Alibaba is a group which domains most of the economy in China. A better way to understand Alibaba is as a mix of eBay, amazon.com, paypal and Google. Alibaba officially lunched its first platform in Hangzhou, China, which is providing the “promotion plus web design” for the middle and small-sized enterprises. Thinking about how Alibaba can be so successful now, its marketing strategy plays an influential role. On the one hand, at the initial stage of Alibaba business, it provides enterprise a free opportunity to register as a Alibaba membership. This low threshold attracts considerable enterprises to be the members of Alibaba and then when the members reach a high number, Alibaba begins to charge memberships fees away. Notably, on the other hand, Alibaba plays as a middleman, who directly gets in touch with the sellers and buyers thus facilitates the transaction. In the design profit model, it just imitates the charge booth fees model of Canton Fair, which means it does not need to hook and trade effect, approaching first charging model. Compared with the Canton Fair, which needs the high threshold and booth fees, Alibaba’s advantages and values are reflected.

Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29077495
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2489054/e-commerce/alibaba-s-business-model-and-the-chinese-market-make-its-ipo-hot.html