E-Commerce Strategies

This document discusses the e-commerce strategies used by Alibaba, including their competitive advantages, support services, and transaction patterns. It also explores the motivations for businesses and consumers to use Alibaba's services. The document provides insights into Alibaba's success in the Chinese market and the strategies they have adopted. It also highlights the importance of customer satisfaction, new transaction patterns, and the differences between B2B and B2C transactions.

E-Commerce Strategies

Contents
Question 1...............................................................................................................................3
Question 2...............................................................................................................................3
Question 3...............................................................................................................................4
Question 4...............................................................................................................................4
Question 5...............................................................................................................................5
Question 6...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Question 1
Ebay is another competitor which also deals in many of such similar services which are also
provided by Alibaba in china. Alibaba provides different services like business to business
transactions where the suppliers and needs of the buyers are matched. Here companies upload
their products and services which re open for sale and buyer upload their requirements.
Thereafter with the help of this site the requirements are matched with one another and
accordingly commission is earned on every successful exchange that take place (Wulf, 2010). It
has a separate site Alibaba.com which works in English language and make the sales possible
between the importers and exports from more than 240 countries. It increased the overall scope
of the business for china and now business can be done at huge scale. Another services are
provided in Chinese language which re facilitated through site 1688.com. this works for making
the transactions within China which are mostly made between the two different business (Wang
and et.al., 2018). Apart from this one touch services are also made available through Alibaba site
which help clients in reserving their space at the Chinese ports which helped much in the export
and important business.
Question 2
There are many competitive advantages with Alibaba among which the most important one
is of its global reach. Now it is doing its business in more than 200 countries which add much
strength to its existence. Strategies made by this firm are found to be beneficial as it earned great
return on its Initial public offering which it made in 2014. Since than the revenues of the
organisations are continuously growing. The volume of sales which are made by Ali baba are
more than the combine quantity sold by eBay and amazon (Shen, 2010). It has great dominance
in the china market and it is predicted that in the coming future the China e-commerce area will
be greater than that of US., Japan, Germany etc. Another competitive advantage which this site
has that it offers services in many different languages like Chinese, Japanese English etc. which
further rise its use at international level. Company has aggressively invested in its expansion and
now has market in India, Pakistan and Brazil too which shows that it has immense opportunities
to offer in the market. apart from this the referred to enterprise has challenged to create 1 million
jobs which is a huge number. This way it becomes a socially active organisation and hence can
enjoy the competitive advantage in the market. the sites are designed in a way that user do not

find it difficult to use and are user friendly (Hoffmann, 2010). This further add more popularity
to the brand name. Unlike other brands the return policies of this brand are very effective and
complete amount is re credited in the customer’s account if any mistake is made in the supply
process. not just this but also no action against the fake sellers were taken by the brand until the
issue is big and can affect the brand image to a great extent.
Question 3
There are a range of factors which act as motivations for businesses and consumers to use
and buy Alibaba’s services and some of the most common are discussed here in the below
section:
Support Services for Customer Satisfaction – The support system for users is very efficient
and grievances are solved as the earliest. A comfortable buying surroundings are provided to the
clients which helps them in selecting what is best for them (The Alibaba Ecosystem, 2014).
online trainings are also provided to the sellers which help them in best display of their goods
and services. Instant interaction tools are also made available which further add more quality to
the communication which take place between the seller and buyer.
New Transaction Patterns – Company has effectively replaced the traditional for of
transactions by facilitating immense use of C2B, O2O which facilitates customers with wide
choice.
Integrated Ecosystem – rather being limited to just an e commerce organisation Alibaba also
gives maximum efforts for being one of the most effective brand in delivering the quality
services by offering friendly services to its customers and clients (Chen, 2010).
 Alimama – An appropriate promotion platform uses by Alibaba for business to business
users.
 Immense data usage – The referred brand facilitates the advertisers with maximum
domains so that they can reach to more customers.
Question 4
Alibaba is e-commerce organisation that attain huge success in China. The main reason
behind this is that organisation is able to covert the online and internet users into their customers
successfully. The different number of strategies adopted by the management of organisation in
China that contributes in adherence of the path of success includes support services, integrated
eco-system, new transaction patterns and sensitivity to business opportunity. All these are work

