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B2B Trade International

Alibaba, Guangdong Hold Online Merchant Trade Fair

Hangzhou-based e-commerce company Alibaba Group will join the Guangdong provincial and Guangzhou municipal governments to hold China's first online merchant trade fair on May 16, reports 163.com. The event operator said 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will participate in the fair, with 30,000 Taobao, Alibaba Group's consumer-focus e-commerce site, sellers in attendance to purchase goods from the SMEs. Twenty thousand companies that accept online payment service from Alibaba Group's Alipay will also be in attendance, said the operator.

Fifty thousand people, including 30,000 college graduates, are expected to seek jobs and business opportunities during the event at which high-ranking Taobao sellers will recruit 2,000 customer service representatives, the report said.

Alibaba's "Japan Express" is Now Available

Alibaba.com Japan, a joint venture between business-to-business e-commerce company Alibaba.com (1688.HK) and Softbank Corp, officially launched its new paid product, "Ali Zhong Ri Tong" ("Ali's China-Japan Express") on April 17, reports eNet.com.cn. Local partnerships have put nearly 100,000 products on the Alibaba.com Japan site, said Alibaba.com Japan Chief Operating Officer Sun Jiong. Chinese imports of Japanese products reached $14.7 billion in first two months of 2009 and rose 7.3% month-on-month to $9.48 billion in March, said the report.

Alibaba.com Japan released a trial version of the "Express" product on April 9.

Alibaba VP, Taobao Search Chief Resigns

Yvonne Chang told Sina on April 23 that she would resign as Alibaba Group vice president and head of the search center at Alibaba's consumer-focused e-commerce site Taobao.com in mid-May after taking leave starting at the beginning of the month. In an internal email reprinted by Sina, Taobao President Jonathan Lu said Chang would leave the company on April 30 for personal reasons. Chang told Sina she made the decision to resign more than a month ago, while Lu indicated that she would eventually return to the company.

According to another Sina report, Taobao's head of advertising and senior researcher for Alibaba Group, Wu Yongming, will assume Chang's post at the search center.

Chang told Sina that the majority of Taobao's revenue comes from pay-for-performance (P4P) search products. In the internal email, Lu said monthly sales revenue from Taobao's P4P products exceeded RMB 1 million in September 2008.

Lu said in the email that Chang organized a team of more than 60 members to optimize Taobao search within six months after the company's merger with Alibaba's online advertising exchange platform Alimama.com, which occurred in September 2008. Chang joined Taobao in January 2008 after having served as vice president of China Yahoo's search business, according to Sina.

Uniqlo partners with Taobao, Alibaba in China

TOKYO -- Japanese apparel retailer Fast Retailing Co. said Thursday its flagship clothing chain Uniqlo has launched Internet sales in China via a tie-up with online seller Taobao, a unit of Alibaba Group.

Alibaba Group, which is 39%-owned by Yahoo Inc., is the parent company of business-to-business trading platform Alibaba.com Ltd.

Fast Retailing Chief Executive Tadashi Yanai said the tie-up will enable Uniqlo, known for its affordable basic clothing, to tap into Taobao's consumer base. The site, on which users can buy and sell items from each other or from branded stores, has around 100 million registered users, with an annual transaction volume of over $14.6 billion.

Uniqlo, which entered China in 2002, now has 21 stores in that country but a limited online presence. It currently has online sales in South Korea and the U.K.

Uniqlo has 766 stores in Japan and a total of 71 stores overseas, including China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the U.K., the U.S. and France.

Expanding Uniqlo's sales in Asia and other international markets is a key plank of Fast Retailing's strategy for achieving its lofty goal of becoming the world's biggest apparel retailer by sales by 2020. Fast Retailing had revenue in the fiscal first half of about $3.2 billion, with 94% coming from domestic Uniqlo operations. The current apparel leader by revenue is U.S.-based Gap Inc., which reported $14.5 billion in fiscal 2008 sales.

