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Chinese E-Commerce Giant To Enter US Market

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-will-there-be-free-shipping dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Alibaba Group Holding, a Chinese company, filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday to the tune of $1 billion dollars. Alibaba is an e-commerce company whose success has ensured that more than half of all parcel deliveries in China, the world's largest internet market, are directly attributed to Alibaba customers. Critics, citing cultural differences (i.e., consumer branding and shopping preferences) as well as entrenched U.S. competition, say that the company may not be as successful in the U.S. Businesses such as Amazon, eBay, and PayPal already provide the type of services that the Alibaba Group offers. On the other hand, U.S. consumers and business owners may welcome the prospect of having one more company vying for their patronage. More competition, after all, means more incentive to keep prices low enough to attract and retain more end-users."

6 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Wha? by kamapuaa · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary seems to think that Alibaba filing for an IPO in the US means that it must be opening operations in the US...actually it just filed in IPO in the US because it's a very large company and China's stock markets are sort of a joke, not really set up for a company of Alibaba's size...

    You're already easily able to use alibaba.com in the US. It's kind of cool especially if you want to open your own stall at a flea market. I used taobao.com in China, it's like eBay with better consumer protection. Competing with eBay would take a massive marketing push to build up an entirely new business, basically. What makes taobao.com interesting is all the smaller specialty shops, there's a million logistical reasons why them selling directly from these Chinese shops to US customers would be a total nightmare, the language barrier being the most obvious.

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    1. Re:Wha? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Informative

      The summary seems to think that Alibaba filing for an IPO in the US means that it must be opening operations in the US...actually it just filed in IPO in the US because it's a very large company and China's stock markets are sort of a joke, not really set up for a company of Alibaba's size...

      You're already easily able to use alibaba.com in the US. It's kind of cool especially if you want to open your own stall at a flea market. I used taobao.com in China, it's like eBay with better consumer protection. Competing with eBay would take a massive marketing push to build up an entirely new business, basically. What makes taobao.com interesting is all the smaller specialty shops, there's a million logistical reasons why them selling directly from these Chinese shops to US customers would be a total nightmare, the language barrier being the most obvious.

      A Joke? Hong Kong is the second largest stock exchange in Asia in terms of market capitalization. It is outdone only by the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It is the sixth largest in the world behind Euronext. And, yes, Hong Kong is also part of the PRC. According to the WSJ the reason Alibaba went to the US is that Hong Kong has a strict one man one vote system whereas in the US: "one set of shareholders—usually including the company's founder—has more rights than another" which would allow the founder to nominate to nominate the majority of the board. Apparently he would not be able to do that in a "one man, one vote" environment.

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    2. Re:Wha? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Size has no relevance to the reliability and transparency of a market. Chinese markets excluding Hong Kong are 1) nigh inaccessible to the west and 2) crap shoots due to lack of transparency. From what I've actually seen with my own eyes, a very large percentage of Chinese companies keep two books. One for the regulators and one for themselves.

      Hong Kong is definitely better in that sense.

      However... Chinese (mainland) markets, yes, are a joke.

    3. Re:Wha? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I was referring to PRC stock markets. Of course you know Hong Kong isn't PRC proper, so why make a long post about it? It will possibly be PRC in 30 years.

      Hong Kong is a special administrative region within the PRC. I mentioned Hong Kong because that's where Alibaba was going to have it's IPO before they went off to the US because of the "one man, one vote" rule in Hong Kong and which the HK stock exchange was not prepared to make exceptions to (according to the financial press).

  2. Read the filing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    $1bn is a placeholder sum in order to calculate values and fees. No actual target fundraising sum has been announced yet. The only things we really know right now are the amount of the placeholder, the names of the banks involved, and the structure by which the board will be determined.

    The venue hasn't even been announced yet.

  3. You can already buy from alibaba and aliexpress by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    But you often don't want to, because you have to wade through so much shit. And then when my aliexpress order finally showed up, it was not as described. The item literally had the opposite curvature that it was supposed to (just some automotive lighting crap) and I learned my lesson cheaply. The advantage of going to someplace like eBay is that more of the crap has been filtered out by people who received it and said "Fuck, I can't even sell this."

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