Su Qiqiang, a Chinese IT celebrity who founded companies Yongyou Software, Lianbang Software, and 8848, is now beginning another business. He is working with his old partner, Lei Chifeng, former CEO of 8848, on a shopping search website named ChinaEC.com, and the duo hope to topple 8848's "Shopping Search" service. Su was formerly president of 8848.

In January 2004, 8848 announced in Beijing that it would return to the e-commerce field with a new shopping search concept, with overseas capital from IDG and Yahoo.

Lei says of ChinaEC, "Consumers can buy goods directly on our website, but they can't do so on 8848."

8848 provides a link on its website that pushes users to other sites to buy necessary goods, while users can buy things directly from ChinaEC. Lei says this is an innovative mode of ChinaEC that provides an instant buying service. ChinaEC has its own payment system and logistics network in China.

ChinaEC also plans to integrate the existing 12000 online shops (B2C websites) in China into its own storehouse and become a special online shop for consumers. Its current partners include Gome, Joyo, Dangdang and many medium and small sized e-commerce enterprises.

The main reason those enterprises are willing to cooperate with Chinaec is that they don't have the capacity to cross the credit threshold of bank payments systems.