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All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

187 points by ASquare 12y ago

xSwag 12y ago
So who's buying the IPO? Seems much better investment than SV companies with little or no profit. I wonder how it will affect YHOO -- Probably worth buying Jan 2015 $40 calls since Yahoo owns 24% stake, maybe even short AMZN on day of IPO.
- kevin818 12y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. Is it even possible to buy anything on the first day? I was under the impression it's hard to buy because it's typically reserved for the big spenders.
- adventured 12y ago
  If you didn't catch Amazon short at, say, $390+ when it was obviously really crazy, why would you bother after they've already plunged? Don't bother at this point, it's down 30%, most of the gains are over on the Amazon short ride. There are still other excellent short candidates given the market is near an all time high.
nerdo 12y ago
Ok now do Craigslist.
- suyash 12y ago
  Nice, so many companies trying to chop up Craigslist into pieces.
meritt 12y ago
Amazing how big of a company they are. This list is missing http://www.1688.com/ http://www.1688.com/ and http://www.alibaba.com/ http://www.alibaba.com/ which are B2B wholesaling.
jfasi 12y ago
I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of services, and most American technologists know nothing about it. Expand this thinking to countries: there are markets that are only just beginning to enjoy the degree of technological luxury the US and Europe enjoys. Who will serve them? These are people just like us, they have needs and desires much like ours. Who will satisfy them? If you're an entrepreneur, there are millions if not billions of people who are on the cusp of becoming your target market, and the dominant technological discourse and journalistic coverage gives you no insight into the market they occupy. Not the languages they speak, not the companies who would be your competitors, not the cultural differences that would make selling difficult. Nothing. I hope this article opens peoples' eyes to the fact that the US-based-or-english-speaking countries are soon going to be a relatively small portion of the world. We need news sources like this to practice the globalization sermon they all preach.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Yes, most Silicon Valley start-ups still seem very Silicon Valley/United States/Apple centric. That has worked well for them in the past, but now the opportunities are a lot bigger than just that market or target type of devices.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jerf 12y ago
  I'd suggest that the problem is that trying to serve a market 10,000 miles away simply doesn't work. Had the same people who started Alibaba stayed where they were but tried to build a US-centric company instead, I'm sure that we would not be talking about them now. You need to bootstrap from what you know. In fact, there's no guarantee this US expansion is going to work either. I'd also observe that people would often interpret a Silicon Valley company trying to build a solution for some other culture as arrogant, parochial, or both, so there's really no winning here.
komrade 12y ago
Yandex, on a smaller scale, can get you a similar list of its services.
bnycum 12y ago
While the article was interesting, as I didn't know much about Alibaba to begin with, the site could use some design work. I didn't realize I was onto the next article with some type of ad in-between. Nothing was making sense till I got to the kidnapped girls of Nigeria article and realized what was happening.
jibster 12y ago
For some reason this article seems flawed, am I crazy or does Google already do most of this stuff?
notatoad 12y ago
online payments ---- google wallet cloud services ---- google cloud platform mobile apps ---- google play mobile OS ---- android maps and nav ---- google maps physical retail ---- ? no google product shopping deals ---- google offers cloud storage ---- google drive instant messaging ---- google hangouts car service ---- uber (via google ventures) c2c ecommerce ---- ? no google product travel booking ---- google flights b2c ecommerce ---- ? no google product e-learning ---- ? no google product social media ---- google+ music streaming ---- google play music (all access) video streaming ---- youtube / google play movies money market ---- ? no google product all the western companies you'd have to combine to cover alibaba's markets would seem to me to be google, and maybe one or two others. i included uber because i know about that one, you could probably fill in a few more gaps with other google ventures companies.
- jibster 12y ago
  Google just integrated Uber ;)
- mahyarm 12y ago
  You can also include the best buy google kiosks as physical retail.
- vishnugupta 12y ago
  Amazon also comes very close to checking all the boxes.
- dengnan 12y ago
  It's also about the scale. Most of their services are top competitors in the market. For example, Alipay, or 支付宝, is the de facto online payment service in China. As far as I know, I cannot imagine another company which provides similar service in China. Part of the reason is the government regulation.
  - prawks 12y ago
