Trading places

Prices range from several thousand yuan to hundreds of thousands of yuan, depending on the stores grade, credit and customer ratings.

The agent acts as a middle man and arranges the transfer contract, which becomes effective as soon as both parties sign the agreement in triplicate.

Ning Hua, the operation director of the website, says the contract is legal and in accordance with the related assets transaction clause of the Contract Law of China. To ensure both parties' rights and interests, buyer and seller have to provide their ID cards and photos of them with the contracts.

After consulting a lawyer, Cheng went to the website's headquarters in Shanghai to sign the contract with the seller.

"It's very difficult to start an online store from scratch due to fierce competition. A good rating attracts customers who prefer not to buy from new arrivals in the market," Cheng says.

"It saved me a lot of time. Now all I need to do is to run it well to attract more customers with my good service and products."

Ning says the value of an online store is subject to such a variety of hard-to-quantify factors that prices offered by the platform are just a reference point for a sale.

He says the number of online store transfers started to rise in the second half of 2011 and currently about 40 deals are wrapped up every day, while the agency makes a profit from commissions and service fees.

"There are about seven similar companies in China. Several of them reached agreements with us last year about important issues, such as online store transfer procedures, credibility management and after-sales service, in order to provide high-quality services," Ning adds.

Taobao.com has more than 500 million registered users and more than 8 million online store owners, with about 8 million visits daily.