Only in China: McDonald's Goes Online to Sell Consumer Goods

April 28, 2009 at 12:35 pm PT

In February, McDonald’s (MCD) launched an online shop on Alibaba’s Taobao, China’s top online auction site, to promote its Super Value meal. The fast-food giant wasn’t selling burgers. Instead, for two months it sold popular and fashionable products such as mobile phones, digital cameras and MP3 players on its virtual store, along with the more-predictable gift vouchers. Many gifts were sold at promotional, discounted prices.

The McDonald’s Super Value online store was the chain’s first online shop, according to Phyllis Cheung, chief marketing officer of McDonald’s China. “It’s a strategic media tactic to target the right audience,” she said–specifically, urban adults in their 20s.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Tagged with: Alibaba, China Journal, digital, digital cameras, fast food, frontpage, gift vouchers, Internet, Juliet Ye, McDonald’s, McDonald’s China, mobile phones, MP3 players, online auction, online shop, Phyllis Cheung, software, Super Value meal, Taoboa, The Wall Street Journal, virtual store

comments so far. Add yours.

Must-Reads from other Web sites

“You Get On The Internet And Pretty Soon You’re Drunk”: The Orthodox At Citi Field

Sean Patrick Cooper, Contributor, The Awl

Meet the tireless entrepreneur who squatted at AOL

Daniel Terdiman, Senior writer, CNET

Mark Zuckerberg’s unpleasant new life

Felix Salmon, Finance blogger, Reuters

Anyone can do it. Data journalism is the new punk

Simon Rogers, News editor, the Guardian

Fashion World Mulls Facebook IPO’s Impact

Rachel Strugatz, Editor, Women’s Wear Daily

The Unabomber’s Pen Pal

Jeffrey R. Young, Senior editor, Chronicle of Higher Education

About Voices

Along with original content and posts from across the Dow Jones network, this section of AllThingsD includes Must-Reads From Other Web Sites — pieces we’ve read, discussions we’ve followed, stuff we like. Six posts from external sites are included here each weekday, but we only run the headlines. We link to the original sites for the rest. These posts are explicitly labeled, so it’s clear that the content comes from other Web sites, and for clarity’s sake, all outside posts run against a pink background.

We also solicit original full-length posts and accept some unsolicited submissions.

Voices is edited by Beth Callaghan.