Taobao and TMall to stop supporting Internet Explorer 8 in China?
You don’t have to live in China to know the name Alibaba. The Alibaba group own two of the largest e-commerce platforms in China, these being Taobao and TMall. This past November they broke their own sales record of RMB 120.7 billion ($17.8 billion) in a single day during their annual 11.11 “singles day” sales event (comparable to Black Friday).
Insane sales figures are to be expected after these events, what is more surprising (in my view) is the news that Taobao and Tmall have started to actively move people away from Internet Explorer 8 (IE8).
For western readers this may seem like a no-brainer since Microsoft has officially stopped supporting IE and the fact that IE8 is almost 8 years old. In China however, IE8 is still the second most used desktop browser (according to Baidu statistics) and IE8 almost fully supported by most large companies and government bodies.
This is quite a move for Alibaba, who up until November this year wouldn’t mention that you were using IE8 or even suggest/ask you to upgrade. The reason why large e-commerce sites supported IE8 (and older versions) for so long is probably has something to do with fear of losing retention and sales. Dedication to supporting IE8 is admirable but probably a huge pain for many designers and developers who have to hack and compromise their work to fit in with IE8’s deprecated technology.
Whiles chinese developers and designers rejoice that this huge business is snubbing IE8 and validate their own bias that they shouldn't bother supporting IE8. It is important to mention that Alibaba are not pulling the plug on IE8.
Alibaba are now actively trying to move IE8 users over to mobile or upgrade their web browser (see below images) which they can do as they sell more on mobile then they do in browser. TMall and Taobao still work on IE8, however they are now followed around by a yellow bar on the top of the page at all times reminding them to upgrade (see below).
As well as having this popup take over the page suggesting IE8 users to upgrade or download their mobile app via the qr code.
The reasons for moving away from IE8 has been outlined by a TMall staff member in a github issue on TMall’s open source UI repo. He cites mainly wanting to reap the benefits of HTML5/REACT, lining up with Microsoft's official stance and security flaws with the way IE8 handles HTTPS Certs. It is also believed that the latest 11.11/Singles day sales have provided Alibaba with new insights & analytics into just how many users are using IE8 to shop & buy and these numbers may be getting low enough to risk potentially alienating IE8 users (note that most IE8 users will likely have a mobile phone capable of running the TMall app).
Conclusion
Internet Explorer in China is going away in the consumer space. I believe that in 2017 we are going to see more and more large web businesses snubbing IE8 + 9.
On the flip side however, even though IE8 is dying, it is important when creating digital products (for the Chinese market) that we ask the question, “What about IE8 users?”. Even if we cannot support them, then we need to offer them a real alternative like a mobile app (native or web) or risk losing a sizeable chunk of users.
In China it is important to remind ourselves that people who use IE8 are normally not doing it by choice. They maybe using IE8 because they are on a locked down workstation because of systemic problems that I will visit in another article.
If you found this article interesting, feel free to follow me and add a comment if you have any incite into Internet Explorer in China or just ask any questions.
Some links in this article link to chinese language websites (sorry).
