Shaolin Temple officially enters the e-commerce field, and its subordinate company, Shaolin Huxidan Co., Ltd., has moved into Taobao.com. Yesterday, a reporter learned from Taobao that Shaolin Temple has opened its first online specialty store, specializing in selling traditional cultural products with Shaolin characteristics, such as monks' cloth shoes, training wrist guards, and Buddhist scriptures.
On the other hand, Shaolin Temple expressed that it does not merely wish to develop into a pure tourist attraction. "Opening a store online is to let those who have no chance to visit Shaolin Temple understand it through texts or physical objects."
Netizens and consumers have mixed opinions about Shaolin Temple opening an online store. Some consumers told reporters that they found it quite novel for Shaolin Temple to open an online store and showed interest in the collectibles sold online. They mentioned that without time to visit Songshan Shaolin Temple, buying a special product online for collection was interesting. Other consumers believe that as a representative of Buddhism, Shaolin Temple's engagement in commercial activities is inappropriate. A netizen told reporters, "Shaolin Temple opening an online store is just to attract more tourists to travel to Songshan. Moreover, the commercialization of temples is no longer a novelty. This is actually self-hype."
In the online store of Shaolin Temple, the prices of goods range from dozens of yuan to nearly ten thousand yuan, including Pu'er tea specialties of Shaolin Temple, Buddhist altar candlesticks, martial monks' training protective gears, cloth shoes, etc. A set of "martial arts secrets" is priced at 9,999 yuan, which is the most expensive among all the items in the online store. It is introduced that this set of "martial arts secrets" summarizes the essence of generations of Shaolin martial monks' training, breaks the previous book format, highlights the traditional characteristics of the Chinese nation, and is meticulously made using over 10 kinds of materials and more than 90 kinds of processes.
"The main purpose of opening a store online is to introduce the cultural characteristics of Shaolin Temple to more people and let more people understand Shaolin Temple," Mr. Qian, a relevant person in charge of Shaolin Temple's online store, told reporters. "For a long time, people’s understanding of Shaolin Temple has only been as a tourist attraction. In fact, what makes Shaolin Temple itself more charming is its thousands of years of cultural heritage."