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All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

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Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#71

Post by sp332 »

nichtich wrote: post #70
prawks wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I wonder about their status as a top competitor: how different would their status be in a less restrictive market? How does Alipay's user experience compare to Paypal's? Is it the lack of competition that has enabled them to expand their reach so widely (by not having to focus so much effort on each venture)? For example, the experience of shopping on AliExpress is (imo) sub-par when compared to most Wester…

My experience: using paypal is so confusing for me, compared to alipay. And ebay makes you uncomfortable and doubting your purchase decision more than taobao. I think it partially explains Alibaba's success in China. how you do shopping and paying is very much dependent on the "tradition" and regulation environment, and a local company can optimize that better than a global one. Aliexpress is a mess though, i agree w…

Fraud is so rampant, that all of Paypal's competitors were either more worrisome or got defrauded to death. Paypal found the very narrow area where you can be careful enough to be profitable without chasing away all of your customers.

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#72

Post by notatoad »

justincormack wrote: post #18

Pity its not Alibaba that is for sale in the "IPO" then, just a Cayman Islands company which holds a "profit participation" right which may or may not be legal in China. The article also points out that much of Alibaba is not actually owned by the company but by Jack Ma personally, so no participation in that.

This is an interesting fact that none of the articles i've seen so far have mentioned. Do you know how Yahoo fits into this? is their stake in the holding company as well, or in Alibaba proper?

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#73

Post by jhancock »

prawks wrote: post #28
dengnan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also about the scale. Most of their services are top competitors in the market. For example, Alipay, or 支付宝, is the de facto online payment service in China. As far as I know, I cannot imagine another company which provides similar service in China. Part of the reason is the government regulation.

The thing I wonder about their status as a top competitor: how different would their status be in a less restrictive market? How does Alipay's user experience compare to Paypal's? Is it the lack of competition that has enabled them to expand their reach so widely (by not having to focus so much effort on each venture)? For example, the experience of shopping on AliExpress is (imo) sub-par when compared to most Wester…

see my reply to 'dengnan. Alipay has users' trust and to them it isn't a terrible experience. Alipay is a bit different than Paypal in the way it integrates with your Taobao purchases. Alipay, at least for Taobao purchases, acts as an escrow agent and is or at least was strongly aligned with the buyer. Paypal has/had a history of generally siding with buyer grievances but the mechanisms of this trust is different enough that Alipay's solution is tailored to the problem effectively.

To your question "Is it the lack of competition..." I would say this is not the case. There has been plenty of competition. Alipay grew its adoption on its integration with Taobao in similar ways as PayPal was integrated with eBay.

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#74

Post by anthonypham »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #63
instoftech wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government regulation is one reason. But there are many other reasons (some are arguably more important), one of which being localization. Check out other Asian markets (South Korea, Japan, Russia) and you may notice something interesting: many western companies failed to excel there too, even though there are no strict regulations. eBay was not affected by GFW when they competed with Alibaba's Taobao marketplace a f…

The biggest reason is that China is not a country ruled by fair application of law. To win in China, you have to be willing to bend the law as much as possible without getting slapped (or at least, just slapped on the wrists). American companies can't execute like that: if fuzzy application of Chinese law doesn't get them (either by getting slapped, or having to follow laws that their competitors don't have to), the…

You are right. There are several main reasons why US-based firms fail in China market. 1. Government regulation: China government and other centralized power governments such as Vietnam, and Russia always try to keep their eyes on Internet activities, audit informations on the Internet. These government's activities may put automated systems (algorithms) of US-based firms in difficult. It seem to violate the notion of free speech that US-based firms follow.

2. Illegal activities of these local firms: Does any US-based firm dare to share illegal documents, videos on their platform? This may be a big difference between US-based companies and Chinese's ones. Another aspect is under-table money, US companies are more more and more strictly regulated by law that prohibits them from giving under table money to local governors. There is ton of unethical ways that Chine firms can do to beat you.

3. Localization There is vast, majority people in developing countries who can't speak English;therefore, blocking them from approach US products. It turns to be a great opportunities copy-cat model for Chinese firms.

4. In some countries such as China, citizens more and more pride of their nation. Chinese are great in this aspect since they usually are member of various social guilds that respect and help each other. This tendency is in contrast to US culture that promotes individual. Thus, Chinese tend to use local products than US's one.

5. A firm in centralized governments such as China not only act as a business that seeks for profit but also act as a political tool for government. So, they receive a lot of support from government such as infrastructure, money, ...

For those above reasons, I totally think that Chinese firms are in great advantage to the competition in compare to US's ones. What I put in my consideration is how these Chinese firms can succeed in global, or Western market. If they win, what I cited above maybe wrong.

