Delivery Anywhere in the World Within an Hour: Will China’s Taobao Succeed in Real Rockets?

China’s largest e-commerce company, Taobao, has partnered with a private rocket company to conduct rocket research and offer delivery anywhere in the world within an hour.

Taobao is part of the same family as AliExpress, and it is rapidly expanding its presence worldwide, including in South Korea.

On the 1st, local media, such as China’s Jimushin newspaper, reported that Taobao had started a fast delivery project using rockets in partnership with the private commercial rocket research company, Space Epoch, the previous day.

Space Epoch is a startup focused on researching the medium-to-large reusable launcher Yuanxing-1. The front part of the launcher is designed as a cargo bay of about 4238.9 cubic feet.

The company can also carry about 22,046.2 pounds of cargo and claims to transport everything from small to medium-sized general parcels to cars and small cargo trucks.

Taobao plans to complete worldwide deliveries within an hour using rocket delivery.

While the rocket delivery research is in its early stages and specific methods have not been disclosed, they could draw inspiration from Elon Musk’s space company, SpaceX.

In June 2021, Elon Musk announced his plans to construct a maritime spaceport called Deimos, which would serve as a hub for rocket transportation. His idea is to use rockets and the spaceport to significantly reduce the travel time from New York to Beijing. Currently, the journey by plane takes approximately 14 hours, but Musk claims that with his proposed method, it would take just 30 minutes. However, the project’s current status is unknown, and there are speculations that it may have been halted.

Experts believe that such attempts could revolutionize e-commerce delivery and create a new source of revenue in the commercial space market.

Suppose these express delivery services become a reality. In that case, the position of Chinese e-commerce companies like Taobao, which are rapidly growing in the global market, is expected to become even more solid.