The eBay of China: Eachnet: a Shanghai online auction firm set out to imitate eBay. In June, eBay bought it - Regional Report

Chief Executive, The, August-Sept, 2003 by Rebecca Fannin

But Shao has had to customize other parts of eBay's business strategy because they just wouldn't work in China. For instance, payment couldn't be arranged by credit card like it is with eBay because most Chinese don't trust plastic as a secure form of payment. Registration of sellers also couldn't be done with credit cards like it is in the United States. And when Eachnet started, the postal service couldn't be relied on. The company worked through each of these obstacles.

In the past, buyers and sellers met personally at designated city centers and exchanged goods for cash. Today, most transactions are handled by wire transfers through the postal savings bank, and trades can take place between cities. And an improved Chinese postal service is now used for deliveries that take a standard two to three days. To solve the registration process for sellers on the site, Eachnet used national identity cards instead of credit cards for confirmation. For Meg Whitman and eBay, these are valuable lessons for cracking a potentially huge online marketplace.