Company Overview

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is the largest e-commerce company headquartered in Hangzhou, China. It provides business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) and consumer to consumer (C2C) sale services through web portal. This company was founded in 1999 by 18 people lead by Jack Ma, who is a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China. 

Mission

The mission of Alibaba Group is "to make it easy to do business everywhere."Alibaba group provide basic technology infrastructure and marketing reach to assist the merchants and other businesses that deliver goods and services and digital content to leverage the power of internet to interact with the customers. 

Vision

The vision of Alibaba Group is to build the future infrastructure of commerce. This company envisions that the customers will live, work and meet in Alibaba and Alibaba Group will be lasts for at least 102 years.

• Live - Alibaba Group strive to expand the products and services to become the central to customers’ daily lives.

• Work- Alibaba Group provide the customers with the basic infrastructure for business and data technologies.

• Meet -interaction between the customers and merchants.

How Alibaba group makes money?

Alibaba group operate a variety of business and receive support for their ecosystem from the business and services of related and affiliated companies such as Taobao, Tmall, AliExpress, Alibaba Cloud and so on. The business of Alibaba include core commerce, cloud computing, mobile media and entertainment and other innovation initiatives.

The total revenues of Alibaba Group were $15.7 billion in the financial year of 2016. This group generate revenue from merchants from receive commission, P4P (pay for performances) marketing services, third party marketing affiliate program services, selling storefront software and so on.

Alibaba Group is so successful because it is platform that enables to connect and communicate with the people. It gives the opportunity to people to participate.

Registration as an unregistered business entity

Step 1:  We start to visit the Alibaba official website.

Step 2: We click on the button of  "My Alibaba" ,"Join Free" to start our registration.

Step 3:  After click on the button will directly link to another webpage. We have fill in email address as per request.

Step 4: A confirmation email has been sent to our email address.

Step 5: We will receive an email and click on the link in the content of email to verified it.

Step 6: The link will be directly link to the webpage. Hence, we need to fill in all the information as per request below.

Step 7: Lastly,  the registration process is complete.

Source out for a UNIQUE product of your choice. Negotiate on the product pricing with a supplier using the e-marketplace platform provided. Show step by step of your negotiation with the supplier. Show the print screens as evidence.

Step 1: After registration process in Alibaba official website, we will log into the website through E-mail address and password. 

Step 2: We will start to search the unique product in Alibaba Website based on categories, we choose beauty care and health as our target.

Step 3: We have chosen the DIY Facial Mask Machine Beauty as our interested product. 

Step 4: We have started the negotiation with the supplier regarding the selling price per unit. The supplier have provided us the normal selling price of $15 per unit.

Step 5: We have tried to request discount for 50 units of the product from the supplier. The supplier have offered us $14.50 for each unit.

Ways To Boost Sales And The Obstacle Encountered

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) boost Singles’ Day Sales

During the first two hours of Singles Day, Alibaba sold over US$7 billion worth of goods by using the VR and AR gamification. The company recorded breaking sales of US$17.7 billion and achieved 32% growth in gross merchandise volume. This is due to the cutting edge VR, AR gamification, pervasive and star-studded promotions.

In 2016, Macy’s worked with Alibaba on Buy + VR experience for its first Singles Day. Alibaba started to sell 150,000 cardboard VR headsets and Google Cardboard for 1 yuan on Taobao in order to slot in the smartphones and explore virtual world of stores in late October.

From Nov, 1-11, customers could utilize the Taobao’s app to “walk” around the shop, “take” goods to examine virtually, and make purchases by staring at floating buttons. The virtual-reality shopping trip provides discounts on Singles Day itself helps to make the shopping bonanza popular. Alibaba is pre-empting the VR strike.

The company has previously held online competition and giveaways of “red packet”, which is voucher in the lead-up to 11 November. In 2016, Alibaba created a “Pokemon Go” style augmented reality game to capture the customers and improve sales activity by requiring them make repeat purchases in order to win the rewards. For instance, shoppers catch Tmall’s cat mascot in the game of Tmall app at the participating restaurants and shops to unlock and win the “red packets”.

