Baidu Inc, a major Chinese language Internet search provider, and Rakuten Inc, the largest e-commerce website in Japan, yesterday announced an agreement to jointly invest $50 million over three years in a joint venture to build a B2B2C online shopping mall for Chinese-Internet users.

B2B2C refers to an online marketplace that links and provides value-added services to both businesses to business (B2B) and business to consumers (B2C).

The online mall will purportedly provide customers with high-quality merchandise from well-known Chinese and foreign brands as well as from small- and medium-sized enterprises, all at competitive prices.