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#75

Post by adamwintle »

notatoad wrote: post #10

online payments ---- google wallet cloud services ---- google cloud platform mobile apps ---- google play mobile OS ---- android maps and nav ---- google maps physical retail ---- ? no google product shopping deals ---- google offers cloud storage ---- google drive instant messaging ---- google hangouts car service ---- uber (via google ventures) c2c ecommerce ---- ? no google product travel booking ---- google fligh…

Google have also quietly launched a global sourcing search engine, which covers most of the core features of Alibaba's main site: https://www.google.com/shopping/suppliers/

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#76

Post by cromwellian »

fspeech wrote: post #67
onewaystreet wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu were all founded by Chinese and are based in China. The Chinese government welcomes foreign investment as long as ownership remains Chinese. KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks have succeeded because the majority of their managers, owners and workers are Chinese.

Alibaba was at one time 40% owned by Yahoo and close to 40% by Softbank, with significant stakes by investors like Silver Lake and Digital Sky. Tencent was 46% owned by South African Naspers, which still owns 34%. Baidu was funded by Silicon Valley venture capital. Google actually contributed $5 million to Baidu's third round and offered to buy the whole for $1.6B (and allegedly could have cinched the deal if they ha…

Come now, Google China had onerous censorship provisions placed on it that it did not want to adhere to, and Google simply can't be a den of piracy like Baidu was.

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#77

Post by seanmcdirmid »

anthonypham wrote: post #74
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest reason is that China is not a country ruled by fair application of law. To win in China, you have to be willing to bend the law as much as possible without getting slapped (or at least, just slapped on the wrists). American companies can't execute like that: if fuzzy application of Chinese law doesn't get them (either by getting slapped, or having to follow laws that their competitors don't have to), the…

You are right. There are several main reasons why US-based firms fail in China market. 1. Government regulation: China government and other centralized power governments such as Vietnam, and Russia always try to keep their eyes on Internet activities, audit informations on the Internet. These government's activities may put automated systems (algorithms) of US-based firms in difficult. It seem to violate the notion o…

2. Actually, under US safe harbor law, providers are only liable to take down illegal content when notified of it; they do not need to be proactive about finding such content. This is quite different in China: providers must be proactive at finding illegal content...but its even worse than that...illegal content is vaguely defined (what is a state secrets? What goes against social harmony?).

3. US companies are more capable of not speaking English than Chinese companies are in not speaking Chinese. Spanish is already a big language in the US given our proximity to Mexico and South America. India and much of Africa speaks a western language (English, French, Portuguese) as a defacto unifying language...

4. Tell that to the Taiwanese, HK'ers, and Singaporeans who prefer Facebook and Twitter to Kaixing, Renren, or Weibo. Also, how many Chinese want to drive around in a QQ or Xiali vs. a Toyota or Audi? What about iPhone vs. Xioami? Chinese are much more open and pragmatic than say...the Japanese or Koreans.

5. The loans that the SOE's are getting today from the banks are really going to hurt us this year or the next. The whole solvency of the nation is at risk.

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#78

Post by cantankerous »

e_modad wrote: post #19
jfasi wrote: post #5

I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of se…

I wasn't born in the United States but my experience has been that Americans - in particular our colleagues involved in the sciences/technology are not only aware of what's going on, but interested in what's going on globally. I find it ironic that you're criticizing Western technologists on an US-based, tech centric website, where this post and your comment were up-voted to the top. If anything, this hints that your…

"Who will serve them? These are people just like us, they have needs and desires much like ours."

And they will be served by people just like us, technologists.

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#79

Post by jonnathanson »

jfasi wrote: post #5

I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of se…

"If you're an entrepreneur, there are millions if not billions of people who are on the cusp of becoming your target market..."

US entrepreneurs have a shot, but they'll be a day late and a dollar short in many of the more developed international markets right now. Especially in Asia, where local equivalents to all of these majors services have been around for about as long as Alibaba has. Not every market is as dominated by a handful of major tech giants as China's (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.). But most markets with widespread internet coverage and smartphone usage have their domestic megaplayers.

That's not to say these markets can't be penetrated. But we should realize that the world hasn't exactly held its breath waiting for our tech's arrival. It's been busy.

I agree that the US media haven't done much to cover these markets. But a lot of people who've done business overseas, particularly in mobile, have experienced them. American entrepreneurs have had the luxury to focus exclusively (or at least predominantly) on the American market for decades, because it's a huge and affluent market. But I agree; there are enormous opportunities abroad. Not many of them are blue oceans anymore, though.

One enormous challenge with developing technologies for truly global audiences is that the infrastructure, culture, and socioeconomic reality of most countries varies enormously. There isn't a homogeneous global consumer base, so much as a global consumer base fragmented by local idiosyncrasies. Navigating these is tricky, but worthwhile.

Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba

#80

Post by michaelrbock »

jfasi wrote: post #5

I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of se…

This is a great point. One example of a company doing this is Rocket Internet (http://www.rocket-internet.de/), a Germany-based "internet accelerator" that brings tech companies and services to developing/underserved markets. Some of their properties include foodpanda (http://www.foodpanda.com/, Grubhub/Seamless for SE Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America), easyTaxi (http://www.easytaxi.com/, the world's largest taxi booking app), Lazada (http://www.lazada.com/, Amazon for Indonesia and SE Asia).

They've raised over $4b and created over 20,000 jobs since they started in 2007. Pretty ingenious.

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