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Change in shop ownership rules is a sign of e-commerce's growing valueWHEN couples divorce, they often fight over who gets the house, the money or the children.self storage In China, they also fight over virtual assets like the family's online business.A Beijing couple went to court in September to settle who should get their jointly owned baby milk powder store on the popular Taobao website, the biggest Chinese e-commerce website.When they parted ways, they agreed that the husband would keep the online store. The wife later changed her mind - and the password to the store - which brings in more than 100,000 yuan (S$20,700) in profit a year.As the online shop was registered under the wife's name - and Taobao prohibited the transfer of ownership - the husband had no choice but to go to court. He won the case.While no exact figures are available, there are enough of such legal tussles to prompt Taobao, which has 500 million registered users, to change its mind and allow online shop ownership transfers with effect from July 22.This is "to respond to market changes and users' needs", said a spokesman for Alibaba, which runs Taobao. The spokesman declined to disclose how many transfer requests had been received so far.Still, it goes to show how virtual shops have become as valuable as physical ones, according to Internet analyst Fang Dongxing. "There's a complete credit system, a reliable source of clients and each shop has its own value."It also underlines how e-commerce is big business in China.On Taobao, about 480,000 items are sold on average every minute. E-commerce receipts on Taobao, whi迷你倉h has eight million shop owners, and its sister website Tmall hit more than 1.1 trillion yuan last year, more than that of American websites eBay and Amazon combined, noted The Economist magazine.There are 242 million online shoppers in China last year, a 25 per cent increase from the previous year, said the China Internet Network Information Centre.Taobao has also started to allow online shops to be passed down in the event of death, like any other real-life property.The deaths of two Taobao merchants last year sparked calls for a rule change. In both cases, the store owners' accounts and data were lost after they died.Taobao now allows nominated beneficiaries to take over a store after the merchant's death.While making exceptions for divorce and deaths, Taobao does not otherwise allow online shops to be bought or sold like physical ones, though this is done on the black market."There are many legal issues and risks involved like money laundering," noted Mr Fang.The concern is that transfers may affect the trustworthiness of an online shop, which is built up by and tied to the registered owner, said the Alibaba spokesman."This rule is to encourage every shop to provide good service and accumulate good reviews, so as to protect the rights of consumers," the spokesman added.Taobao shop owner Chen Yuefeng, 37, who sells baby products online with her husband, welcomed the change.Just like running a physical shop, it takes a lot of hard work to run one online, she told The Straits Times."It's good that there's now a legal process for the transfer of shops," she said.hoaili@sph.com.sg文件倉