The Taobao marketplace run by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding on Wednesday revamped its gift-giving feature to make the process easier for buyers, days after rival Tencent Holdings introduced a similar improvement on its WeChat super app.

Taobao's gifting feature, located beside the "add to cart" and "buy now" buttons at the bottom of an item's page, allows a user to purchase for others without asking for their shipping address.

After placing an order, the buyer sends a virtual gift card with a self-compiled passcode to the recipient, who has to claim the goods within 24 hours by filling in the correct passcode and providing delivery information.

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It marks a major revamp of the previous gifting function that only allowed buyers to purchase an additional unit for others when checking out. The gift card could only be shared via Taobao, whereas under the new system it can be sent to any online shopping or social platform, including WeChat.

The WeChat app is seen on a smartphone screen. Photo: Shutterstock Images alt=The WeChat app is seen on a smartphone screen. Photo: Shutterstock Images>

To entice users to try the new feature, Taobao is offering a 15 per cent discount for some gift purchases.

A representative of Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall business unit said that the new gift feature was available for all users.

Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Tencent embedded a similar function in WeChat last month, as part of its ongoing efforts to grow the app beyond just messaging. Since it launched in 2011, WeChat, known as Weixin domestically, has added many functions, including payments, shopping and short videos.

Over the years, Alibaba has been trying to encroach onto Tencent's home turf by expanding into social networking, including rolling out an instant messaging app called Laiwang in 2013, and adding a feature to Taobao in 2021 that allowed users to shop together via a voice call. However, both these are now discontinued.

Amid the fierce competition, China's internet giants have been forced to open their previously closed ecosystems to each other under Beijing's antitrust campaign.

In September, Alibaba announced that its Taobao and Tmall marketplaces would accept WeChat as a payment option, along with Alipay. As of early October, Tencent had enabled WeChat users to open Taobao links and place orders within the messaging app.