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Bloomberg
You can buy almost anything on Taobao, China’s biggest e-commerce platform, even a jumbo jet.
While most Chinese consumers traffic the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. app for groceries, clothes, or the odd knickknack, SF Airlines Co. took Taobao shopping to a whole other level.
The Chinese carrier bid more than 320 million yuan ($48 million) for two Boeing 747 freighter planes, according to the
Xinhua News Agency, which cited the seller: the Intermediate People’s Court of Shenzhen City. A third plane failed to sell.
“Online auctions are a good way to handle the property of bankrupt firms,†Long Guangwei, the court’s vice-president, said to Xinhua.
The jets originated from Jade Cargo
International, the Taobao listings show.
Taobao’s court auction platform is a trove of assets from cities across China, with real estate, industrial equipment and vehicles—in various states of repair—up for bids. Taobao, which translates roughly as “digging for treasure,†also auctions off bad loans from Chinese companies.
Alibaba dominates e-commerce in China, with Taobao and the company’s other shopping platforms accounting for more than 75 percent of online retail sales
in 2015.