On May 10, 2003, Taobao was founded by Alibaba Group.

In October, Alipay, a third-party payment tool, was launched to build consumer trust in transactions on Taobao.

In 2003, the total transaction volume was 34 million yuan.

In 2004, Taobao Wangwang was launched to link instant messaging tools with online shopping.

In 2005, Taobao surpassed eBay and began to leave its competitors far behind.

In May, Taobao surpassed Yahoo Japan and became the largest online shopping platform in Asia.

In 2005, the transaction volume exceeded 8 billion yuan, surpassing Wal-Mart.

In 2006, Taobao became the largest shopping website in Asia. In that year, Taobao realized for the first time in China that the Internet is not only an application tool, but will eventually become a basic element of life. According to survey data, nearly 9 million people go shopping on Taobao every day.

In 2007, Taobao was no longer a simple auction website, but the largest online retail business district in Asia. In that year, Taobao's annual transaction volume exceeded 40 billion, making it the second largest comprehensive shopping mall in China. In 2008, Taobao's new B2C platform Taobao Mall (the predecessor of Tmall) was launched; the Wenchuan earthquake donation platform was launched, raising more than 20 million donations from netizens; in September, Taobao's monthly transaction volume exceeded 10 billion.