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China's Alibaba To Outsell Amazon, eBay Combined

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-do-they-have-free-shipping-for-25-bucks dept.

hackingbear writes "China's largest e-commerce firm, Alibaba Group, expects to sell merchandise this year worth more than that sold by Amazon Inc and eBay combined. The company is aiming for 3 trillion yuan ($473 billion) in annual transaction value from its Taobao e-commerce units in the next 5 to 7 years, rising from the 1 trillion yuan of sales expected for 2012. 'From their annual reports we did a rough calculation and we were similar last year but we are growing faster than them this year, so this year we are probably larger than them,' Zeng Ming, Chief Strategy Officer of Alibaba, said of Amazon and eBay."

14 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. I have the desire! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have so much desire to order from Alibaba, but I can't quite figure out how to verify that I won't be screwed. It seems almost guaranteed.

    1. Re:I have the desire! by fragMasterFlash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most of the EBay sellers I buy from anymore ship directly from Asia. I doubt purchasing from Alibaba would be much different, so long as the seller accepted payment from well vetted processors such as Dwolla, Square, AmazonPayments or even those PayPal creeps.

    2. Re:I have the desire! by seven7h · · Score: 5, Informative

      I recently figured this out. There is another site Ali Express which caters to individual buyers. All prices are listed along with delivery costs. It seems to have a nice filter / search function. ,

      Also if you are concerned about the equipment arriving and not working, there is buyer protection, where they will hold your money until you are satisfied withe purchase. I didn't have to use this so it may be difficult to get the refund, all I can say is I was satisfied with the service I got and I would use it again.

      (Note; I am not affiliated in any way with Alibaba or Aliexpress)

    3. Re:I have the desire! by dadelbunts · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can message and even chat with the sellers. I bought xbox 360 controller parts for 6 dollars shipped. It took over a month to get here, but it was cheap.

  2. In other news... by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In other news, 1.35 billion people (China) is more than 1.13 billion people (Europe and North America combined).

    Should we really be surprised by this? China's simply catching up to the levels first world countries are at, and will most likely exceed them since they don't have the petty squabbles that Europe and the US have. That is, unless China's economy crashes.

  3. What's the big deal by Dyinobal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's the big deal about this? I doubt they are eating into amazon or Ebay's customers, all they are doing is expanding into the china and Asian markets where they have very little if any serious competition. I guess amazon could be jealous but I imagine expanding into china would be more hassle than it is worth.

    1. Re:What's the big deal by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For some reason, there are people who think the US is DOOMED if China should overtake it in any way shape or form. They have this idea that there is #1, and there is third world shithole, with nothing in-between. So if the US loses its place of primacy, even in some things, then it is fucked.

      I find this very funny going to Canada all the time which I doubt is #1 in anything, except for having the most Canadians. However it is an exceedingly nice country with a good standard of living, and so on. Turns out that there are lots of places that aren't #1 that are great places to live.

      Also I always take anything coming out of China with a HUGE grain of salt since making up numbers and false economic make-work is the routine over there.

      Regardless it doesn't matter. I don't shop at Amazon because they are "#1" I shop at Amazon because they are a good place to shop. Same reason I shop at Target. No, they aren't the #1 physical retailer, that would be Wal-mart in the US at least. I like Target better though. Turns out that not being #1 is working out ok for them.

    2. Re:What's the big deal by kenneth_hk_wong · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, Amazon is in China: www.amazon.com.cn Never use it though.

      I moved to Beijing from Los Angeles, a little over a year ago. I thought that my online ordering days were over -- loved that I could order things from Yugster, or Newegg, or TigerDirect and receive within a couple of days, but I was so wrong. Yes, Taobao is great, and they have an authentication system (with security tokens) for both buyers and sellers that is pretty serious. Way more complicated than US online transactions. Many foreigners haven't figured it out, but my non-Chinese speaking wife has. She could start a business ordering for "laowei". Never mind taobao, there's also 360buy.com. I order before 10am and it arrives same day at my office if they have it in stock. Their website tells you accurately whether they do have the item in stock.

      Prices are sometimes seriously good. Retail margins are very high in the B&M world compared to the West. What has impressed me is that so many people have jumped on the online train. There are chinese people that order EVERYTHING online, groceries, toilet paper, EVERYTHING. Shipping is normally $1-2USD. Ridiculously low. There may be many parts of China that look like they are developing, but with respect to online, they are ahead of us. I'm still shocked sometimes.

    3. Re:What's the big deal by evilviper · · Score: 4, Informative

      The US isn't #1 in *anything* right now except military spending and wealth concentration.

      The US is #1 among all countries in overall GDP, overall manufacturing, aerospace, information technology, music, movies, TV, video games, automotive last I checked (GM, Ford, Chrysler combined), most heavy machinery (eg. CATerpillar) and many, many others.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  4. this is the reason - idiotic story by slashmydots · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Last time I was on Alibaba, I saw listing after listing for tons (literally the measuring unit) of scrap metal and recyclable or post-recycled stuff. So yeah, a $100,000 bucket of scrap aluminum doesn't show up on Amazon a whole lot. This is about as apples to apples as comparing Brian Williams to a crunch wrap supreme taco.
    Fun fact, the largest gross sales in the US online are, in order:
    1. Amazon
    2. Newegg
    3. eBay

    1. Re:this is the reason - idiotic story by kenneth_hk_wong · · Score: 3, Informative

      You aren't looking in the right place. Alibaba is merely the parent company. They own taobao.com who owns tmall.com The latter two are the two main places to go for cheap EVERYTHING and a lot of consumers in China know this too.

  5. Re:Apples and oranges by Zouden · · Score: 3, Informative

    The article is about Taobao, which is the consumer subsidiary of Alibaba.

    --
    "A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
  6. Unfortunate name by rossdee · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I hear the name AliBaba my first thought is "40 Thieves"

    Not exactly inspiring confidence in the business.

    I guess it means something else in Chinese.

  7. Yeah... by Balinares · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, like, for every honest guy you get 40 thieves!

    --

    -- B.
    This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.