internet - The epic struggle between Ebay and Taobao II

A few months ago the fight between Ebay and Alibaba for China's auction market was already getting in place, with a clear advantage for Alibaba's Taobao. Now Yahoo has purchased a 40 percent stake in the operation for one billions US dollar, pushing ahead Alibaba's initial advantage.
The unlinkable Wall Street Journal is documenting both parties, quoting an increasingly confident Jack Ma.

He boasts that Alibaba now has the financial muscle and local expertise to deal a significant defeat to eBay and Meg Whitman, its high-profile CEO. "I know the Chinese user market and users better than Meg Whitman," says Mr. Ma, clad in a lime-green shirt and sipping a cup of tea. "Once we start to charge, we can be profitable in 18 months."

One of the things I have not figures out is why the former Eachnet, Ebay's originally China's partner, has lost its grip on the Chinese market. I have been betting on Alibaba for some time, and I would agree with Duncan Clark in this second quote from the WSJ:
Word-of-mouth promotion is thought to be the best approach by many marketers in China.

Relying on TV illustrates eBay's "weakness" in the face of competition from Alibaba's TaoBao, argues Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a consulting and market-research firm that has worked with Alibaba in the past. TaoBao has done only a small amount of television advertising.
The competitors differ in corporate style. EBay's EachNet, is based on the 12th floor of a sleek, air-conditioned high-rise office tower in Shanghai, surrounded by other skyscrapers, malls and retail stores. Its sparsely decorated offices are hard to distinguish from other eBay locations around the world.
Alibaba operates from an industrial section of Hangzhou, two hours southwest of
Shanghai. Its five floors of offices are festooned with flags and cartoon posters of the company's ant mascot. Hundreds of young employees sit with phones and computers in cramped cubicles decorated with pillows, stuffed animals and plants. Street noise filters in through open windows.