    The thing I wonder about their status as a top competitor: how different would their status be in a less restrictive market? How does Alipay's user experience compare to Paypal's? Is it the lack of competition that has enabled them to expand their reach so widely (by not having to focus so much effort on each venture)? For example, the experience of shopping on AliExpress is (imo) sub-par when compared to most Western online shopping experiences I've had (Amazon, Zappos, and even smaller retailers). I don't know a whole ton about the Eastern market to be honest, so I'm open to being educated.
mmanfrin 12y ago
I think many large tech companies have me-too platforms in a wide range of services -- just because Alibaba has a fork of Android does not make it comparable to Android. A better comparison would be yielded if the userbase/usage of these services were included. This is not to say that Alibaba is not an incredible company, just that this is an incomplete comparison.
stusmall 12y ago
I haven't heard of Aliyun OS before. It appears to be a forked version of AOSP. Does it add anything significant on top of it?
- est 12y ago
  They had their own Dalvik-like JVM implementation, other than that, UI stuff and meh.
justincormack 12y ago
Pity its not Alibaba that is for sale in the "IPO" then, just a Cayman Islands company which holds a "profit participation" right which may or may not be legal in China. The article also points out that much of Alibaba is not actually owned by the company but by Jack Ma personally, so no participation in that.
- outside1234 12y ago
  if you don't know who the sucker is at the poker table, then its you.
- tapp 12y ago
  Interesting - I didn't know that as I haven't been following the story closely. For others who may be in the same boat, I found some additional details here: "Alibaba will not own most of its Chinese assets, including Taobao Marketplace and Alibaba.com. So the companies that are the core of Alibaba’s Chinese operations — the main reason for the anticipated heated investor demand — will not even be owned by Alibaba... Instead, the company is using a so-called variable interest entity structure." http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/i-p-o-revives-debate-over-a-chinese-structure/ http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/i-p-o-revives-debate-...
- guelo 12y ago
  The stock market functions almost independently of what a share "owns". It's just a big casino.
  - outside1234 12y ago
    In the short term it does, the long term? Not so much.
- notatoad 12y ago
  This is an interesting fact that none of the articles i've seen so far have mentioned. Do you know how Yahoo fits into this? is their stake in the holding company as well, or in Alibaba proper?
seferphier 12y ago
alipay is not part of Alibaba now.
thothamon 12y ago
It's not clear to me how it's good for me as a consumer to have one company providing me everything. That seems to go wrong more often than it goes well. As an investor, I can see how a monopolistic behemoth might be good, assuming we ignore possible legal problems. But I'd also worry that a huge company like that would not be able to focus effectively on the probably hundreds or thousands of products and markets in which they must be involved. Huge companies like Exxon, say, are at least focused primarily on energy needs; Amazon on online retailing; Apple or Sony on consumer electronics and software. What is Alibaba focused on? (And yes, the same question could be asked about Google, although search and ads are probably the biggest things.) What is Alibaba currently really world-class at, OTHER than owning the Chinese market from top to bottom? Owning the Chinese market is probably caused as much by cronyism as by being really good at anything.
podman 12y ago
Although Alibaba is a huge company that does a ton of different things, I feel like this article went out of the way to avoid mentioning that companies like Google and Amazon (as well as Microsoft and Apple to a lesser extent) come close to checking all of these boxes. The other thing to point out is that Alibaba owns stakes in many of these companies and doesn't really own them outright. As others have already pointed out how Google compares, take Amazon for instance: Online Payments - Amazon Payments Cloud Services - Amazon Web Services Mobile Apps - Amazon AppStore Mobile OS - Amazon FireOS Maps and Navigation - Amazon Maps API Retail Outlets - N/A Group Buying - Amazon Local Cloud Storage - Amazon CloudDrive / Amazon S3 Mobile Messaging - N/A Car Service, Ride Sharing - N/A C2C e-commerice - Amazon Services/Amazon WebStore (not quite the same, but close) Online Travel Booking - N/A B2C e-commerce - Amazon.com E-Learning - http://www.tenmarks.com/ http://www.tenmarks.com/ (owned by Amazon) Microblogging - N/A Music Streaming - Amazon Cloud Player Streaming Video - Amazon Prime Instant Streaming Money-market funds - N/A 12/18 isn't bad.
- gitah 12y ago
  Also Amazon and Google does a lot of stuff Alibaba does not do. * Self-service warehousing and distribution (Fulfillment by Amazon) * Package Delivery (Google Shopping Express, AmazonFresh) TV setup box (Amazon FireTV) * Search Engine (Google Search) Web Browser (Chrome) * Laptop/Desktop OS (Chrome OS) * Wearable Tech (Android Wear, Google Glass) etc. Also for many offerings like Aliyun and Aliyun OS pale in comparison in the features offered by AWS or Android. I went to an Alibaba presentation in the US awhile ago. They want to pursue the same strategy as Google and focus deep on big data and Machine Learning rather than building out huge logistic infrastructure like Amazon. This is probably a good idea since the margins are better.
