As a local Commerce student having been living in Vancouver for nearly ten years, it’s exiting for me to hear that Alibaba, China’s biggest and the most profit-making e-commerce company started since 1999 , finally will expand its market to this city. Alibaba would absolutely be able to establish a successful huge market in Vancouver due to the city’s resourceful geographical location as well as its multiculturalism. Although in future, the company might need to confront a fierce competition with E-bay to the extent of fighting for the same and limited market and customer groups, the long-term benefit in a big picture that Alibaba would be able to bring to the city’s business development is what I care about the most! According to the discussion that our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, had with the CEO of the company, Yun Ma, Alibaba’s focus in Vancouver’s market would mainly be seafood and agricultural products; The very first promotion of Alibaba in Vancouver is to sell 200,000 fresh Canadian lobsters online around the period of “the Single’s Day”(November the 11th)!
By opening an office in Vancouver, not only Alibaba the company is able to develop more customers in North America, but also to provide with more job opportunities to Vancouver’s local community, such as more postmen will be needed as the amount of deliveries increases. Probably one day in future, Alibaba’s company in Vancouver will open recruitment opportunities to Sauder Bachelor of Commerce students, by then, I would be more than willing to give it a try!