E-commerce

From Internet marketplaces Alibaba of e-commerce .com and Taobao.com to online payment tool Alipay, Yahoo! China and business management software Alisoft, Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, seems to be riding high on a wave of hi-tech.Many industry observers are raising the question - what is his next step?
And he does have more plans. The 42-year-old e-commerce leader gave his reply during the Fourth Alibaba Online Businessman Forum held in mid-September, when Ma made an hour-and-a-half speech on his strategic vision.More than once Ma stressed the concept of the "ecology" of the sector."Alibaba's business has been expanding and will continue to do so. I have never been more excited and confident in Alibaba's direction forward," says Ma.
"In the next five to 10 years we will invest 10 billion yuan to create a mature e-commerce environment, offering a package of value-added services to both current and potential customers, both at home and abroad," he says.The services will range from pre-transaction internet training programs to online payment tools and post-transaction logistics and financing support.But Ma has is not content with the status quo, given the vast business potential of China's e-commerce market.
"In the next decade, the local (e-commerce) industry will be enjoying high rates of sustainable growth. Now is only a starting point for Alibaba," he says.Ma's projection is in line with statistics from iResearch. The consultancy projects the local e-commerce market will grow 50 percent annually, reaching revenues of 7.5 trillion yuan in 2012, up from 480.9 billion yuan in 2006.
Yet the number of local companies now using e-commerce as a business tool is still small. A report from Alibaba says that sales from online transactions in 2006 accounted for just 16.62 percent of the nation's total. The figure was even smaller in 2005, when 9.85 percent of sales were made online.