Dive Brief:

• Alibaba and Uber teamed up last weekend for a promotion where Aibaba’s Taobao marketplace used 300-square-foot vehicles as “mobile dressing rooms.”

• The high-profile move in Guangzhou in southern Guangdong, western China’s Chengdu in Sichuan, and Hangzhou in east China’s Zhejiang was a test, and the mobile dressing rooms program could expand if it does well, the companies said.

• The idea was to show that authentic goods are available at Taobao; Alibaba is facing allegations from several quarters that sales of counterfeits are rampant on the marketplace site.

Dive Insight:

Alibaba has been an enthusiastic investor in Uber competitors — the company has invested in ride-hailing companies Lyft here and Hangzhou Kuaidi Technology Co. in China. But Uber was the company available for this stunt, which was free to Uber app users and included free clothes for those testing the service.

Considering those gifts, it’s hard to know whether Taobao will be able to adequately assess the success of the venture; presumably in a long-term program the marketplace would have people actually pay for the clothes they try on and want to keep. 

And Uber is having its own problems in China; although it’s growing there rapidly, the company is facing undercover stings and investigations because some drivers don’t meet Chinese regulations for permits and insurance.