Taobao Fashion Announces Billion-Yuan Investment: Supporting Brands, Incubating New Merchants, Protecting Original Content

Sina Tech reported on the morning of March 19th that at the 2026 Business Conference, it was announced that Taobao will invest heavily to support emerging original brands, incubate new outside-the-platform merchants into the “billion-yuan club,” and launch an original protection platform to combat infringement across platforms, clearing industry chaos and creating a healthy ecosystem for apparel merchants.

Taobao Apparel disclosed that over the past year, Taobao Apparel maintained rapid growth, with 88VIP user penetration reaching 73%; user repurchase rate staying above 70%, and core merchant retention rate exceeding 99%.

Especially for IFASHION merchants known for their design and style, they achieved double-digit GMV growth for three consecutive years. Driven by the “Super Fashion Release,” the growth rate of live broadcasts by apparel merchants exceeded 20%.

A relevant person in charge of Taobao Apparel announced that they will continue to focus on high-quality original merchants, investing hundreds of billions of traffic and hundreds of millions of red envelopes in subsidies, and helping merchants achieve long-term growth and brand development through crowd operation, improved live broadcast efficiency, and full-link business tools.

By 2026, Taobao will further increase investment of billions of yuan for new merchants and selectively release 50 million-level traffic to accelerate merchants from cold start to scaled operations.

Data shows that last year, over 6,000 new merchants came to Taobao from outside platforms, covering more than ten niche tracks such as influencers, designers, and streamers. With platform support, top-tier merchants emerged faster, with more than 10 merchants surpassing 100 million yuan in their first year, and a 10% rate of surpassing 10 million yuan.

In addition, low thresholds for plagiarism and high costs for rights protection have long been industry stubborn problems for original apparel merchants. Recently, Taobao launched an original protection platform, pioneering a cross-platform rights protection mechanism that tracks infringement across the entire internet, reducing the cycle and costs of rights protection by 50%, safeguarding the core competitiveness of original merchants.

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Editor: Jiang Yuhan