Alibaba.com's C2C website Taobao.com has formally entered the service field by launching a real estate channel on its website in cooperation with localized online lifestyle community Koubei.com.

This is one of the first cooperations reached between an online shopping website and classified information service provider and it has created a new business pattern based on C2C in China.

According to the agreement, Koubei.com will be responsible for providing content to Taobao's new real estate channel and the housing information posted by Taobao's users will be synchronously published on Taobao.com and Koubei.com.

Taobao.com is an affiliate of e-commerce service provider Alibaba. In October, the latter announced a strategic investment in Koubei.com. Koubei.com is a classified advertising website started in June 2004. At present, it has 2 million members.