Alibaba.com Connects Chinese Suppliers With World Leading Retail Giants

Alibaba.com, the world's leading B2B e-commerce company, hosted a private sourcing event in Shanghai last week for 16 major international buyers from Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand, including Wal-Mart, Sears, Lowe's, Carrefour, H&M, El Corte Inglés and Woolworths Australia. More than 40 Alibaba.com Gold Supplier customers in the Home Textiles industry were pre-selected by the retail giants and given half an hour each to present their products.

This is the first time Alibaba.com has held such a large-scale private sourcing event, which shows the growing trend of big buyers wanting to deal with manufacturers directly rather than going through trading companies. With around 70% of the big buyers coming from outside the US, the event also demonstrates the strength of retail brands from Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Vincent Wong, Senior Director of Buyer Service and Development, Alibaba.com said, "We are pleased to be able to introduce our suppliers to some of the biggest names in the retail sector. The key thing these buyers are looking for are high-quality products and competitive pricing, but given the recent recalls around the world, quality is definitely the number one priority."

"Alibaba.com has given us an exceptional opportunity to meet with some leading suppliers of home textiles products," said Tony Zhou, Merchandising Manager of The Warehouse, one of New Zealand's largest retailers. "In the past, we built our own relationships with suppliers but Alibaba.com has given us the opportunity to meet firsthand new, up and coming suppliers with a fresh range of products that will sell well in our home market."

Alibaba.com has a large in-house team that provides professional sourcing services to companies worldwide with large procurement needs such as Home Depot, P&G, GE and Toshiba. The team offers a wide range of services and user-friendly tools such as training in online sourcing, supplier matching and online and offline sourcing activities to help big buyers recruit high quality suppliers.

Alibaba.com Japan plans to double work force

TOKYO, May 23 (Reuters) - Online business-to-business commerce service Alibaba.com Japan plans to double its work force by March 2009 and may go public in the future as it aims to expand domestically with the help of Softbank Corp, its incoming chief executive said on Friday.

Alibaba.com Japan, in which Softbank is set to take a 65 percent stake, hopes to jump-start its five-year Japan operations by using the Internet and mobile conglomerate's marketing power and services like its increasingly popular mobile phones. It also plans to collaborate with Yahoo Japan, the country's biggest Internet firm owned 41 percent by Softbank and one-third by Yahoo Inc, so that business users of the consumer-focused site will subscribe to Alibaba.com Japan.

Alibaba.com Japan, 35 percent of which will be held by Alibaba.com, the Hong Kong-listed arm of privately held Alibaba Group, targets small to midsize businesses in Japan's $1.5 trillion business-to-business e-commerce market. Such businesses account for 25 percent of Japan's export value and 63 percent of its import value, Alibaba.com and Softbank said, and Alibaba.com Japan aims to support them in trading with companies in China, Japan's biggest trading partner.
"Most of Japan's 4.2 million small and medium-sized enterprises have not realised their chance to grow globally," said Makoto Kouyama, who is set to take the helm of Alibaba.com Japan as early as next week after Softbank invests $20 million in it.

"If we can help expand their businesses by offering convenient, sophisticated services, it will in turn be our growth. We see a big business chance," he told Reuters in an interview.

According to data from the telecoms ministry, 49.5 percent of Japanese companies used e-commerce in their procurement and sales at the end of 2007, up 3.8 percentage point from a year ago. The growth was driven by mid-size firms with less than 1,000 employees. Alibaba.com Japan's website now has about 1 million items, and the company plans to add products from the 70 million goods listed on Alibaba.com's English and Chinese sites. Kouyama declined to reveal the company's sales and profit targets. Alibaba.com Japan, which competes with the likes of online mall operator Rakuten Inc, currently has 80 people in China and 35 employees in Japan dedicated to the Japanese site, and it plans to double the number by March 2009 to help support the expansion. Kouyama, who previously headed the Japanese operation of MySpace social network service through a joint venture between News Corp and Softbank, also said Alibaba.com Japan may list its shares in Japan in future to improve brand awareness and gauge its value. "Softbank is regarded as a telecoms company, so if companies like Yahoo (Japan) stay under the blanket of Softbank without listing, no one knows how they are valued," Kouyama said.