  - est 12y ago
    Alibaba owns UCWeb is top 1 mobile browser since Windows Mobile ages.
- joshlegs 12y ago
  You know, you could have just gone the extra step and simplified to 2/3. Then you'd have had a lock on that age-old aphorism
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mbell 12y ago
I've seen a lot of articles talking about how huge Alibaba is, but they all seem to focus only on transaction volume, e.g 'Alibaba has more sales than Amazon and eBay combined!'. I was really surprised when I read their filing, $4.7B in total revenue last financial year, $5.7B in the first 9 months of this financial year. Amazon + eBay in 2013 pulled in $33B in revenue. They seem to be processing a lot of transactions, but charging very little for it.
- adventured 12y ago
  I agree. Every article I've come across goes out of the way to avoid ever talking about Alibaba's actual revenue. It's clear there's an immense amount of pumping going on leading up to the IPO. Fact is, Alibaba isn't all that large at all. And 57% revenue growth on ~$8 billion in annual sales, while excellent, is not earth shattering. A lot of US tech companies have pulled off that kind of growth, Amazon included.
  - encoderer 12y ago
    A lot? Care to cite? You may be correct but my gut says a few have done it. A "lot" seems like overstatement. And you say "Amazon included." Have you ever seen Amazon's sales growth charted? It's the definition of hockey stick growth. Of course they're included, but who else is?
- instoftech 12y ago
  Yes, low transaction fee is part of Alibaba's strategy to grow the eCommerce market in China (and also a major reason why eBay failed their China venture to Taobao in early years). Amazon/eBay transaction fees (~10%) seem ridiculously high. They almost eat up all margins of many industries. Many small business sellers are complaining about it.
marincounty 12y ago
It might "be the Amazon of China", but I don't trust most of the companies. I really wanted to like this company, but the communication is terrible(which is understandable), and the quotes I get from suppliers are for the wrong request, or appear to be counterfit goods? There's a huge need for an independent verification system for Alibaba sellers; maybe located in a western democratic country? Right now-- trust is really my problem with their site, and their suppliers.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
soAsian 12y ago
So what? How many of their services is under China's regulation and how easy is it for the Western tech companies to get the permission to offer the same service?
datamingle 12y ago
It is like the GE of chinese tech.
ironthron 12y ago
I like how this site compares companies with international market to Alibaba. Alibaba is only there to serve the Chinese. Anyone else would never use any of Alibaba's services.Chinese has over one billion in population, they are very strict with foreign company. Of course Alibaba is going to seem like a great investment... for a short term. However is a horrible investment in long short term. The Chinese population will decline, as they do so will profit of this company.
frozenport 12y ago
You could never combine Western companies to do what Alibaba did because of anticompetive, protectionist, nationalist, and corrupt policies in China. The chart can be read in reverse, describing what Alibaba knocked-off.
megablast 12y ago
Or Apple?
xiaq 12y ago
> Alibaba, which filed for its IPO on May 6, isn’t just the “Amazon of China”—it’s also the Dropbox, PayPal, Uber, Hulu, ING Direct, and more. Hulu is a Chinese company. Edit: I was mistaken by the fact that it has a Chinese name and a pretty big Chinese subdivision... Hulu is an American company. facepalm
oelmekki 12y ago
Although it's not directly related to the tech side, I would love to have your feedback on alibaba. It suddenly appeared in my search results last month when looking to buy something, with a lot of results - from alibaba itself and from aliexpress. As with any website I don't know of, I queried trustpilot for them. It's not good at all[1][2]. Most reviews talk about scams. We may praise them for being a very tech heavy company and being about to make their IPO, but let's not forget the actual service value provided to customer. Does anyone has insight on how those reviews may be misleading ? * [1] http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.alibaba.com http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.alibaba.com * [2] http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.aliexpress.com http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.aliexpress.com
- xrjn 12y ago
  Those two sites are not meant for inexperienced people. You can certainly find a scams there, but they're fairly easy to spot: unbelievable prices, payment only by western union, sellers with no/little reputation... Personally, I've mostly had mostly good experiences with those two sites - almost all of the items I ordered arrived and worked well. The two exceptions was when I bought a very low price product, but I got a refund for it, and another example was when I bought a large lot of items at almost a 5th of their price, and paid by Western Union... it was my fault for not knowing better.
guiomie 12y ago
Let's say the business environement for foreign tech gets less hostile or even totally open, has anyone calculated how Alibabas valuation would deflate ?

