( CNN ) -- One hot mess . That 's what you 'll see on the front page of any leading e-commerce site in China . There 's a maddening array of banner ads , rows upon rows of links , icons touting promotions and discounts . It 's a jarring user interface that seems to bring out the worst in Web design . And it was designed that way . `` They want this shopping atmosphere , '' says Yu Gang , chairman and founder of Yihaodian , one of China 's leading online retailers . `` Our consumers like a page that is very crowded , busy with a lot of links so they can open lots of windows at the same time . '' David Wei , China tech investor and former CEO of e-commerce giant Alibaba , could n't agree more : `` When I worked for Alibaba , I cleaned the homepage to an international standard . It does n't work . '' Ahead of the upcoming Alibaba IPO , I got the full download from China 's e-commerce insiders for CNN 's `` On China . '' They tell me that in the mad , mad world of mainland e-commerce , the rules of the road from the West simply do n't apply . The superlative stats are well known : China has the world 's largest online population with over 591 million Internet users . China is the world 's second-largest online retailing market , clocking in up to $ 210 billion in sales in 2012 . Taobao , Alibaba 's consumer e-commerce engine , boasts sales bigger than eBay and Amazon combined . The scale of China 's e-commerce market is tantalizing . But it 's also a tough one to crack due in part to inadequate delivery services throughout the country . `` The logistics industry is very fragmented in China , with the likes of UPS and FedEx in China still unable to provide nationwide coverage and quality service , '' Yu points out . As such , many Chinese e-commerce companies including Yihaodian provide their own last mile delivery to reach customers with a network of mopeds and motorcycles . Another point of distinction is the extremely social nature of their customer base . `` Social media is a big one in China , '' says Oliver Rust , senior vice president at Nielsen . `` Fifty percent of consumers in China are leveraging social media to learn about new products . '' `` Retailers need to engage in this social conversation and interact with China 's tech-savvy consumers who are increasingly open to boosting e-commerce spending . '' And that does n't just mean opening a branded Weibo account . Online chatting between customers and merchants is the norm with instant messaging embedded in almost every e-commerce platform . But do n't let all the friendly shop talk fool you . The business is brutal . When David Wei was at the helm of Alibaba , he led the offensive to undermine and defeat eBay in China . `` When Taobao fought against eBay , we listed the top ten things eBay was doing in China -- and we did it 100 % differently , '' he tells me . So while eBay charged for its listing fees , Taobao offered no listing fee at all . While eBay used an auction model to rank its listings , Taobao used a retail model to rank fresher listings at the top . And while eBay limited communication between merchants and customers , Taobao created an instant messaging tool to encourage buyer-seller communication . Ebay eventually shut its main website in China . `` The top ten things , the most important things eBay was doing , their winning elements , their winning recipe in the United States , actually became the poison killing their business in China , '' says Wei . So if you 're a brand manager , investor , or entrepreneur eyeballing the market , observe with an open mind and proceed with caution . In China , e-commerce is a bloodsport .
Homepages of leading e-commerce sites look jarring for a reason . Rules of West simply do n't apply , writes Alibaba 's Alibaba IPO China . Stout has the world 's largest online population with over one Internet users .