B2C eCommerce Site Yaodian100: Not A Happy Ending

Since this April, rumor has been whirling that the B2C site Yaodian100 (site currently unavailable) would stop its business soon. Unfortunately, four months later, the company closed the door of its Shanghai office, with tens million unpaid loans left behind. This B2C platform was first founded in 2009, once had millions registered users and selling many Taiwan imported goods.

“To directly copy the Taiwanese B2C mode obviously doesn’t work. What’s more, it even has led to the collapse of the company.” said an insider. Actually it is reported that over 50 former suppliers of Yaodian have allied to safeguard their legal rights and claim back the debts. Things don’t look so nice.

Some clues showed that problems and difficulties of this e-tailer have appeared long ago. According to a personal letter from a Yaodian staff in April, “Senior executives haven’t got paid for more than 3 months, common staff also haven’t seen salaries for 2 months. The 2 founding members left for Taiwan and the whole company is in a mess now. ”

Someone told the media that, “The unpaid loans of Yaodian is over tens millions, involving thousands suppliers. It has not declared bankruptcy yet, but the money shortage has started since September 2011.”

A former supplier of Yaodian revealed, “I tried to contact some staff, and they promised to pay the loans immediately on the phone. I didn’t take notice at all until none of the staff is available. It came to me that earlier this year, Yaodian was dealing with some stock offline, and I realized now that it posiibly wanted to cash out at that time.”

How could a 2-year -old young company be in a dilemma like this? A B2C insider told us that,’It was due to the fault of a wrong mode. Mainland China and Taiwan are two different markets and Yaodian innocently expected a same model go smoothly on either side. Thid is impossible.”

In Taiwan, B2C sites don’t keep stock, companies deliver goods directly through suppliers and manufacturers. While in Mainland China, a B2C platform will first purchase its stock, and suppliers do not share any of it. “In the early stage, Yaodian did it in a Taiwanese way, and found it not suitable afaterwards. Then they tried to transform into a local mode, but failed for lacking purchasing experiences.”

Currently the site is not available any more and the official announcement on its weibo said it was due to the relocation of the machine room. And the only contact available now is an email address.

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