How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao • Hacker News Board

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#41

Post by baybal2 » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

docker_up wrote: post #9

Competing against eBay is like saying you're competing in a 100m race against someone in a wheelchair. eBay has done nothing to make itself better in the last 15 years. New "features" routinely fail, and their APIs are a graveyard of dropped ideas. I hope Taobao expands to the US, eBay needs real competition, anyone working there should be embarrassed for themselves, more importantly the Directors and above.

>I hope Taobao expands to the US, e

If you noticed, Chinese dotcoms are extremely bad at overseas expansion, unless they are the only fish in the pond (original alibaba.com)

I personally know the man who was singlehandedly responsible for 70% of Alibaba's overseas revenue, and he quit the company because after 5 years of hard work, he was not only not promoted, but got his position superseded by a guy "with big business cred". Soon after, their overseas revenue flatlined.

This tells a lot of their culture in the company.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#42

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:27 PM UTC

justaman wrote: post #26

slyssassa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Sooner or later alibaba is just gonna be another Chinese governments pawn anyways. The government already took over Wanda and hna effortlessly.

I can't imagine a better way to ensure the business suffers in the long term. (coming from an American who see's how poorly run government institutions are)

Looking at the runaway success of China on the world stage I'd say one probably needs to marshal arguments other than "the businesses will fail because of government involvement."

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#43

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:28 PM UTC

not_that_noob wrote: post #39

Some of this is of course the Chinese government placing its thumb on the scales in favor of local businesses. It does this for a lot of reasons, but it's clear it happens. However, compare the situation to other more open countries (e.g. India, Japan, Indonesia ) There are culture, social and language specific nuances that local entrepreneurs understand far better than outsiders, and that accounts for a significant…

Look at Walmart's disastrous attempts at expansion in Germany, for instance.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#44

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

docker_up wrote: post #9

Competing against eBay is like saying you're competing in a 100m race against someone in a wheelchair. eBay has done nothing to make itself better in the last 15 years. New "features" routinely fail, and their APIs are a graveyard of dropped ideas. I hope Taobao expands to the US, eBay needs real competition, anyone working there should be embarrassed for themselves, more importantly the Directors and above.

And yet there it is, far and away the largest and most successful site of its kind in the United States.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#45

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

techwizrd wrote: post #31

docker_up wrote: post #9

Competing against eBay is like saying you're competing in a 100m race against someone in a wheelchair. eBay has done nothing to make itself better in the last 15 years. New "features" routinely fail, and their APIs are a graveyard of dropped ideas. I hope Taobao expands to the US, eBay needs real competition, anyone working there should be embarrassed for themselves, more importantly the Directors and above.

When I was interning at eBay a few years ago, they were doing some amazing work. I worked with the machine translation team and they were doing cutting edge research all over the place with new patents being awarded regularly (even to interns!). Many of their algorithms like spelling correction were significantly better than the state of the art, in part due to their unique data set. They were also actively rebuildin…

Also easily disproven by comparing the site then to now.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#46

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

influx wrote: post #8

scarejunba wrote: post #7

Haha, all this is irrelevant when you can always count on your government arbitrarily banning foreign companies. Not really complaining. It's just business. And we need them more than they need us so they're turning the screws.

Is it really just business? Why doesn't the USA do the same to all foreign companies as well?

Free trade benefits established economies over challengers.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#47

Post by seanhunter » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

To all the people saying Jack Ma is only winning because of govt intervention: Have any of you guys actually been on ebay in the last 10 years? The surprising thing is not that they got beaten in China, it's that they're still in business anywhere else.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#48

Post by scubaguy » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

Choosing to dismiss Taobao's success because of the Chinese gov't stacks the deck against American companies is choosing to not learn anything from their success. For example, how to compete with eBay's business model.

>> Taobao was vastly different from eBay China. Afraid that buyers and sellers might circumvent its system and avoid paying eBay’s commissions, eBay went out of its way to keep buyers and sellers blind to each other and unable to communicate with one another before a purchase. This was a major inhibitor to commerce in an environment where people were accustomed to building a personal relationship before doing business.

>> Our approach was exactly the opposite. Because we were entirely free, it didn’t matter to us whether retailers consummated their deals with buyers through our site. In fact, we encouraged them to call each other, get to know each other, and even meet face to face for large purchases. We were confident that, just as we had found a way for Alibaba.com to make money from its users without transaction fees, we ultimately would find a way to make money from Taobao if its sellers were able to make money.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#49

Post by forkLding » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/china/2010/...

See above for a more full analysis, Chinese govt. could have given preferential treatment but it was Ebay that had adverts all over Chinese buses and had blocked Taobao from advertising on Chinese web platforms through exclusive partnerships.

Re: How Jack Ma took on eBay with Taobao

#50

Post by jdietrich » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

techwizrd wrote: post #31

docker_up wrote: post #9

Competing against eBay is like saying you're competing in a 100m race against someone in a wheelchair. eBay has done nothing to make itself better in the last 15 years. New "features" routinely fail, and their APIs are a graveyard of dropped ideas. I hope Taobao expands to the US, eBay needs real competition, anyone working there should be embarrassed for themselves, more importantly the Directors and above.

When I was interning at eBay a few years ago, they were doing some amazing work. I worked with the machine translation team and they were doing cutting edge research all over the place with new patents being awarded regularly (even to interns!). Many of their algorithms like spelling correction were significantly better than the state of the art, in part due to their unique data set. They were also actively rebuildin…

Clever tech experiments don't make up for hostile UX. I begrudgingly use eBay when I have no other choice, but I don't enjoy the experience one bit. The listings are flooded with obviously counterfeit products, obviously dangerous electrical goods and Chinese sellers who are obviously lying about their location.

The massive fees I pay as a seller offer me no safeguards whatsoever, because the seller protection policies are riddled with loopholes that every scammer knows about. I budget for the fact that I'm going to be defrauded about 5% of the time, in the knowledge that eBay will always side with the fraudster.

You can do all the machine learning curation you like, but it's just frosting on a dog turd. The core experience of buying and selling is utterly miserable. That's the stuff that needs to be fixed.