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Alibaba in Chinese Industry

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Submitted By yuexili
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Alibaba in the Emerging Chinese E-commerce Industry

Yuexi Li1

Claremont McKenna College

November 15, 2015

Abstract:

Alibaba.com is one of the leading e-Commerce companies in China. It has grown admirably from its initial beginning as an e-Market connecting small suppliers and buyers to a giant emarketplace that has several operational platforms. Currently the heavy reliance on
Chinese Economy, the counterfeit goods issues, and the competition from other emarketplace remain Alibaba’s greatest challenges. In this paper I evaluate Alibaba’s business model including its mission, vision, and values, revenue model, and its R&D structure. Alibaba’s strategy led to its competitive advantages in realizing network effect of scale and understanding the Chinese market.
1

yli17@cmc.edu

1. Introduction
On November 11th, 2015, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (hereinafter, Alibaba) reported a record-breaking $14.3 billion in sales over just 24 hours during the “Singles Day”2, a shopping holiday. In recent years, Singles Day sales in China have out paced Cyber Monday sales in the US: According to the Reuters.com, on November 11th, 2014, Alibaba reported a
$9.3 billion sales from 24 hours, which is $7.26 billion more than sum of US retail ecommerce on Cyber Monday 2014. The statistic shows the Chinese online shopping market’s power, as well as Alibaba’s leading position as the Chinese e-commerce giant.
Reaching multiple competitive advantages in the industry in China, Alibaba’s successful business is valuable to study for companies in both e-commerce and in other industries.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical growth as well as the current

advantages and threats faced by Alibaba, to determine Alibaba’s growth potential in the future. I will do this by first

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