Alibaba to pose real threat to eBay and Amazon

China's Alibaba Group operates the world's largest B2B business site, enabling millions of suppliers to display their wares to buyers worldwide. They also operate Taobao.com,  one of Asia's largest shopping sites, as well as Alipay, their version of PayPal. So when Alibaba says it plans to launch an e-commerce platform in the U.S. by the end of this year, this should result in a heads-up response worthly of whiplash from eBay, Amazon, and Walmart. 

Alibaba.com and its parent company, The Alibaba Group, is Asia's greatest Internet success story and the story is still being written. Its Alibaba.com marketplace connects millions of suppliers and buyers worldwide, and if you don't know all about it now, you soon will. The company is in the middle of a huge $30 million marketing push that  includes a website redesign, new training initiatives, a doubling of its Silicon Valley staff, TV commercials on shows such as Shark Tank, an upcoming book by prominent publisher John Wiley, a Neupreneur of the Year contest, and more.

 

So far, so good for eBay and Amazon. If anything, Alibaba.com could be seen as an excellent partner, as its marketplace provides a great sourcing solution for third-party sellers on Amazon, and also for eBay PowerSellers. But the dance is about to take a turn in a new direction, with Alibaba's announcement of a B2B e-commerce platform. This will compete not only with Amazon, of course, but also with eBay which has been strengthening its own wholesale platform, and building the closeouts and "out of season" parts of its site.

 

Just as eBay's MarketPlace is showing signs of a turnaround along comes Alibaba. Alibaba has already shown it can beat eBay at its own game, when its Taobao.com auction site handily beat eBay China in the Chinese market, capturing 70% or more of that marketplace. And Alibaba's Alipay is a worthy competitor to PayPal.

 

eBay and Amazon (and Walmart) are you listening?