All you need to know about Alibaba

Global Business

Alibaba is the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse that’s preparing to strike it rich on the New York Stock Exchange Friday.

The company is a mix of Amazon, eBay and Google, but with unique Chinese characteristics. Alibaba has six business divisions:

  • Alibaba.com, business portal created 15 years ago connecting Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers.
  • Taobao, China’s largest online consumer-to-consumer shopping website.
  • Alipay, Alibaba’s online payments business.
  • Tmall.com, created in 2008 as a business-to-consumer shopping website
  • Juhuasuan.com, a daily deals website created in 2011.
  • 11Main.com, new U.S. shopping site launched in June that already has more than one thousand merchants.

For more information about Alibaba, check out our special Alibaba IPO webpage.

Last year, transactions on Alibaba’s website totaled $248 billion, more than Amazon and eBay transactions combined. Analysts and investors are bullish on Alibaba as it shows no signs of slowing down. Shraysi Tandon reports.

As the countdown to the Alibaba IPO commences, Dan Stefan, Senior IPO analyst at Privco shared some of investment advises to would-be investors.