What is Alibaba?

the traditional marketplace has seen little change over the past 200 years you've got a buyer you've got a seller which then leads to a transaction but over the past couple of decades things have started to change at an unprecedented pace and perhaps no company is reshaping that experience more than Alibaba Alibaba is one of the world's largest retailers the company has more than 500 million people using its shopping apps every month and if you're thinking its scale is limited to China well think again it has operations in more than 200 countries the company was founded by CEO Jack Ma in 1999 with 17 other people and he knew he was onto something big when I have a competitor like Google and eBay in their closet choice local company we can learn a lot which improve ourselves they should be careful of us Alibaba set the record for the biggest IPO in history which took place at the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 and this year Alibaba was the first company in Asia to exceed the 400 billion dollar valuation mark in honor that had previously only been held by American companies Alibaba is amongst other global e-commerce Giants transforming the marketplace from this this the company is made up of three main sites Taobao tea mall and Alibaba calm combined they have hundreds of millions of users and hosts millions of merchants and businesses which means they can pretty much be used by anyone anywhere for anything so how does it even work meet our fictional character Jane she lives in Beijing Jane wants to buy a new blender so she logs onto Taobao she finds when she likes being sold by let's say Chris he lives in Shanghai and sells the blenders to individuals at a competitive price when Jane goes to check out she doesn't use her credit card she uses a li pay to purchase the item think of it like using PayPal Chris then accepts the Ali pay payment from Jane so where did the supplier Chris get the blenders from well he bought a supply of 1000 units on 1688 dot-com the popular Chinese version of Alibaba com it sells bulk orders to suppliers like himself he bought his batch from a manufacturer named Keith on team'll which allows businesses to sell wholesale Keith owns a blender company and production facility in Shenzhen which produces the items and other kitchen appliances previously Kris only sold to individual buyers in China but recently he's listed his blenders on Aliexpress which sells to customers outside of China so now Laura who's living in California and found the blender on Aliexpress can also buy it from Chris and yes she can even use Ali pay - of course importing products from China into the u.s.

is nothing new the difference now anyone in the world can do it from their mobile device and all through the same company but it's not only e-commerce Chris has been selling so many blenders lately that he wants to grow his business faster but he doesn't have the money to buy more units from Keith so Chris uses ant financial to get financing the loan helps him order an extra ten thousand units so for buying selling digital payments and even financing you've done it all in alibaba's platforms and Alibaba now includes a shipping company a messaging app a movie studio named Alibaba pictures and more alibaba's growth is primarily fueled by China's massive population and rising middle class but Jack Ma who wants aural domination for the company that's why Alibaba is investing heavily in companies and other markets as well most of which are also being pursued by Amazon the marketplace as we know it has changed forever and it's likely going to be companies like Alibaba which continue to lead its evolution [Music] hey it's Upton thanks for watching for more of our videos check out wise Hong Kong housing so expensive here and see how China is threatening Asians financial center here we're also taking suggestions for our neck CNBC explains so leave your comments in the section below and while you're at it subscribe to our Channel