Pinterest China (aka Fa Xian) by Alibaba.com

Fa Xian is an addition to B2C website etao.com powered by Taobao - a B2C website from Chinese B2B Marketplace Alibaba.com. What made Fa Xian got the attention of news all over the world is its striking resemblance to Pinterest. As per one news from Reuters, the website is already attracting upto 60,000 unique visitors every day.

Pinterest is more like social bookmarking website and does not allow any sort of affiliate codes. On the other hand Alibaba on its ecommerce website has merged the concept of Pinterest by selling products while engaging visitors. All pinned products can be purchased.

Alibaba has taken this idea as an opportunity to capture more sales from Chinese market of young internet users who easily get admired to fun oriented.

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Alibaba 3rd most visited Ecommerce Marketplace on Internet

In recent study by comScore about online global retail and auctions sites discovered that reached the largest global audience. Alibaba.com with over 156 million visitors in June 2011 was ranked third. Almost 20.4 % of the worldwide Internet population visited alibaba.com.

Gian Fulgoni, comScore co-founder and chairman said "While retail e-commerce has already grown to become a $150+ billion annual industry in the U.S., it still presents enormous upside opportunity across much of the globe,"

"Technology has changed the way consumers behave, and increasingly they are opting for the convenience and pricing advantages offered by the online channel. Several global retail brands have already capitalized on this global consumer trend, and many other retailers are sure to pursue their share of the pie."

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Alibaba Q2 Profits Rose 28% Beating Anlaysts Forecasts

Alibaba.com beat forecasts of analysts by jumping 28 percent (RMB464.5 million (US$71.5 million)) in Q2 profit.

The company said the increase reflects its "focus on creating more value for our existing customers with enhanced products, services, and trust and safety initiatives, rather than accelerating new customer acquisition".

Customer numbers jumped nearly 60 percent over the year to 21.6 million after what Alibaba said was a "significant rise in overseas traffic" - traffic to its international B2B marketplace is up 65 percent for the year.

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Huawei goes Cloud with Huawei Vision Mobile Phones

Huawei Device Co Ltd launched its first cell phone offering cloud-based services on Wednesday, joining other Chinese companies including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Baidu Inc within the move to apply cloud computing technology in smartphones.

Huawei Device, the terminal branch of the world's 2 telecommunication equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, launched a 3.7-inch touch screen cell phone called "Vision" in its cloud phone global launch ceremony in Beijing on Wednesday August 3, 2011.

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Alibaba & Global Logistic Properties Signed Agreement

Headquartered in Shanghai, Global Logistic Properties (GLP) has signed two agreements with Taobao Mall of Alibaba Group for the lease of two facilities in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

GLP said in a statement that the agreement marks the partnership between the two companies and is expected to improve the nationwide logistics facility network for Taobao Mall's online retailing business.

As per the agreement 55,000-square-metre facility in GLP Park Hongqiao (West) in Shanghai and a pre-leased 20,000 square metres in GLP Park Zhencheng (Xintang) which will be completed and delivered to Taobao Mall by the end of October 2011.

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Yahoo Sued Over Alibaba Payment Restructuring

News from Yahoo! Inc. regarding Alipay restructuring and getting misled by Alibaba Group caused Yahoo! Inc. to get sued by its shareholders.

The investors, in a complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco, claim that Yahoo! was failed to tell them by May 10, 2011 that its $1 billion investment in Alibaba was “severely impaired” by the transfer of the payment business, Alipay, to a closely held company controlled by Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma.

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TradeSparq - The Social Network For Global Trade - Review

Lately a new b2b social marketplace caught my eyes with its unique business model. As the founders say it is a combination of Alibaba & LinkedIn models. That is they took B2B part from Alibaba and let buyers & sellers do business on their own in a form of social networking. hmmm... pretty smart huh!

TradeSparq homepage snapshot 13-Aug-2011

As per TradeSparq "Why people sign on Linkedin? One of the reasons is that they want to be connected with guys from their partners, sellers or customers. And why Alibaba has been popular for years, because it enables an easy way for buyers to discover thousands of manufacturers which are mainly from China. However, when you are on Linkedin, usually you don't know what products your contacts' companies are actually selling; and on Alibaba, as a manufacturer if you want more exposure, you should pay certain membership fee which is not cheap (~$3,012 per year for Gold Suppliers membership). As a buyer, you can be easily got lost as you don't know which supplier you should trust more. These are the issues TradeSparq wants to solve."

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Western Union shakes hand with AliExpress.com

Right when Paypal and AliExpress announced separation, Western Union, a known name in payment transfer services worldwide, has shaken hands with Alibaba Group. With this agreement, buyers by using Western Union on AliExpress.com can make cash payments to the suppliers from around the world.

Escrow as mentioned on AliExpress.com

Western Union and AliExpress expect it to become a key payment platform option in emerging or otherwise under-served markets such as Latin America, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa where entrepreneurs have limited payment options and rely on cash transactions to sustain and grow their businesses, said a statement.

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Picture worth a 1000 words - Alibaba's new image matching service

Old saying "Picture worth a 1000 words", China based B2B Marketplace Alibaba.com has just made use of the wisdom behind. A new service has been introduced by Alibaba in which shoppers can now upload images of desired clothings. This service will help buyers & sellers to easily share their requirements such as style, color, design and textures.

Alibaba has given it a name in Chinese "Tuxiang", but in English Alibaba is tentatively calling it “Imagine" the service is a way for users to buy the clothing they see in advertisements or in celebrity photos, said Alibaba spokeswoman Florence Shih.

“We were hoping to give customers another channel to look for products, especially if you have an idea of what you would like to find but don’t know the keywords,” she said.

The service is currently limited to apparel, shoes and bags and let shoppers uploaded to the b2b website by using URL of image on some other websites or from their computer. Once a picture is uploaded to the website, either from a computer or a web link to the image, users select the category of product they want to search for. The service then attempts to find the best product matches in the Taobao Mall and Taobao Marketplace, Alibaba's online e-commerce sites. The results appear as a breakdown of more than a dozen different products shown as images with price comparisons.

The new image service came after a third-party developer team won an Alibaba-sponsored competition in January 2010 to create applications. the team then worked in cooperation with Alibaba to develop the search service.

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China's Small & Medium Sized Enterprises in Crisis

According to a new survey published by Alibaba Group and Peking University on shows that small businesses in China are yet in crisis once again. As per the country's GDP data SME's account for 65 per cent of the country's GDP and provide almost 80 per cent of its jobs.

The major reason of this downfall is the increasing cost of labour and materials in China. In the said report over 2300 SME's were interviewed in one of the China's most economically active states, Zhejiang province.

“The interviewed companies' average capacity utilisation ratio [which measures how efficiently plants are being used] this year and last stands at 72 per cent, lower than in 2008 and 2009,” said Simon Hu, a vice president of Alibaba Group.

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