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Opening Case: Alibaba.com—The World’s Largest B2B Marketplace 103

• Alibaba.com Secure Payment (an escrow service; activi- (For information about features and to purchase and down-
ties.alibaba.com/alibaba/secure-payment.php) is a ser- load the software, see chat-translator.com/products/chat-
vice that holds the payment to the seller until both parties translator- trademanager.html and download.cnet.com/
have confirmed that the transaction is complete. Alibaba Chat-Translator-for- TradeManager/3000-20424_4-
Secure Payment also has a Dispute and Refund process if 75212643.html). To see more about the tools and features
the buyer does not receive the goods or is unhappy with Alibaba offers to help buyers and sellers, see alibaba.com/
the delivery. For more information about the Escrow help/alibaba-features.html.
Service and the Dispute and Refund process, see service.
alibaba.com/buyer/faq.htm. The Competition

Alipay also offers an online global payment solution to Many companies are attempting to rival Alibaba. For example,
help buyers or sellers outside China to do business in China. JD.com (jd.com, which merged with Tencent) is China’s sec-
Alipay supports transactions in 28 major foreign currencies ond largest e-commerce company. (It is used for both B2B and
(February 2016). B2C.) Made-in-China.com (made-in-china.com), another
world leading B2B portal, is another competitor. In the interna-
The Database tional market, companies such as TradeBanq (tradebanq.
com), EC21 (ec21.com), Hubwoo (hubwoo.com), and
The center of Alibaba.com is its huge database, which is basi- Allactiontrade.com (allactiontrade.com) are all competing.
cally horizontal information organized into dozens of indus-
try categories, including agriculture, apparel and fashion,
automobiles, and toys. Each industry category is further The Results
divided into subcategories (over 800 in total). For example,
the toy category includes items such as dolls, electronic pets, By 2016, Alibaba.com covered over 5200 product categories
and wooden toys. Each subcategory includes classified post- and had about 280 million registered, active buyers. The
ings organized into four groups: sellers, buyers, agents, and company conducts business in over 240 countries and
corporations. Each group may include many companies and regions, and it employs more than 35,000 people.
products. (Some categories have thousands of product post- Sources: Based on Charles (2014), Chen (2016), Erisman
ings.) A powerful search engine helps navigate the database. (2015), crunchbase.com/organization/alibaba, buyer.alib-
aba.com, and seller.alibaba.com (all accessed March 2016).
Community Services Note: For seven things to know about Jack Ma, see
upstart.bizjournals.com/entrepreneurs/hot- shots/2013/
Alibaba.com provides the following major features all related 09/25/meet-jack-ma-things-to-know-about.html.
to import and export: free e-mail, help center, 24/7 online
intelligent robot to assist with answering questions, tutorials
for traders, Trade Alert free updates to your inbox, news, LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CASE
tradeshow information, legal information, arbitration, forums
and discussion groups, trade trends, and so on. In addition, a B2B e-commerce, which constitutes over 85% of all
supplier can create a personalized company Web page as well EC volume, is composed of different types of market-
as a “product showroom”; members also can post their own places and trading methods. The opening case illus-
marketing leads (where to buy and sell). Alibaba.com also trates a marketplace for many buyers and sellers to
offers the TradeManager mobile app (trademanager.alib- make transactions. The case presents the technology
aba.com), which is their Instant Messaging tool. support provided for the B2B marketplace. In addition,
TradeManager can be used to chat with buyers in real time, the case describes information about support services
get real-time translation, easily search for buyers and suppli- (e.g., escrow services). The case illustrates the services
ers, and get the latest trade results. The TradeManager app is provided for sellers (which are discussed in more detail
provided in multiple languages and at relatively low fees (the in Sections 4.4 through 4.6) and the services for buyers
IM is free). For details, see Charles (2014) and trademan- (described in Sections 4.8, 4.10, and 4.13). The case
ager.alibaba.com/features/introduction.htm. also demonstrates the role of marketplaces (Sections
According to DYC Software Studio (chat-translator. 4.15 and 4.17). All the major EC buying and selling
com), DYC sells translation software called ChatTranslator B2B methods as well as types of B2B marketplaces and
for TradeManager, which is available in 20 languages. It can portals are described in this chapter. Finally, we relate
translate and send messages in any foreign language and B2B to social networking and other support services.
translate replies from one language into the user’s language.