Research & Analysis On The Application Of Experiential Marketing To C2C Websites In China

In recent years, with the increase of Chinese cyber citizens and the maturity of online shopping, the online market has developed rapidly. By the end of 2006, the online sales have amounted to RMB 3.12 billion. This number has grown over 20 times within four years. C2C online shopping has become an indispensable part of modern life. C2C website is characterized with its virtualization of marketplace, flexibility of consuming behavior, instantaneity of transaction etc. As a method of providing individualization for consumers, the experiential marketing is playing a significant role in the development and brand construction of C2C websites. However, within all domestic C2C websites, Taobao (www.taobao.com) is the most successful, and fast growing. In 2006, the turnover of Taobao is more than 1.69 billion RMB, taking up almost 70% that of domestic online market. Besides, taobao.com was awarded as"the brand for the best life style in 2005"and"the most satisfying C2C transaction platform in 2006"and so on. Thus, to research on Tabao's application of experiential marketing could be of great reference value for the brand construction of domestic C2C websites.This paper used the method of documentary analysis and interview to figure out the success of the taobao.com from the perspective of experiential marketing. I look forward to providing some information for other national C2C website. This paper included four parts. The first part reviewed some theory concerning experiential marketing, and also pointed out the three aspects of application--the surface, behavior and the ideology. The second part introduced the information about C2C website, including the concept of C2C, the development of C2C and the importance of experiential marketing to national C2C. The third part analyzed the strong point and weak point of the application of the experiential marketing in Taobao.com. The last part gived some advices on the practical operation of experiential marketing in national C2C from perspectives of three aspects mentioned above.