187 points by ASquare 12y ago

xSwag 12y ago

So who's buying the IPO? Seems much better investment than SV companies with little or no profit. I wonder how it will affect YHOO -- Probably worth buying Jan 2015 $40 calls since Yahoo owns 24% stake, maybe even short AMZN on day of IPO.

kevin818 12y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Is it even possible to buy anything on the first day? I was under the impression it's hard to buy because it's typically reserved for the big spenders.
adventured 12y ago
If you didn't catch Amazon short at, say, $390+ when it was obviously really crazy, why would you bother after they've already plunged? Don't bother at this point, it's down 30%, most of the gains are over on the Amazon short ride. There are still other excellent short candidates given the market is near an all time high.

nerdo 12y ago

Ok now do Craigslist.

suyash 12y ago
Nice, so many companies trying to chop up Craigslist into pieces.

meritt 12y ago

Amazing how big of a company they are. This list is missing http://www.1688.com/ http://www.1688.com/ and http://www.alibaba.com/ http://www.alibaba.com/ which are B2B wholesaling.

jfasi 12y ago

I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of services, and most American technologists know nothing about it. Expand this thinking to countries: there are markets that are only just beginning to enjoy the degree of technological luxury the US and Europe enjoys. Who will serve them? These are people just like us, they have needs and desires much like ours. Who will satisfy them? If you're an entrepreneur, there are millions if not billions of people who are on the cusp of becoming your target market, and the dominant technological discourse and journalistic coverage gives you no insight into the market they occupy. Not the languages they speak, not the companies who would be your competitors, not the cultural differences that would make selling difficult. Nothing. I hope this article opens peoples' eyes to the fact that the US-based-or-english-speaking countries are soon going to be a relatively small portion of the world. We need news sources like this to practice the globalization sermon they all preach.

