Alibaba, being China’s biggest online commerce company, has grown exceptionally in the New York Stock Exchange as its stocks increased above predicted range of  60-66 to a whooping 68 dollars a share.  Alibaba has many popular trading sites under its wings such as Taobao (similar to E-bay) and Alipay (similar to PayPal) and has been largely successful in China’s market.

 In Jennifer Lin’s blog post, she mentions that Yun Ma has been so successful because he took advantage of enhanced the online services already available and brought to China’s demanding market.  I entirely agree with Jennifer’s point. Furthermore, I think that Yun Ma considered the requirements of the consumers in China. He realised that one of the greatest pains as a consumer in China is that any international shopping websites are censored and unavailable to the Chinese. Furthermore, the shipping overseas would be costly and impractical. Thus, by analysing the “pains” of the consumer, he was able to offer an incredibly successful “pain killer” which is Alibaba. It quenches the Chinese consumers’ thirst for an online market by offering a vast variety of products that are all shipped at little to no extra fees. On top of the “pain killers”, the products of Yun Ma also creates a variety of “gain creators” like affordable prices, fast shipping, rebates, secure check-out, etc. These incentives further grasps the loyalty of his customers. .  I think that the key difference between Yun Ma and other entrepreneurs is that he based his value proposition on the needs and wants of possible consumers, not on what his company is able to offer. Thus he was able to create a product that exactly fits the requests of the consumers.

Alibaba banners hang outside the New York Stock Exchange on Friday