailor, not retailer, has over 300 pre-approved furniture suppliers. Marketing commissioner Liu Bin from Beijing says they guarantee that the items in the Taobao store are the same as advertised or the buyer can exchange or return it.

"Because they come from the same factory, there will be no discrepancies in quality because the factories we work with are trustworthy. The furniture displayed online is the same and the factories are those who have the best price and provide good service. We can ensure the reputation of our cooperative partners".

In each aisle, there are small computer terminals where customers can look up the item in the showroom. Lei Ting from Jiangxi Province is one of the customer service representatives at the recently opened store.

"For example, if you want to buy that table, you can first look at the product list where there is a tag containing an eight digit number Then you can insert the membership card we give you into the terminal machine and type the number into the search column, the item you want will be displayed on the touch screen. You can find everything like size, color, etc.
 
Choose what you like and add it into your virtual shopping trolley. Then, click "settle up the bill" and the machine will remind you to log into your Taobao account. If you want to buy here, you can just remove the card and give it to the cashier and pay by debit card, visa or mastercard."

But not all of us are so computer savvy. For those who aren't sure how to use Taobao at home or how to approach the Taobao terminals, they will set an account up for you and help you through the process.

There are even interior designers that will go measure your apartment and come up with ideas or you can bring in photos of what you want. The interior designers like Sunjing from Shandong have at least three years experience and can provide decorating options.
"We start with the spatial framework, because we want to section off the different rooms. We then take style into consideration as well as specific needs, like color preference and furniture selection. We consider the number of occupants as well as their profession, then we design their house based on this information."

With the Taobao E-tailer showroom, you can still try out your ideal couches, making sure to include every position to evaluate overall comfort. As odd as it sounds, being able to try out the merchandise can make internet leery people venture outside of the house to buy online.

Since it just opened, there aren't many customers now in this multistory warehouse, but Liu Bin says they hope a store like this will bring a whole new face to e-commerce in China.

For CRI, I'm Andrea Hunt.