Alibaba Case Study
Alibaba case study – E-commerce marketplace in China Alibaba. com is one of the leading B2B e-commerce companies in China. It provides a marketplace connecting small and medium-sized buyers and suppliers from China and around the world. Tags (view related articles): Case studies, Business-to-Business (B2B) Alibaba’s web presence includes an international marketplace (www. alibaba. com) focuses on global importers and exporters and a China marketplace (www. alibaba. com. cn) which focuses on suppliers and buyers trading domestically in China.
From a launch in 1999 the marketplaces have a community of more than 24 million registered users and over 255,000 paying members In November 2007, Alibaba launched on the Hong Kong stock exchange and raised HK$13. 1 billion (US$1. 7 billion) in gross proceeds before offering expenses making it the largest Internet IPO in Asia and the second largest globally. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, first saw the Internet in 1995 and when he went to Seattle as an interpreter for a trade delegation and a friend showed him the Internet.
They searched for the word “beer” on Yahoo and discovered that there was no data about China. We decided to launch a website and registered the name China Pages. He borrowed $2,000 to set up his first company and at the time knew nothing about personal computers or e-mails or had never touched a keyboard before. He described the experience as “blind man riding on the back of a blind tiger. ” Initially, the business did not fare well, since it was a part of China Telecom and Jack Ma reflects that: “everything we suggested, they turned us down , it was like an elephant and an ant.
He resigned, but in 1999, he gathered 18 people in his apartment and spoke to them for two hours about his vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and he got $60,000 to start Alibaba. He chose Alibaba as the name since the name was easy to spell and associated with “Open, Sesame,” the command that Ali Baba used to open doors to hidden treasures in One Thousand and One Nights. During the dot-com bubble, there were layoffs, such that by 2002 there was only enough cash to survive for 18 months.
We had a lot of free members using our site, and we didn’t know how we’d make money. But they then developed a product for China exporters to meet U. S. buyers online which Ma said saved the company. By the end of 2002, we made $1 in profits! Each year since it has improved in profitability to the position where it was launched on the stock market. Today, Jack Ma’s vision is to build an e-commerce ecosystem that allows consumers and businesses to do all aspects of business online.
They are partnering with Yahoo and have launched online auction and payment businesses. His vision is expansive, he says: “I want to create one million jobs, change China’s social and economic environment, and make it the largest Internet market in the world”. Sources: Ali Baba Press releases * Alibaba. com Limited Trading Debut, November 7th 2007 * Riding the Blind Tiger: The Unlikely Rise of Alibaba CEO, Jack Ma, January 8th 2008 * Interview with Jack Ma (search on Jack Ma)