"It's hard to gauge the value of Internet companies like us unless we go out on the market. So in that sense, the possibility (of listing) is there."

Alibaba.com's parent Alibaba Group is 39 percent owned by Yahoo Inc and 30 percent by Softbank. Shares in Softbank rose 0.4 percent to close at 1,907 yen. Alibaba.com was up 1.6 percent. ($1=104.09 Yen) (Reporting by Sachi Izumi; Editing by Michael Watson)

Alibaba Launches Financing Platform For Online Businesses

Chinese e-commerce provider Alibaba has announced an initiative to launch an online platform to help small and medium enterprises in China solve their difficulties in receiving financing.

Reportedly launched on May 15, the platform has established close relationships with more than 2000 venture capitalists from home and abroad. Alibaba says it will transfer the best projects of its registered members to the venture capitalists on a regular basis.

In addition to the online platform, Alibaba's tour symposiums on venture capital investment, which are scheduled to be held in the coming months in Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, are also an important part of the online business financing platform. Right now, Xiong Xiaoge, global senior vice president of IDG; Yan Yan, chief partner of SAIF Partners; Zhu Ming, president of Cybernaut; Wu Ying, partner of CTC; and Shen Guojun, president of Yintai Company, are working as consultants to Alibaba's online financing platform.

Alibaba said previously that it would fully nurture China's online businesses through technology, education and financing. To help SMEs solve the difficulty in applying for bank loans, Alibaba even launched a credit loan service in cooperation with China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

Alibaba keeps NEWS in the Family

Alibaba International site put her news channel to test several weeks ago, and then came the Sichuan earthquake which has truly shaken Heaven and Earth.

The timing may be just right, but these are two separated incidents. We do not mean to suggest anything! We’ve seen Alibaba has done something that goes beyond what she’s supposed to be. Alibaba makes a household name for herself as a B2B eCommerce platform, now it also plays the role of being an online news center.

With the news channel, the internet marketplace manages to unite her news features in China site to international edition. Content and photos are different but certainly give us a panoramic view of what’s happened in both languages.

We would like to make some suggestions:

• Create more linkages between the news features and news channel.
• The photo images highlight are flashy, users need a pair of “robot eyes” to catch the motion!
• RSS feature is required• Avoid having too much pop-ups

Catching up with Alibaba.com CEO

Alibaba.com CEO David Wei was in the Bay Area over the weekend to meet -- many for the first time -- the company's investors.

Last fall, Alibaba.com, part of the larger Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, China, went public to much fanfare on the Hong Kong stock market. Since then, its stock has seen some dramatic ups and downs, something that Wei said stems from the stock being new to the market and the lack of comparable companies to use as benchmarks.

Yahoo owns a 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group and also invested an additional $100 million in Alibaba.com last year. Wei was pretty mum on how the company feels about Microsoft's takeover bid for Yahoo, but said he doesn't believe it will harm Alibaba.com if the acquisition goes through. The Alibaba Group, founded by Jack Ma, includes a series of Web sites and services for China's small and medium-sized businesses and consumers, including an eBay-like online auction and store site.

Alibaba.com, the unit that went public, helps businesses around the world connect with suppliers, mainly manufacturing companies in China. Eve Alexander, for instance, a U.S. maternity lingerie line, uses Alibaba.com to find suppliers in China to produce its bras. But Wei said the Alibaba.com is trying to extend beyond its China roots. It has expanded to Japan and India in two joint ventures. This fall, it also plans to introduce a service for U.S. businesses to sell their products to its Chinese customers. The site will let small and mid-sized U.S. businesses deal directly with their counterparts in China, such as allowing a Napa winery to connect to restaurants in China looking to offer California wines. Separately, Wei said that Alibaba.com is reeling from last week's earthquake in central China. It was able to reach all 150 employees from its offices Chengdu and Chongqing, two nearby cities, though it took three days. But it hasn't been able to contact its 33 customers in Wenchuan, the epicenter. That region is known for small companies that make and sell bamboo and art products.

