Date With CEO - A Christmas Gift

A Christmas date with a 22-year-old Internet entrepreneur tops the list of all that is available on retail website giant Taobao in China, and an enterprising woman got her gift!

Bids for a date with Raymond Liu, chief executive of the SHINEE store on Taobao and the separate jialituan.com cosmetics site, started at just one yuan (15 cents) on the Taobao auction page.

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Bidders had to be single, childless and healthy women under the age of 35 and bids from homosexuals were rejected, according to a "product description" with glammed-up black and white photos of Liu in various fashion-forward poses.

"The product is developed specifically to save beautiful girls from a lonely and miserable Christmas night," said the description.

"Delivery is guaranteed prior to Christmas Eve."

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It added that Liu could be brought to meet the buyer's parents or "sent as a gift", but was "not appropriate for marriage or procreation".

He will undertake "all the labour in life" during the date, including cooking, cleaning the toilet and telling jokes, it said.

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The successful bidder -- who stumped up 5,450 yuan -- will get not only the date with Liu but an Apple iPad or a set of cosmetics worth 3,000 yuan as a free gift. Her identity was not revealed on the site.

About 100 bids were made in total.

Some have slammed the ad and auction as a pure marketing stunt. Liu said only that the main reason for his offer was "to find someone to spend Christmas day with", according to Chinese media reports.

It would appear the business, launched earlier this year, could use a boost -- the online store suffered losses of one million yuan over the past three months, the reports said.

Source-AFP