Alibaba's online auction subsidiary, Taobao.com, has recently launched China's first online shopping consumer price index, the "Taobao CPI".

Taobao CPI aims at reflecting the overall situation of the online shopping market and the consumption situation of the mainstream crowd in cities by price trends of online shopping. Through Taobao CPI, Taobao.com hopes to publish some crucial data to be used for getting a better idea of the scope of e-commerce in China.

Different from China's ever-increasing CPI, the Taobao CPI from January to May 2008 released by the website shows a decreasing trend. The Taobao CPI of the five months are 0.41%, -2.74%, -7.28%, -9.24% and -6.35%, respectively, while the CPI of China in the corresponding time periods are 7.1%, 8.70%, 8.3%, 8.5% and 7.7%, respectively.

The statistical items of CPI are hot products in online shopping such as digital products, apparel and cosmetics. The prices of these products have been decreasing since 2007, especially in the online shopping market.