Alibaba Invests $2B to Form Fund Management Company

Hangzhou-based e-commerce company Alibaba Group said Monday that it has invested $2 billion to establish a fund management company that will be led by Libra Capital founder and former CEO Xiong Xiong and target the secondary market, reports Sina.

Established in late 2007, Libra Capital was later wholly acquired by Alibaba Group. Prior to founding Libra Capital, Xiong managed a $400 million A-shares fund as director of Goldman Sachs Asset Management's research division and the company's Shanghai office representative.

Alibaba.com Japan Releases New Paid Product

Alibaba.com Japan released a new paid product, "Ali Zhong Ri Tong" ("Ali's China-Japan Express"), targeting users of Alibaba.com's paid "Gold Supplier" service on April 9, reports Today Morning Express. Since it was officially launched on May 15, 2008, Alibaba.com's Japanese site (alibaba.co.jp) has recorded 120,000 members, 1.4 million product listings, 100,000 average daily page views and 500,000 maximum daily page views. Japanese purchasers account for 40% of alibaba.co.jp members.

Alibaba.com Japan is a joint venture between business-to-business e-commerce company Alibaba.com (1688.HK) and Softbank Corp.

Made-in-China.com announced revenues for 2008

Made-in-China.com, a Nanjing, China based business to business ecommerce company, has announced its revenues for 2008. According to 21st Century Business Herald, 36.7% of in revenues and 37% in year-on-year increased net-profit recorded last year.

With 2 million registered members, Made-in-China is considered as a medium sized b2b website followed by industry giants Alibaba & GlobalSources.

Alisoft to spend $146 mln to market ShopKeeper to 42 mln SMEs in China

BEIJING, March 31, 2009 /PRNewswire-Asia via COMTEX/ ----Alisoft, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group, today announced that it will offer free Internet-based management software to all 42 million small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) in China as part of the Group's ongoing effort to make it easy for SMEs to do business using e-commerce.

The software, called "Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, 0, 0%)", comprises an accounting and finance module in the initial edition to be launched today; an inventory management and a customer relations management module will both be available in May 2009. Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, 0, 0%) will be free to SME users for at least three years. Apart from the free software license, Alisoft will provide free upgrades, training and customer support for all users. Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, 0, 0%), a simple-to-use software targeted at key decision makers in SMEs, addresses the need of small business owners who desire to keep track of their money, inventory and customers.

To make Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, 0, 0%) and other business software widely available to the market, Alisoft will invest up to RMB1 billion over the next three years to cultivate the SME-focused software industry, and further drive usage of Internet-based software, or "software-as-a-service", as a new paradigm of how businesses use technology to manage their operations.

"We are confident that this offering will bring a revolutionary change to how small businesses manage their operations in the coming years. While other traditional software companies have contributed to the market development in the past 20 years, we are hoping to see more new and innovative software companies join hands with us in nurturing the high-potential SME-focused software industry. The free offer signifies an important step we are taking from "Meet at Alibaba" to "Work at Alibaba". Alisoft, together with our parent Alibaba Group, will further forge ahead to build the best e-commerce infrastructure and ecosystem for businesses around the world," said Oliver Wang, President of Alisoft.

According to a report issued by the Center for Informatization Study of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2007, just under 5% of SMEs in China are using enterprise resource planning software, which demonstrates the tremendous potential for the business management software industry. Enterprise resource planning software includes a variety of basic, indispensable functions, including accounting, inventory and customer relations management. However, most enterprise management software available in the market is usually designed for large enterprises and is not cost effective for SMEs.

Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, 0, 0%) is specially designed for business owners, serving as a tool to monitor the business operations and financial status of the business in a way understandable to business owners who do not have technical financial backgrounds. In addition to its accounting and cash flow management functions, the Internet-based software is also enabled via mobile access and allows SMEs to make online payments via Alipay, the online payment solution leader in China and a wholly owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group. Subscribers of Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, 0, 0%) can also apply for loans under "Ali-Loan", the SME loan- assistance program initiated by Alibaba.com, which is supported by eight major banks in China.