China's Alibaba To Outsell Amazon, eBay Combined

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."

Comments

I have the desire!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I have the desire!

[seven7h]

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)

Re:What's the big deal

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:What's the big deal

[kenneth_hk_wong]

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.

Yeah...

[Balinares]

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