The official roadshow video for Alibaba
As is shown in the video, Alibaba is one of the most successful companies in China over the past 15 years. It has changed the way of shopping for Chinese by providing large online-shopping platforms: Taobao and Tmall.
Aibaba went public is US on 19 September 2014.
Now Alibaba is deciding to expand its business and become a global company——starting with going public in US. It priced shares on Thursday, Sep 18 for its initial public offering at $68 each, putting the finishing touches on the largest IPO for a U.S.-listed company ever. Also, it started day valued at $167.62bn, bigger than Amazon and eBay.
There is a huge market for online-shopping in China and Alibaba grasped the opportunity. Instead of directly selling and shipping goods to customers, Alibaba offers online platforms where small businessmen and businesswomen can “rent” an online shop and sell their goods in it. Since the cost of running a shop online is much lower than that of running a brick and mortar shops, the prices of goods are quite cheap.
Alibaba’s success in China is not only because of the enormous purchasing power in China, but only because it has been providing customers what they want. Most of the Chinese people had lots of concerns about online-shopping. Alibaba has its own instant online chatting system so that customers can ask sellers about the commodities first before purchasing. In contrast, the American company, eBay, failed to grasp the importance of the Chinese concept.