Alibaba not Like Amazon Says Jack Ma
Alibaba not like Amazon says Jack Ma while unveiling his future plan for his company.
Founder and executive chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba recently put forth his vision for the future of his company while speaking at a luncheon with the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday.
His name is Jack Ma and in the meeting, he emphasized that branching out of China is key for the company’s future. More specifically Ma hopes that small businesses in the US will buy and sell their products on Alibaba.com.
At present Alibaba.com mostly features Chinese exporters who are selling their products to customers outside China. Also, it is common to find some weird stuff on there.
“My purpose coming here is we need more American products in China,” said Ma. He also stated that “We have a hungry 100 million people coming to buy every day. We did not come here to compete. We came here to bring small business.”
Ma states that Alibaba has a huge and quite an attractive opportunity for American small businesses to hit the giant e-commerce market of China. He emphasized that even though big American companies have a presence in China, smaller companies have not yet made their mark. Precisely, because it’s not easy for smaller companies to flourish in China.
This is where Alibaba comes in, to promote these smaller US companies. According to Jack, E-commerce has become huge because it’s the best way to buy products in the country.
Ma stated that”[The] infrastructure in China was too bad”. He also added, “Here you have Walmart, etc. In China we have nothing, nowhere. [In America] e-commerce is the dessert, it’s complimentary [to brick and mortar shopping]. In China, it’s the main course.”
Ma in his also spoke about the constant comparisons between Alibaba and Amazon and eBay which were becoming quite frequent in the US. He on the other hand said that Alibaba is not a competitor to both Amazon and eBay because Alibaba deals with small businesses to sell goods online. (To illustrate further, the company also runs two Chinese-language sites: Tmall and Taobao. These sites have greater similarities with Amazon and eBay than Alibaba.com, and 11 Main, an English-language site launched in the US last year to sell American goods.
Like Amazon, Alibaba.com serves as a shopping destination for millions of consumers. But unlike Amazon, Alibaba assists small companies to manage their respective warehouses instead of hoarding their goods in a separate warehouse.
He elaborated this point further, “We do not buy and sell”. Ma says, “We help small businesses buy and sell.”
Now, Ma wants to focus on China has always promoted exporting goods for the past 20 years. But now, China is ready to turn that around, and Mais bent upon to popularize small American businesses in China through Alibaba.
He admitted that the task won’t be easy. But it would be worth it for the value Alibaba is capable of bringing to Chinese consumers and American businesses.
Jack acknowledged this by saying that “We know the way is not easy”. As per his favorite catchphrase “In the past 20 years, doing internet business in China, today is difficult. Tomorrow is more difficult. But the day after tomorrow is beautiful.”
