The popular Taobao shopping platform is launching a much-anticipated English-language interface for its app in Singapore. Starting today, on the same Taobao app that many local consumers are familiar with, users who are more accustomed to communicating in English can toggle into the English interface to shop in their preferred language.
This major update highlights Taobao’s dedication to serving its Singapore users, who have shown a strong desire for an English-language interface, reflecting their diverse language fluency. With the introduction of the English interface, the platform enhances accessibility for non-Chinese speakers, eliminating their need for manual translations that previously made shopping less convenient for them.
Singapore is the first market Taobao will introduce this new offering to, alongside neighbouring Malaysia. The Taobao English interface will offer a myriad of features for English speakers’ convenience including Singapore Dollar (SGD) price conversion, product descriptions in English powered by artificial intelligence (AI), as well as a more straightforward user interface compared with the Chinese version to cater to local users’ habits and offer a seamless product selection to checkout journey.
To start, the English interface will feature a curated selection of trending products. Eventually, it will feature a much wider selection of categories to ensure it gives users variety and affordability parallel to those offered in the Chinese interface.
“We are thrilled to unveil an English interface of our app to introduce Taobao to a broader audience in Singapore. The launch is a direct response to the market demand, reflecting our commitment to improving convenience and accessibility for our users,” said Jean Zhao, Country Head of Taobao Singapore.
“As this is our first major initiative to serve English-speaking users, we diligently monitor user feedback and continuously refine the app interface to enhance the user experience based on customer insights,” he said.
“At Tmall Taobao World, our goal is to create an inclusive shopping platform that breaks geographical boundaries and provides an exceptional user experience. The Taobao English interface is a testament to our dedication to serving the diverse needs of our global customer base. We believe this launch will open up new opportunities for Singapore shoppers to discover and enjoy Taobao’s great diversity of products,” added Jianqiu Ye, General Manager of Tmall Taobao World.
In celebration of the launch of the English app interface today, Singapore consumers can enjoy the following benefits while shopping on Taobao, for a limited time only:
The Taobao app that comes with an English interface can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for iOS devices and the Google Play Store for Android devices. Users with an existing Taobao account can log in to the English interface with their existing Taobao account credentials. Users will need to update or download the latest app version on the App Store to use this feature. Users’ account details, including order history and saved addresses, will be available in the English version.
