Chinese search engine leader Baidu had teamed up with successful Japanese internet company Rakuten to launch a new and promising online mall for the country, as reported here. The venture was officially announced by the two in January. The mall is yet another step towards the sizable shrinkage of the global e-Commerce market, which is ironically lessening due to countries’ increasing globalization;

“The Lekutian platform may stand a better chance of succeeding in China, since Baidu will be able to draw on Rakuten’s success in the e-commerce market in Japan, said Chen Shousong, an analyst with Analysys International.”

Lekutian, the joint upcoming online mall by Baidu and Rakuten, certainly appears to have a potential for success in the Chinese e-Shopping arena, but it doesn’t mean it won’t have its share of competition. A competitor named Taobao.com, owned by Alibaba currently dominates %75 of the $61 billion Chinese online shopping market, which is expected to grow by an additional %44 next years and %34 in the year after that.

The online shopping can be translated into a lot of dollar signs for the owners of Lekutian, which is exactly they’ve invested $50 million in its three years long co-operative development program.

The Chinese online shopping market is expected to see a very significant growth in the near future, and despite the line of competitors standing next to (primarily) Baidu including Alibaba, it doesn’t intend to give up so easily – the opposite is true.

Baidu’s efforts will probably help it gain even more users and publicity than it has now, and as reported here, these hopeful goals have already increased the stock. After becoming the undisputed number one search engine in China, it had set itself another goal, strongly backed by both history and Rakuten.