The Traditional marketplace has seen little change over the past few 100
You’ve got a burger.
You’ve got a seller.
Which then leads to a transaction.
But over the past couple of decade’s thing’s have started to change on unprecedented pace,and perhap’s no company is reshaping that experiance more than alibaba.
Let’s have a look,on today’s blog of
Alibaba,the way it’s work’s?
Alibaba is one of the world largest retailer’s.The company has more than 500 million people using it’s shopping app every month and if you’re thinking it’s scale is limited to china,well think again.It has operation’s in more than 200 countries.
The company was founded by CEO Jack Ma in 1999 with 17 other people.And he knew he was onto something big.Alibaba set the record for biggest IPO in history,which took place at new york stock exchange in 2014.
And this year,Alibaba was the first company in Asia to exceed the $400 billion valuation Mark,an honor that had previously only been held by american companies.
The company is made up of three main sites,Tao Boo,Tmall and Alibaba.com combined they have hundreds of million’s of User’s and host million’s of merchant’s and businesses.Which mean’s they can preety much be used by anyone,anywhere for anything.
So how does it work?
Meet our fictional character Janes,which lives in Beijing.Jane want’s to buy a new blender,so she log’s into Tao Boo.She finds one,she likes,being sold by,let’s say chris.
He live’s in Shanghai and sells the blender’s to individual at a competitative price.
When Jane goes to checkout.She doesn’t use her credit Card.She uses alipay to purchase the item.Think of it like using paypal.
Chris then accept’s the alipay payment from jane.
So,where did the supplier chris,get the blender’s from?
Well,he bought a supply of 1000 units on 1688.com,the popular chinese version of Alibaba.com.It sell’s bulk order’s to supplier’s like himself.
He bought his batch from a manufacturer named Keith on Tmall allow’s buissnesses to sell wholesale.
Keith own’s a blender company and production facility in Shenzhen,which produce’s the item’s and other kitchen appliance’s.
Previously,chris only sold to individual buyer’s in china.But recently,he listed his blender’s on Aliexpress,which sell’s to customer’s outside of china.
So now laura,who’s living in california and found the blender on Aliexpress, can also buy it from chris and yes,she can even use Alipay too.
‘ofcourse ,importing product’s from china into the U.S is nothing new.The difference?Now anyone in the world can do it from their mobile device’s and all through the same company’.
But it’s not only eccommerce.
Chris has been selling so many blender’s lately that he want’s to grow his buissness faster.But he doesn’t have the money to buy more unit’s from Keith.
So chris uses Antfinancial,to get financing.The loan help’s him order an extra 10,000 unit’s.
So,for buying,selling ,digital payment’s and even financing ,you’ve done it all in Alibaba’s platform’s.
And Alibaba now include’s a shipping company a messaging app,a movie studio named Alibaba Pictures and more.
Alibaba’s growth is primarily fueled by china’s massive population and rising middle class,but Jack Ma want’s the world domination in the company.