Tag Archives: Jack Ma

China’s Singles’ Day Breaks Records Again

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In the United States online consumers let loose on Cyber Monday; and in China shoppers

An illustration for the Chinese e-commerce holiday Singles’ Day. Courtesy Chrionexfleckeri1350.

run wild on what is known there as “Singles’ Day.” This year Singles’ Day saw online shoppers shell out over $14 billion within only the first two hours of commencement, flying past last year’s record of $25 billion in sales for the entire 24 hours.

Singles’ Day began ten years ago as a bit of a joke when unmarried students honored  choose November 11, the eleventh day of the eleventh month, or also known as “Double 11” day to celebrate their own single status. The ad hoc holiday was co-opted by retailers, creating a day of online buying and sales.

China’s own version of Twitter, Weibo, was swarming wit

h posts about Singles’ Day; some saying how proud they were to have resisted the temptation to make a purchase, while others bragged about the great deals they got.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, the platform where the crazy commerce took place, said that Singles Day is “not a day of discounts, but rather a day of gratitude. Speaking in a video which was shown at the start of the party celebrating the event he added, “It’s when retailers use the best products and best prices to show their gratitude to our consumers.”

Not everyone agrees that Singles’ Day is a day of gratitude. One economics professor, Hong Tao of Beijing Technology and Business University, said that the event encourages consumers to prefer cheap prices over high quality, causing them to buy things they definitely do not need.

“People are swept up in the festivities,” Hong said in a phone interview. “This burst of consumption, confined to just one day, can be exhausting for both buyers and sellers.”

There is also a negative environmental impact to all the unneeded buying. Although Alibaba and its close competitor JD.com have both promised to use packaging that is recyclable, research done by Greenpeace East Asia said much of the plastic that is marked as biodegradable and used by Chinese online sellers, really needs extremely high temperatures in order to fully break down. Those recycling facilities are scattered across China, and in small numbers. Greenpeace said that they are forecasting that within just two years this so-called “biodegradable” packaging might account for about 721 truckloads of garbage produced every single day in China.

Alibaba’s Jack Ma Promises to Bring Jobs to USA

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Jack Ma Yun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba Group, is seen on a monitor during the The Future of the Global Economy. Photo courtesy World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland.

In the wake of the meeting between US President-elect Donald Trump and Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma, an Alibaba spokesman announced the company’s plan to incorporate and additional one million small US businesses onto its e-commerce platform.

The Chinese-based internet company, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, predicts that the plan, to be implemented over the next five years, will create about one million new US jobs as each business adds at least one employee. This is not the first-time Alibaba has suggested to bring more small US businesses into their enormous marketplace, but it is the first time specific target numbers have been suggested.

The meeting between the leaders took place at Trump Tower in New York, where the president-elect lives. Trump said the meeting was “great” and added that they would do “great things” together. Ma said Trump was “smart” and “open-minded.”

Ma said the focus of the meeting was to discuss the best ways to support small businesses, especially in Midwest America. The idea would be to introduce the products from farmers and small clothing-manufacturers to the vast Chinese market directly through Alibaba.

Alibaba has been aggressively pursuing foreign brands to set up Tsmall stores, their online platform which offers virtual store fronts and payment portals to merchants. His goal is to simplify the sales, payment and shipping process for the vast and growing Chinese shopper which Ma is relentlessly attracting to his e-commerce website.

Right now, there are about 7,000 US brands sitting on Alibaba’s Tmall, including US giants such as wholesaler Costco Wholesale Corp and clothing manufacturer Levi’s. Last year these companies made $15 billion in sales to Chinese consumers, although some foreign retailers say they have had a mixed success on Tmall.

Last month the US Trade Representative put Alibaba back on to an infamous list of blacklisted online retailers due to suspicions that the company does not do enough to end counterfeiting on their site.

What Does Alibaba’s Entrance on the NYSE Mean for US Businesses?

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Good News for Small Business? Wait and See
Good News for Small Business? Wait and See

Investors can celebrate now that the Chinese enormous e-commerce business Alibaba has brought billions to several mega-wealthy players. Friday’s IPO of Alibaba reaped a wildly huge amount of money for its owner and founder Jack Ma to the tune of $18 billion. Several other well-placed personages, including Japan’s richest man, Masayoshi Son woke up on Saturday quite a bit richer. And the US-based Yahoo also saw a nice profit from its stake in Alibaba. What about the little guy? How have smaller US businesses been impacted by this historic Wall Street event?

Jack Ma says Alibaba’s success will bring success to regular businessmen.

“At Alibaba, we fight for the little guy, the small businessmen and women and their customers,” CEO Jack Ma said. “Our proposition is simple: we want to help small businesses grow by solving their problems through Internet technology.”

Is this really true? CEO Michael Tudor of Ripen eCommerce, a consulting firm for online retailers, agrees with Ma. Tudor says that Alibaba will help businesses “establish themselves in the Chinese market.”