Profit compression, time compression, and emotional exhaustion: the platformization of Taobao and its constraining effects on Chinese ‘original design’ women’s e-shops

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines how Taobao, the dominant Chinese e-business platform, regulates the production, operation, and sales models of its e-shops, and the response to this regulation in the women’s original-design apparel industry. Drawing on ethnographic research with Shanghai-based Taobao original-design e-shops, this study shows that Taobao has normalized the ‘wanghong model’. This business model, which prioritizes internet celebrity and traffic generation through frequent online shopping festival promotions, tends to enhance the platform’s traffic rather than the e-shops’ sales or interests. Moreover, Taobao’s ‘consumer-first’ philosophy, responding to the socialist state’s left-leaning calls and competition from other platforms, places significant demands on practitioners’ time, making it challenging for the e-shops to manage the increase in returns along with sales. Taobao also requires practitioners to perform a large amount of emotional labor to provide customer service. Overall, a detailed analysis of Taobao’s platformization process complicates the simplistic understanding of China’s apparel industry transitioning from state-driven to market-oriented models. Instead, it reveals how the platform-mediated ‘market’ has become more diversified and stratified by various sub-platforms, affordances and business norms. Furthermore, it empirically shows how the axis of state-platform power has encroached upon the time, emotions, and energy of small businesses without enhancing their profitability.