as subsidiary and contributes in successful implementation of the main strategies too includes
Unique business model, profit model and credit model (Kim, Zhang and Zhang, 2016).
As unique business model major focus is provided over small enterprises and individuals.
This includes the usage of productive forces and diversified consumption choices in more
effective and productive manner.
The contribution of unique profit model is main in attainment of the success in less
period of time. This includes about charges for the services in marketing and technical support,
instead of for admission. This will provide an opportunity in creation of loyal customer base
along with attaining large market share. Also, the removal of intermediate fees and allowance to
sellers to register free build the culture of online transaction among the individual of China.
The use of credit model helps to develop trustworthy image. Here, all sellers are required
to pass online certification test for the purpose of verification of their identity. The important
effect of this ascertained over reduction in the amount of illegal transactions as all the sellers are
supervised on the platform. The additional layer of protection is provided where payment first
transferred to Ali-pay and after the confirmation of customers that they get the right product
released to the sellers (Yuan, 2018).
Currently, the group not used this medium to made transactions includes those belong
from lower middle class and have no information about the usage of technology along with their
benefits.
Question 5
There are many aspects which are important in nature and required to adhere for the
attainment of success at market place. The intense competition is present in e-commerce within
the China. To succeed in the market, Alibaba is required to adopt some important strategies that
provides an opportunity to attract the large number of customers towards their services along
with the attainment of competitive advantage in market (Burke and Eaton, 2016). The different
requirements which are needed to adhere for success are elaborated below:
Support services of for customer satisfaction: The customers are the main factor that
contribute in the success of every business. It is the duty of the management of an organisation
satisfy their demands irrespective of any issues present in market. The different requirements to
build the positive experience of customers towards the operations of Alibaba includes the
providence of comfortable purchasing environment, interaction of seller with buyer, business

training to sellers, usage of special coding system that help in management of large number of
stores and development of communication. All these are important and effective nature that
provides an opportunity to handle of the large number of customers easily along with the
fulfilment of their all requirements.
Application of new transaction patterns: The use of traditional pattern has impact over the
position of Alibaba in market and negatively impacts their position. Adoption of new creative
models help to attain success in market (Chen, 2011). All these models needed to adhere for long
period of time. These are named as customer to business transaction model and online to offline
model. These will help to save the time and cost along with improvement of profit margin.
Question 6
There is huge difference in the process of marketing and selling of goods to the
businesses and end customers. The impact is directly seen over the approach which they used in
respect to the both as their purpose is different. B2B includes the selling of goods and services in
between the two businesses whereas B2C is known as the transaction in between the business
and customer (Havinga, Hoving and Swagemakers, 2016). In the case of B2B, the major focus is
over the development of relationship whereas in the case of B2C, focus is provided over the
product as the end user only relation with their product. The number of quantities ordered in B2B
is large whereas as in B2C the amount is mall in nature. The cycle of buying and selling in
respect to the both case is different. In the relation to the B2B, it is long where as in B2C, it is
short in nature. So, the approach used in respect to both is different and unique that fulfils
separate purpose along with their satisfaction (Chen, 2010).

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Wulf, J., 2010. Alibaba Group. HBS Case, (710-436).
Wang, J. et.al., 2018, July. Billion-scale commodity embedding for e-commerce
recommendation in alibaba. In Proceedings of the 24th ACM SIGKDD International
Conference on Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining (pp. 839-848). ACM.
Shen, S., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, 2010. Method, System and Apparatus for Sorting Topics
within a Group. U.S. Patent Application 12/160,595.
Hoffmann, S., 2010 VODC Mini case study Alibaba Group.
Kim, S., Zhang, X.A. and Zhang, B.W., 2016. Self-mocking crisis strategy on social media:
Focusing on Alibaba chairman Jack Ma in China. Public Relations Review. 42(5).
pp.903-912.
Yuan, L., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, 2018. Payment system and method using IC identification
card. U.S. Patent 10,134,033.
Burke, Q.L. and Eaton, T.V., 2016. Alibaba group initial public offering: a case study of
financial reporting issues. Issues in Accounting Education Teaching Notes. 31(4). pp.75-
90.
Chen, H., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, 2011. Display screen with graphic user interface of a
search site. U.S. Patent Application 29/357,401.
Havinga, M., Hoving, M. and Swagemakers, V., 2016. Alibaba: a case study on building an
international imperium on information and E-Commerce. In Multinational Management
(pp. 13-32). Springer, Cham.
Chen, Y., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, 2010. Account Transaction Management Using Dynamic
Account Numbers. U.S. Patent Application 12/598,617.
Online
The Alibaba Ecosystem, 2014. [Online]. Available through <
file:///C:/Users/user006/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$DIa0.987/The%20Alibaba
%20Ecosystem(Additional%20reading).pdf>.