Softbank and Alibaba.com Create $20 Million Joint Venture in Japan

Alibaba.com and Softbank today announced formation of a joint venture company called Alibaba.com Japan. The total investment will be $20 million with Softbank accounting for 65 percent of the investment and Alibaba with the rest at 35 percent.

The new company will take over the operation of Alibaba.com’s existing Japanese-language website which connects small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Japan with buyers and suppliers around the world. According to the company, Japan has more than 4 million SMEs, which account for 25 percent of the country’s export value and 63 percent of its import value. Since 2006, China has surpassed the US to become Japan’s largest trading partner. Alibaba.com Japan will promote trade between China and Japan, as well as help Japanese businesses open up new trade channels worldwide.

Alibaba.com Japan has more than 1 million product listings and over 75,000 members. Alibaba.com soft-launched its upgraded Japanese website in December 2007. The joint venture’s management will consist of CEO Makoto Kouyama, COO Sun Jiong, Director Satoshi Okada, Director Masayoshi Son, and Director David Wei who is Alibaba.com’s CEO.

Alibaba Group Assists in China Earthquake Relief

Alibaba Group has pledged $300,000 to help support victims of the May 12 earthquake in China. To help raise money for relief victims, Alibaba Group is cooperating with several relief organizations including the Chinese Poverty Relief Foundation and the Red Cross Society of China. Through its websites, Alibaba Group is helping raise awareness and allowing people to contribute funds to relief organizations through its Alipay online payment service. Alimama is allowing small and medium-sized websites across China to contribute advertising inventory on their sites for which the proceeds will be used to fund relief efforts.

Alibaba Group, which also operates the Alibaba B2B online auction site and TaoBao, the C2C auction site, is encouraging staff to contribute funds and organizing staff to donate blood. Alibaba Group is encouraging its members to visit the relevant sections of its websites to learn more about how they may contribute to relief efforts.

Jack Ma: Welcome to the “Ants world”

Jack Ma, Chairman and Non-Executive Director of Alibaba.com made a forecast that the world economy situation would be as bleak as that in 2001, 2002 where the dot-com bubble have taken place. He warned that the “winter” would probably last as long as three years.

Yet, He still pledged his support to China exporters, manufacturers and suppliers in the wake of gloomy economic sentiment. He suggested that SME in China should behave and work like “ants” which managed to survive much longer than such mammals as lions and elephants through all these years.

“Our Winport project launched two days ago will charge as little fee as we can, we have been thinking to offer the services for free.” Mr Ma said in a recent interview with China Alibaba.com ( The interview was done in Mandarin though).

Alibaba raise investors’ eyebrows by reporting a strong net profit of 300.7 million yuan for the first quarter of 2008 on May 5th, a leap of 111. 7 percent year-on-year and 162 percent quarter-on-quarter, excluding the one-off interest income received from over-subscriptions during IPO in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Investors’ sentiments undoubtedly are still haunted by the painstaking experiences earned from the previous internet bubble burst, coupled with the emerging economic dark cloud in the United States, rising RMS value, escalating energy and food prices. Alibaba (1688.HK) closed at HK$14.14 per share last Friday.

Alibaba to Promote PCs with B2B Inside

Alibaba (1688.HK) announced today that it would partner with Intel to introduce a line of computers designed specifically for SME e-commerce, to use Alibaba's embedded SME B2B platform and Intel's platform technology to meet the data security and service needs of SMEs. The computers will be made and sold by selected PC manufacturers, and are planned to be introduced within the year.

Export to China with Alibaba.com

Alibaba officially announced its Export to China program. The tides have turned and selling to China has actually become a viable sales channel. With Export to China, exporters be able to sell through our China marketplace on Alibaba China. Alibaba will help exporters with translation of your product/company information and connect to millions of Chinese buyers. Applicants can win a package for 6 free months and an invitation to attend Alibaba's offline events in China to meet even more buyers.