higherpurpose 12y ago
Yes, most Silicon Valley start-ups still seem very Silicon Valley/United States/Apple centric. That has worked well for them in the past, but now the opportunities are a lot bigger than just that market or target type of devices.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jerf 12y ago
I'd suggest that the problem is that trying to serve a market 10,000 miles away simply doesn't work. Had the same people who started Alibaba stayed where they were but tried to build a US-centric company instead, I'm sure that we would not be talking about them now. You need to bootstrap from what you know. In fact, there's no guarantee this US expansion is going to work either. I'd also observe that people would often interpret a Silicon Valley company trying to build a solution for some other culture as arrogant, parochial, or both, so there's really no winning here.

komrade 12y ago

Yandex, on a smaller scale, can get you a similar list of its services.

bnycum 12y ago

While the article was interesting, as I didn't know much about Alibaba to begin with, the site could use some design work. I didn't realize I was onto the next article with some type of ad in-between. Nothing was making sense till I got to the kidnapped girls of Nigeria article and realized what was happening.

jibster 12y ago

For some reason this article seems flawed, am I crazy or does Google already do most of this stuff?

notatoad 12y ago

online payments ---- google wallet cloud services ---- google cloud platform mobile apps ---- google play mobile OS ---- android maps and nav ---- google maps physical retail ---- ? no google product shopping deals ---- google offers cloud storage ---- google drive instant messaging ---- google hangouts car service ---- uber (via google ventures) c2c ecommerce ---- ? no google product travel booking ---- google flights b2c ecommerce ---- ? no google product e-learning ---- ? no google product social media ---- google+ music streaming ---- google play music (all access) video streaming ---- youtube / google play movies money market ---- ? no google product all the western companies you'd have to combine to cover alibaba's markets would seem to me to be google, and maybe one or two others. i included uber because i know about that one, you could probably fill in a few more gaps with other google ventures companies.

jibster 12y ago
Google just integrated Uber ;)
mahyarm 12y ago
You can also include the best buy google kiosks as physical retail.
vishnugupta 12y ago
Amazon also comes very close to checking all the boxes.
dengnan 12y ago
It's also about the scale. Most of their services are top competitors in the market. For example, Alipay, or 支付宝, is the de facto online payment service in China. As far as I know, I cannot imagine another company which provides similar service in China. Part of the reason is the government regulation.
- prawks 12y ago
  The thing I wonder about their status as a top competitor: how different would their status be in a less restrictive market? How does Alipay's user experience compare to Paypal's? Is it the lack of competition that has enabled them to expand their reach so widely (by not having to focus so much effort on each venture)? For example, the experience of shopping on AliExpress is (imo) sub-par when compared to most Western online shopping experiences I've had (Amazon, Zappos, and even smaller retailers). I don't know a whole ton about the Eastern market to be honest, so I'm open to being educated.

mmanfrin 12y ago

I think many large tech companies have me-too platforms in a wide range of services -- just because Alibaba has a fork of Android does not make it comparable to Android. A better comparison would be yielded if the userbase/usage of these services were included. This is not to say that Alibaba is not an incredible company, just that this is an incomplete comparison.

stusmall 12y ago

I haven't heard of Aliyun OS before. It appears to be a forked version of AOSP. Does it add anything significant on top of it?

est 12y ago
They had their own Dalvik-like JVM implementation, other than that, UI stuff and meh.

justincormack 12y ago

Pity its not Alibaba that is for sale in the "IPO" then, just a Cayman Islands company which holds a "profit participation" right which may or may not be legal in China. The article also points out that much of Alibaba is not actually owned by the company but by Jack Ma personally, so no participation in that.

