BIG CHOICE: The convenience of shopping online (XINHUA)

As a frequent online shopper, Zhou Fangjie, a 28-year-old white-collar worker, was annoyed when she could not open Hanyidushe, an online shop selling Korean-style clothing on Taobao Mall.

Her experience resulted from the online protest initiated by small vendors on Taobao Mall, China's largest business to consumer online platform. Thousands of small vendors started the protest against larger established vendors by discrediting them through false orders, forming an anti-Taobao Union and setting up a chat room to devise ways to disrupt operations on Taobao Mall.

"We customers become victims of the fight between them [the vendors], and we can't shop online as usual," Zhou, who lives in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province, told ChinAfrica.

Fee hike

What provoked the ire of small Taobao vendors is a fee hike by the e-commerce website, who announced it would increase its annual technical service fee from 6,000 yuan ($923) to two new packages costing 30,000 yuan ($4,615) and 60,000 yuan ($9,230) on October 10, 2011. They said only the larger businesses can afford the increase.

Taobao Mall also required sellers to pay a liability deposit of up to 15,000 yuan ($2,307), which would be forfeited if they breached their contract and also used to compensate consumers.

The moves are said to ensure sellers at the online mall improve their service quality and stop selling fake products.

"We hope to encourage businesses to conduct self-inspection to improve their service," said Zhang Yong, President of Taobao Mall, told a media briefing in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, where Taobao Mall's parent company Alibaba Group is located. Taobao Mall, founded in April 2008, hosts more than 40 million registered users, 50,000 registered businesses and 70,000 brands.