Alibaba's Tmall to boost supermarket sales

Tmall.com's workers prepare cartons for goods that need to be sent by post at a sorting center in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Based on iResearch Consulting Group, Tmall has led China's B2C market in the first quarter of this year, accounting for 58.6 percent of the 373.7billion yuan ($61.02 billion) market between January and March. [Photo/China Daily]

Tmall.com, is a business-to-customer platform of e-commerce under Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's. It has boosted its online supermarket offering aggressively with a massive national discount campaign in Beijing It is became a threat to competitors in the  emerging online superstore market in the country, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc's yhd.com.

Alibaba in Hangzhou, is giving cash incentives of 1 billion yuan ($161 million) for the Beijing consumers who making order on Tmall Supermarket from July 23 to 31.

The president of Alibaba's retail business unit said that Tmall Supermarket make itself as a main player in the nascent online supermarket sector through Alibaba's vast e-commerce ecosystem which included its payments systems and supply chain and logistics network.

US retail giant Wal-Mart had fully controlled of the China's leading online supermarket, Shanghai-based yhd.com. However, Alibaba has moved based on solid foundations rather than merely stealing the thunder of Wal-Mart's announcement.

Alibaba's logistics able to provide same-day delivery in Beijing for those customers who can place their orders online not exceed by 11 am every day during the promotion. An e-commerce analyst mentioned that efficient delivery was important for online supermarket businesses.

Tmall has dominated the China's B2C market as it has hold majority number of China's online shopping shoppers and traffic, as it can move very fast to get a lot of customers to buy goods, and no exception on online supermarket sales.

Based on iResearch Consulting Group, Tmall has the proportion of 8.6 percent of the 373.7 billion yuan ($61.02 billion) market which leading China's B2C market in the first quarter of this year. Mo Daiqing, an analyst in China E-Business Research Center stated that it is not easy for Tmall Supermarket to achieve this kind of dominance. The price of groceries that sell online are slightly cheaper than those sell offline.

Alibaba’s Online Business Marketing Strategies

Alibaba target on two marketplaces which are the China marketplaces that aim to focus on the local trading between the suppliers and buyers in China and the global marketplace based in English Language for the international exporters and importers. China with double size of U.S. market can be considered as the largest internet marketplace in the world. There are 560 million of Internet users spending around 20 hours a week online. Notably, China is more favor of the e-retailing than the traditional retailing. These two marketplaces are the most- visited B2B website on the Internet. Alibaba has targeted on small and medium-sized private entities and sole proprietor as they have great potential to succeed in the e-trade. Alibaba has provided its e-trade services by developing websites with different languages and vary their design and layouts, which make its websites localize to the local cultural in overseas in order to gain a large portion of market share. Alibaba has created different language websites in order to obtain highest profit and goals by expanding its market to different regions All these leads to Alibaba’s global success

Other than that, Alibaba penetrate into a new market by offering freebies in order to attract customer to adopt Alibaba as an online marketing platform. For example, Alibaba gives free copies of Shopkeeper TM of Alisoft. It is a package that consist of accounting, consumer resource management, stock management tools for registered users. Alibaba also has adopt  internet promotion strategy to promotes its services, such as direct marketing, public relations, and discounts for certain items during special days such as media advertising, festivals, and sponsoring of events in order to attract awareness of  customers toward Alibaba.

Alibaba faces a long fight over counterfeit goods

Alibaba sued two watch sellers on its Taobao platform for goodwill violations and damages for the contract, claiming 1.4 million yuan ($201,482). This is the first lawsuit for Alibaba against the marketplace seller. Even though the damages sought are miniscule compared to Alibaba’s recent quarterly revenue of $5.14 million, the company wants to give punishment to the counterfeiters to protect the brand owners.

The company suspected a Taobao merchant sold counterfeit Swarovski watches and made purchases from that seller and found that the watches were counterfeit products. Police arrested the seller in August and confiscated more than 125 fake Swarovski watches worth of 2 million yuan ($287,831).

Alibaba, as a China-based company, has greater exposure to counterfeiting compared to Amazon. Chinese customers are more price-sensitive and less averse to purchasing counterfeit products. However, the company can simplify the procedures to report the instance of counterfeiting to make it easier for the brand owners. Alibaba also can utilize its political leverage and global profile to push the government to prosecute more forgers.

Describe the awareness/participation of the company of your choice in virtual worlds

Alibaba is the latest to show its ambitions in the Virtual Reality. As such, Alibaba is diving into the world of virtual reality and augmented reality. Alibaba Group believe that there is a hope in virtual reality in the long term. The hope is that VR shopping will be a whole brand new experience for the customer or a new way to persuade or convince people into buying more staff. Alibaba has made a huge investment in new VR technology start up to promote to better content and hardware development. In earlier, Alibaba has planned to create the world’s largest product gallery of 3D images to be used by VR developer. Also, the company even wants to bring its e-commerce into the world of virtual reality.

