Blog 4

For this week’s blog, I chose an article that talked about a Chinese e-commerce company. I read an article entitle Alibaba's IPO May Herald the End of U.S. E-Commerce Dominance. From this article, I learn how a company grown into the largest e-commerce company in China. Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba, made all the right decisions that led the company to grow and expand.

Jack Ma was a former English teacher in Hangzhou, China. In 1995, a time when few Chinese owned PCs, he started an online directory called China Pages. It was not difficult to imagine that Ma’s venture would fail, but he generated a more ambitious idea. In late 1998, Ma and 17 colleagues started Ali Baba to help small local companies sell their products online. The company was founded in Ma’s one-bedroom apartment and has grown into the largest Chinese e-commerce company. It will go public on the New York Stock Exchange this fall. To measure the power of Alibaba, the author compared Alibaba to Amazon and EBay. In 2013, the volume of merchandise sold through Alibaba was worth $248 billion; Amazon did about half that; and Ebay, a third. Alibaba facilitated the delivery of 5 billion packages from retail transactions, and UPS sent around 4.3 billion packages and documents last year. Ma and his colleagues have succeessfully created several sites for different style of transaction and each with potential for massive global outreach.

Without Jack Ma, Alibaba would not have became such a successful company. Ma was wise to plan ahead and make long-term goals. From the Internet development in America, Ma has forecasted the development prospect of Internet in China. He also discovered, applied and spread a new purchase pattern in China. These preparations and plans gave Alibaba enough space to develop. In addition, Ma and his colleagues have made plans for the future of Alibaba. Alibaba promised to enable a new age of “border-hopping” commerce that bypasses middlemen and erodes the ability of government to regulate trade. Under these wise management, Alibaba will edged itself into the largest e-commerce company in the world.

 

Reference:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-07/alibabas-ipo-may-herald-the-end-of-u-dot-s-dot-e-commerce-dominance#r=hpt-ls