Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings Ltd, one of China's largest home appliance retailers, announced Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with Taobao which will see it open an online store on the e-commerce goliath's business-to-consumer (B2C) shopping platform, Tmall.

Based on the current trajectory of China's retail sector, a Gome-Taobao alliance was perhaps inevitable. After all, heated competition in the consumer market has already brought 360buy.com and fellow appliance retail titan Suning into a similar engagement of their own.

While this sort of keeping up with the Joneses is nothing new in China's online market, Gome and Taobao actually have much to offer one another. Gome may be able to cut its advertising budget by setting up shop on Taobao, which has already become the website of first resort for millions of Chinese consumers. Meanwhile, Gome's wide selection of appliances and electronics will help round out Tmall's online inventory.

The author is Xiang Kun, a media personality.