 On March 2016, Alibaba had opened a Virtual Reality (VR) research laboratory called the GnomeMagic Lab in Hangzhou, China. This department will be closely linked to e-commerce group activities. This department was working on virtual reality (VR) or Augmented reality (AU) to assist the sellers on Alibaba platforms to build their own 3D product inventories. Its long term goal is to be able to help the                                                                          business set up an entire VR stores.

Alibaba has also announced its first online virtual reality (VR) demonstration shop called Buy +. Buy+ was developed by Alibaba Group’s new virtual reality or augmented reality research unit GnomeMagic Lab. Buy+ is a virtual reality shopping mall and it is connected to Alipay and the payment will be secured. By wearing VR headset, users are able to walk through the virtual space of mall, visit different store and eventually make a purchase that will then be delivered in the real world. In July 2016, the Buy+ was introduced at Taobao Maker Festival at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center. It allows the visitors to have a trial on virtual shopping. Consumers will use their own VR headsets or glasses to navigate within the shop. By doing so, customers able to have the experience of shopping in physical store. In short, Alibaba offers the customer to shopping inside a virtual reality headset. 

Consumers who are interested can purchase the VR headsets via online shopping platform-Taobao. By using the VR headsets, consumers are able to stroll through and shops at store such as Macy’s New York flagship store via Taobao’s app. Alibaba has come up with a new VR payment system called VR pay, which allows virtual reality shopper to pay for their purchase by just nodding their head. In other words, users are able to pay for the items they wants without taking off their goggles.

VR headsets enable the users to view the products in a 360 degree view in a physical store-like experience during shopping process. Users able to explore clothing and fashion products in different e-store by using VR headsets. Buy+ enable the users to look at different combinations of a clothing in terms of size, colour, texture and style before  they consider to purchase that particular dress. The acceptance of Buy+ is increasing drastically in China. According to Alibaba, this device has been selling over 300,000 units on Alibaba’s online marketplaces in every month. By providing virtual reality shopping experience, more users will get attracted to Alibaba platform and Alibaba Group believe that market share in clothing, luxury items and household goods will increase.

In a nutshell, we can conclude that Alibaba has introduced virtual reality and it allows shopper in china to browse and the purchase the things they want in all over the world. 

Conclusion and the success factors of Alibaba from the implementation of e-marketplace.

Alibaba Group Launches Singles' Day (2016 11.11) Global Shopping Festival smashes records at word's largest online shopping event.

Singles’ Day Global Shopping Festival began in 2009 with participation form just 27 merchants as an event for Tmall.com merchants and consumers to raise awareness of the value in online shopping. 7 years later, 11.11 has become a global event with participating merchants in the tens of thousands, buyers in the millions, and total sales in the billions. Alibaba used Singles Day to offer massive discounts to draw consumers to their platform Tao Bao and then Tmall.

In 2016, Alibaba’s Single’s Day, china’s one-day shopping posted sale nets $17.8 billion in 24 hours, a 32 % year-over-year growth rate. According to Alibaba, Chinese consumers are very phone-based when it comes to e-commerce. In this year, 82% of sales came from mobile devices, compare with 68% in 2015. A part from this, U.S companies are a big part of the sale and this year the top five U.S brands were Apple, Nike, New Balance, Playboy and Skechers. Close to 100000 brands, 11000 of them from outside chine, overseas brands accounted for 37% of sales.

Single’s Day takes place primarily in China, now have 20 countries overall participate. Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma said that his company was the innovative engine of China's new economy and that the growth of Single's Day reflects huge domestic demand among China's 1.3 billion people.

Active buyers are key success factors to Alibaba’s Growth.

Annual Active Buyers

Alibaba’s annual active buyers stood at 434 million at the end of the fiscal 1Q17, reflecting an increase of 18% year-over –year. Hence, the company added 11 million new active buyers when compared with the prior quarter.

Mobile segment monthly active users

Other than that, Alibaba’s Mobile segment monthly active users increased by 17 million quarter-over-quarter to 427 million, while it increased by 39% year-over-year. This reflects increased adoption of mobile among consumers.

