Alibaba Adds Russian Merchants In Order To Expand

Alibaba decides to add Russian merchants and markets to boost its sales.

Alibaba is looking to expand its market as globally as possible due to the recent news of a decline in China’s economy soon. It is opening its market to Russian merchants in order to increase sales and has already added Russian shops, such as Wikimart and Incity to its marketplace, named AliExpress.

Alibaba group will launch this facility on November 11. It said in an email, according to Business of Fashion, the market would consist of Russian goods in its online stores. Russia’s locals now are using internet shopping more than ever and this is a great opportunity for the e-commerce company to launch Russian products to capture the wide market. It has not evidently missed the opportunity.

The online Chinese business has 22 million monthly users in Russia. Its international online market was previously worth $1 billion in the first half quarter according to data insight. The online shopping convenience is trending rapidly in Russia because of the attractive packages, sales, and prices. The platforms that are used the most in the country are Alibaba Express and JD.com among many others.

The act of collaborating with Russian merchants to increase its sales in this market is the best step that the company has taken. Online sales from China have already had an increase of 50% in the beginning of 2015 due to the weakening Russian currency and recession contributing to the decrease of the purchasing power of the locals; hence, they are now turning their faces towards the online easy and affordable online market.

The business development director of Alibabaexpress commented, “In choosing partners, we focused on categories of good that are in high demand in Russia, and highlighted Russian brands and companies that manufacture products in Russia.”

Alibaba is already expanding to Europe and has appointed employees specifically for those tasks in France, Italy, and Germany. The Single’s Day event, from which it profited last year, is ahead and since the never-ending expansion, this time it might be even bigger than expected.

Without doubt, the online market will get affected from China’s economy since it is investing such a huge sum of money in its expansion worldwide and is now focused on market outside its hometown and rural markets domestically. It should keep this in focus for now. Many other companies existing in China are also vulnerable to the economic fluctuation, which bothers investors as well.

Alibaba stock is selling at $71.76 today.

eBay And Sotheby Collaborates To Launch High End Auction Page

After splitting with PayPal last year, the company has launched its live auction page for Sothebys in order to keep its business running.

EBay is known as the pioneer when it comes to web page auctioning. The company has been doing online auctions on its websites for a very long time now and companies like Amazon are now copying this idea. From apparels to sporting goods and mobile devices etc. all are auctioned and then sold to consumers within or outside United States through EBay.

The company partnered with Sotheby, a multinational corporation engaged as the largest brokers of real estate, jewelry, fine art, decorative art, and collectibles. Both parties have planned together to launch a “live” auction page for Sothebys on its own platform. Hence this means that Sothebys will do business through EBay’s (EBAY) platform and will assist the company in taking the live auction technology for EBay to a whole new level.

As Venture Beat reports: “The auctions themselves happen in the real world, in a Sotheby’s location, but with real-time integration with the eBay-Sotheby’s site.” EBay is one of the giants in the e-commerce market. EBay store is a vast and diversified platform for businessmen (buyers and sellers) who can give a real boost to their businesses with this online auctioning platform.

It is believed that currently the company is accountable for selling more than a million products and items to consumers throughout the world daily and it has no intentions of stopping. EBay wants to do more business hence the collaboration with Sothebys will fulfill its wish. The director of Live Auctions of the company, Megan Ford says: “We’re seeing appetite for high purchase points across the site. We went into the bullion category at this high price point and we went into the vehicles category, and every time we move up market our buyers come with us.”

For a one whole year, the company was working to build its live auction platform and offer a different experience to consumers who already use EBay’s platform on regular basis. Both parties have managed to develop good understanding between them. “We believe that EBay store live auctions is a billion-dollar-plus business at scale, so we’re going to be investing in this business for the long term,” she added.

With Sothebys, the company will be bringing high end sale items on its platform. The pressure was very much on for the company due to its recent separation with PayPal. Analysts believed that it will have to do something unique and different in order to keep the revenues coming. The launch of a live auction page along with Sothebys is one of the terms for a forward looking strategy.

No Company Including Alibaba Is “Too Big To Fail “Jack Ma Told Regulators

Jack Ma, Chairman of Alibaba Holding Group, told government of China that the “company is not too big to fail” as he guaranteed the federal regulators that he was addressing corruption allegations on its online e-commerce website.

According to his Beijing speech transcript during CSR commission he said, as Alibaba grows in size it should focus to monitor the behavior of employee. He further said, “Alibaba absolutely isn’t the company that is too big to fail, big companies failed in China like Politburo members, standing members. No company can say it’s too big to fail … that’s rubbish.”

Since the State Administration for Industry & Commerce had issued a White Paper against Alibaba reproving its online mall business of taking bribes, and selling counterfeit, fake products and peddling knock-offs. Alibaba was founded 15 years ago in its chairman Ma’s apartment, faced many mistakes and errors in the country, which was run by communist party.

Jack Ma also said on his visit to CSRC that the China’s state run banks should not fear from the services being offered by Alibaba financial firm Zhejiang Ant Small and Micro Financial Service Group.

Alibaba want honest and trustworthy businessmen to become wealthy, Ma Said as exactly mentioned in the transcript. “Only if we do this, can our company complement the finance industry, and not compete with them”.

Jack Ma elaborated the company goals and objectives to the Chinese government regulators. He talked about Yu’E Bao, an online market fund of its affiliate. He also told regulators about credit scoring system of financial group companies and Zhejiang Ant Small.

Earlier this January, according to Shanghai Securities news, Alibaba Holdings was interested in making an investment in New China Life Insurance Company Ltd., which valued nearly $24 billion. The company is also looking to obtain a stake in Insurance Company by acquiring some shares from New China’s largest shareholder, Central Huijin Investment Ltd.

Alibaba Holdings is also looking for initial public offering (IPO) of its financial firm Zhejiang Ant Small, the owner of Alipay, that is valued at approximately $50 billion.

Alibaba Group Holding share price have fallen 16% in New York stock exchange this year.

Alibaba Holding Group Ltd (NYSE:BABA) stock is down by 1.44%, trading at $86 as of 4:30 pm EST on Thursday, with 30-days average volume of 17.53 million shares. The company has a market capitalization of $215.81 billion and price to earnings ratio of 47.66.