Alibaba to Compete with eBay in Classifieds Market
It looks like Alibaba and Jack Ma are determined to beat eBay, at least in China.
Alibaba’s new acquisition unit has targeted classifieds as its first area of investment, causing new competitive concerns for eBay. Alibaba.com has entered into an agreement for a strategic investment in Koubei.com, one of China’s largest classified listing and community websites with over two million registered users. Alibaba’s C2C online-auction site TaoBao has posed a major competitive threat to eBay Eachnet since its launch in 2003. Alibaba is extending the competitive playing field with its Koubei investment, as eBay operates its Kijiji.com classifieds sites in thirty-two cities in China.
So, it looks like after the massive investment that come from Yahoo ($1 billion), they have started to invest in more and more sectors.
Alibaba consists of Alibaba International (alibaba.com), a B2B marketplace for global trade; Alibaba China (alibaba.com.cn), the largest online small- and medium-sized enterprise community in China; Taobao (taobao.com); AliPay, China’s leading online payment service; and Yahoo China (yahoo.com.cn), a leading search engine and portal, acquired from Yahoo Inc. in October 2005.
Considering that eBay has / had plans to sell its China division (? http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m09/i26/s00), it looks like in China a local player can compete better in China than a multinational company. At least a local player as big as Alibaba…
November 20th, 2006 at 4:19 am
I know Jack Ma very much. He was born in Hangzhou City. Alibaba is in Hangzhou City. And I was graduated from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, the third famous university in China. Here is one story of Jack Ma.
When he was a little boy. His father always spank him. He was very angry with it. And he was interested in learning English and do the cicerone for foreigners. Then a friend asked, “Why are you so hard to learn English?”
He replied, “It is my big pleasure to abuse my father in English, and he know nothing about English. “
November 20th, 2006 at 7:25 am
Great story… do you know him personally?
November 23rd, 2006 at 8:19 am
No, not personally. =^-^=
One of Ma’s students told me the story.