Alibaba was successful in driving user growth and engagement by enhancing the user experience, which in turn is boosting the brand marketers spend on its platform. Besides, company is witnessing continued growth and increase in the rate of its active buyers. 

Alipay

Nowadays, there are large number of people shopping online in China. In China, more people are using online payment service to shop online. Alipay is one of the online payment services offered by the Alibaba group. As a result, Alibaba’s answer to China’s fast-growing demand for a convenient online payment service. WePay, WeChat’s online payment service, has been around for slightly longer, but Alipay has made its mark in this increasingly crowded.

One of the alternative to using a credit card is Alipay. Alipay can be linked into a bank account with more secure and trusted. Alipay had provide many type of services which include transfer money to other bank accounts with payment made within two hours, transfer money to other Alipay accounts, pay credit card bills with no fee levied, pay utility bills with no extra fee levied, top up mobile phone with credit, buy bus tickets, check bank balance ,use at online check-out on many websites and also use to check-out on shopping apps Tmall.com and Taobao.com.

Alipay also provide full-services payment platform and added security by acting as an escrow service between buyer and seller. This system encouraged China's wary shoppers to trust e-commerce. Far beyond a PayPal or Credit Card, the Alipay Wallet allows users to top up savings account, pay bills and transfer money to others. Thus Alipay has accessed a largely untapped consumer market.

In 2013, Alipay processed &519 billion and currently handles around 50% of China's e-commerce by contrast, PayPal processes 30% of e-commerce transaction in the U.S. and Amazon isn't expected to reach a 20.6% market share until 2016.

“A” stands for “availability” lead to Alibaba success

One of the reason lead to succeed of the Alibaba because of “availability”. Alibaba makes e-commerce very accessible to consumer in china, with two flagship websites which is Taobao for consumer-to consumer and later Tmall for business-to consumer. Furthermore, many private store owners at Taobao offer their merchandise part-time or at least they started as part-time before their businesses took off. The reason for this is that sellers don't need to pay Taobao to set up an Internet store there.

Beside that, store owners have to pay the website for advertisements if they want to stand out among the millions of Taobao sellers. Therefore, Taobao successful to attracts many people willing to give it a try and sell a vast array of product at Taobao. The fact that there are millions of people selling a variety of products at Taobao increases the "availability" of merchandise and generates traffic to the website. This large traffic then allowed Alibaba to successfully launch Tmall for businesses to set up stores at the Alibaba website.

References

Alibaba Group. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/global/home

Alibaba wants you to shop in virtual reality. (2016). Retrieved from http://vrscout.com/news/virtual-reality-shopping-alibaba-buy/

Alibaba uses virtual reality to make shopping more interactive. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1994169/alibaba-uses-virtual-reality-make-shopping-more-interactive

Alibaba introduces virtual reality payment system. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-introduces-virtual-reality-payment-system-2016-10?IR=T&r=US&IR=T

Alibaba's tmall to boost supermarket sales (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.china.org.cn/business/2015-07/25/content_36145085.htm

Dominguez. (2014, Sep 9). What makes internet giant alibaba so successful? Retrieved from http://www.dw.com/en/what-makes-internet-giant-alibaba-so-successful/a-17910825

Elizabeth. (2016, Nov 11). Alibaba sale nets $17.8 billion in 24 hours. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/11/11/alibaba-singles-day-jack-ma-2016 sale/93639376/

Jonrussel. (2016, March). Alibaba is working to bring virtual reality into its e-commerce activities. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/17/alibaba-is-working-to-bring-virtual-reality-into-its-e-commerce-services/

Minter, A. (2017). Alibaba faces a long fight over fake goods. Retrieved  from https://www.internetretailer.com/2017/01/04/alibaba-faces-long-fight-over-fake-goods

Stevens. (2016, Aug 15).Why active buyers are key to alibaba's growth. Retrieved from  http://marketrealist.com/2016/08/active-buyers-key-alibabas-growth

VR and AR help boost Alibaba Singles’ Day sales. (2016). Retrieved from http://e-commercefacts.com/news/asia/6318-vr-and-ar-help-boost-alibaba-singles-day-sales

Yazdanifard, R., & Merveen, T. H. L. (2014). The review of alibaba’s online business marketing strategies which navigate them to persent success. Global Journal of Management and Business, 14(7-E), 1-9.