outside1234 12y ago
if you don't know who the sucker is at the poker table, then its you.
tapp 12y ago
Interesting - I didn't know that as I haven't been following the story closely. For others who may be in the same boat, I found some additional details here: "Alibaba will not own most of its Chinese assets, including Taobao Marketplace and Alibaba.com. So the companies that are the core of Alibaba’s Chinese operations — the main reason for the anticipated heated investor demand — will not even be owned by Alibaba... Instead, the company is using a so-called variable interest entity structure." http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/i-p-o-revives-debate-over-a-chinese-structure/ http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/i-p-o-revives-debate-...
guelo 12y ago
The stock market functions almost independently of what a share "owns". It's just a big casino.
- outside1234 12y ago
  In the short term it does, the long term? Not so much.
notatoad 12y ago
This is an interesting fact that none of the articles i've seen so far have mentioned. Do you know how Yahoo fits into this? is their stake in the holding company as well, or in Alibaba proper?

seferphier 12y ago

alipay is not part of Alibaba now.

thothamon 12y ago

It's not clear to me how it's good for me as a consumer to have one company providing me everything. That seems to go wrong more often than it goes well. As an investor, I can see how a monopolistic behemoth might be good, assuming we ignore possible legal problems. But I'd also worry that a huge company like that would not be able to focus effectively on the probably hundreds or thousands of products and markets in which they must be involved. Huge companies like Exxon, say, are at least focused primarily on energy needs; Amazon on online retailing; Apple or Sony on consumer electronics and software. What is Alibaba focused on? (And yes, the same question could be asked about Google, although search and ads are probably the biggest things.) What is Alibaba currently really world-class at, OTHER than owning the Chinese market from top to bottom? Owning the Chinese market is probably caused as much by cronyism as by being really good at anything.

podman 12y ago

Although Alibaba is a huge company that does a ton of different things, I feel like this article went out of the way to avoid mentioning that companies like Google and Amazon (as well as Microsoft and Apple to a lesser extent) come close to checking all of these boxes. The other thing to point out is that Alibaba owns stakes in many of these companies and doesn't really own them outright. As others have already pointed out how Google compares, take Amazon for instance: Online Payments - Amazon Payments Cloud Services - Amazon Web Services Mobile Apps - Amazon AppStore Mobile OS - Amazon FireOS Maps and Navigation - Amazon Maps API Retail Outlets - N/A Group Buying - Amazon Local Cloud Storage - Amazon CloudDrive / Amazon S3 Mobile Messaging - N/A Car Service, Ride Sharing - N/A C2C e-commerice - Amazon Services/Amazon WebStore (not quite the same, but close) Online Travel Booking - N/A B2C e-commerce - Amazon.com E-Learning - http://www.tenmarks.com/ http://www.tenmarks.com/ (owned by Amazon) Microblogging - N/A Music Streaming - Amazon Cloud Player Streaming Video - Amazon Prime Instant Streaming Money-market funds - N/A 12/18 isn't bad.

gitah 12y ago
Also Amazon and Google does a lot of stuff Alibaba does not do. * Self-service warehousing and distribution (Fulfillment by Amazon) * Package Delivery (Google Shopping Express, AmazonFresh) TV setup box (Amazon FireTV) * Search Engine (Google Search) Web Browser (Chrome) * Laptop/Desktop OS (Chrome OS) * Wearable Tech (Android Wear, Google Glass) etc. Also for many offerings like Aliyun and Aliyun OS pale in comparison in the features offered by AWS or Android. I went to an Alibaba presentation in the US awhile ago. They want to pursue the same strategy as Google and focus deep on big data and Machine Learning rather than building out huge logistic infrastructure like Amazon. This is probably a good idea since the margins are better.
- est 12y ago
  Alibaba owns UCWeb is top 1 mobile browser since Windows Mobile ages.
joshlegs 12y ago
You know, you could have just gone the extra step and simplified to 2/3. Then you'd have had a lock on that age-old aphorism

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mbell 12y ago

I've seen a lot of articles talking about how huge Alibaba is, but they all seem to focus only on transaction volume, e.g 'Alibaba has more sales than Amazon and eBay combined!'. I was really surprised when I read their filing, $4.7B in total revenue last financial year, $5.7B in the first 9 months of this financial year. Amazon + eBay in 2013 pulled in $33B in revenue. They seem to be processing a lot of transactions, but charging very little for it.

adventured 12y ago
I agree. Every article I've come across goes out of the way to avoid ever talking about Alibaba's actual revenue. It's clear there's an immense amount of pumping going on leading up to the IPO. Fact is, Alibaba isn't all that large at all. And 57% revenue growth on ~$8 billion in annual sales, while excellent, is not earth shattering. A lot of US tech companies have pulled off that kind of growth, Amazon included.
- encoderer 12y ago
  A lot? Care to cite? You may be correct but my gut says a few have done it. A "lot" seems like overstatement. And you say "Amazon included." Have you ever seen Amazon's sales growth charted? It's the definition of hockey stick growth. Of course they're included, but who else is?
instoftech 12y ago
Yes, low transaction fee is part of Alibaba's strategy to grow the eCommerce market in China (and also a major reason why eBay failed their China venture to Taobao in early years). Amazon/eBay transaction fees (~10%) seem ridiculously high. They almost eat up all margins of many industries. Many small business sellers are complaining about it.

marincounty 12y ago

It might "be the Amazon of China", but I don't trust most of the companies. I really wanted to like this company, but the communication is terrible(which is understandable), and the quotes I get from suppliers are for the wrong request, or appear to be counterfit goods? There's a huge need for an independent verification system for Alibaba sellers; maybe located in a western democratic country? Right now-- trust is really my problem with their site, and their suppliers.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

soAsian 12y ago

So what? How many of their services is under China's regulation and how easy is it for the Western tech companies to get the permission to offer the same service?

datamingle 12y ago

It is like the GE of chinese tech.

ironthron 12y ago

I like how this site compares companies with international market to Alibaba. Alibaba is only there to serve the Chinese. Anyone else would never use any of Alibaba's services.Chinese has over one billion in population, they are very strict with foreign company. Of course Alibaba is going to seem like a great investment... for a short term. However is a horrible investment in long short term. The Chinese population will decline, as they do so will profit of this company.

frozenport 12y ago

You could never combine Western companies to do what Alibaba did because of anticompetive, protectionist, nationalist, and corrupt policies in China. The chart can be read in reverse, describing what Alibaba knocked-off.

megablast 12y ago

Or Apple?

xiaq 12y ago

> Alibaba, which filed for its IPO on May 6, isn’t just the “Amazon of China”—it’s also the Dropbox, PayPal, Uber, Hulu, ING Direct, and more. Hulu is a Chinese company. Edit: I was mistaken by the fact that it has a Chinese name and a pretty big Chinese subdivision... Hulu is an American company. facepalm

oelmekki 12y ago

Although it's not directly related to the tech side, I would love to have your feedback on alibaba. It suddenly appeared in my search results last month when looking to buy something, with a lot of results - from alibaba itself and from aliexpress. As with any website I don't know of, I queried trustpilot for them. It's not good at all[1][2]. Most reviews talk about scams. We may praise them for being a very tech heavy company and being about to make their IPO, but let's not forget the actual service value provided to customer. Does anyone has insight on how those reviews may be misleading ? * [1] http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.alibaba.com http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.alibaba.com * [2] http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.aliexpress.com http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.aliexpress.com

xrjn 12y ago
Those two sites are not meant for inexperienced people. You can certainly find a scams there, but they're fairly easy to spot: unbelievable prices, payment only by western union, sellers with no/little reputation... Personally, I've mostly had mostly good experiences with those two sites - almost all of the items I ordered arrived and worked well. The two exceptions was when I bought a very low price product, but I got a refund for it, and another example was when I bought a large lot of items at almost a 5th of their price, and paid by Western Union... it was my fault for not knowing better.

guiomie 12y ago

Let's say the business environement for foreign tech gets less hostile or even totally open, has anyone calculated how Alibabas valuation would deflate ?