Those of us in the West have been using ecommerce sites lite Amazon and eBay since the dawn of the internet in the mid-1990’s, but as is often the case those who start second learn from others mistakes and are even more successful. Today every chain retailer has an ecommerce site but there are a few giant Chinese companies that are poised to take over the world so in this article we explain Alibaba vs Amazon.
There are dozens of highly successful ecommerce players in the Chinese market but we have decided to ignore (for now!) some giant competitors like TenCent.com, 1688.com and JD.com that are not expected to have a notable presence in Canada or the United States.
China is not kidding around and their companies are fierce competitors that you may not have heard of yet… but you will:
The original successful ecommerce behemoth based in the US with global operations run by an aggressive American with eyes on every prize.
The original auction site describe by many as the worlds largest garage sale, that has frittered away its giant lead in many fields including online payments, business to business sale and everything China.
Founded as the fourth (yes, 4th!) successful business-to-business giant the grew to be number one through the efforts of its visionary and humble founder Jack Ma and backed by Japan’s SoftBank.
AliBaba’s version of eBay that they developed into a success turning eBay China from the largest play to a completely lost cause in just two years.
Founded by former Microsoft, Cisco manager Diane Wang, the name DHgate refers to an important point on Silk Road linking the China to the rest of the world, that provides a platform for Asia Pacific companies to sell to consumers and is now the largest business to business platform in China.
Following the success of Alibaba’s Taobao, Banggood saw an opportunity to provide a platform for the millions of small and medium sized Chinese businesses to sell online to consumers, and has now grown to have serious warehouse operations in China, Australia, Europe and California.
Another Alibaba Jack Ma success, Tmall is the exclusive shopping site for validated (read: no knock offs) high quality major brands in China which costs tens of thousands of dollars per year for companies to operate on.
Yet another Jack Ma global expansion project, AliExpress is the global version of Taobao.com much like eBay.
| Amazon | eBay | Alibaba | TaoBao | DHgate | Banggood | Tmall | AliExpress | |
CORPORATE | ||||||||
| Year Founded | 1994 | 1995 | 1999 | 2003 | 2004 | 2006 | 2008 | 2010 |
| Pricing Model | Fixed Price | Mostly Auction | Fixed – Negotiable | Fixed – Negotiable | Fixed – Negotiable | Fixed | Fixed – Negotiable | Fixed – Negotiable |
| Primary Market | Global | Global – not China | Global | China | Global | Global | China | Global |
| Founded By | Jeff Bezos | Peirre Omidyar | Jack Ma | Jack Ma | Dianne Wang | Arron Chen | Jack Ma | Jack Ma |
| CEO in 2020 | Jeff Bezos | Scott Schenkel | Jack Ma | Jack Ma | Dianne Wang | Arron Chen | Jack Ma | Jack Ma |
| Parent Company | Amazon | eBay | Alibaba | Alibaba | DHGate | Banggood | Alibaba | Alibaba |
| Listing Fees | Yes | Seldom | Free to Start | No | No | ? | Large | Yes |
| Sales Fees | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
| Who Pays Sales Fees | Seller | Seller | Seller | Seller | Seller | ? | Seller | Seller |
| Minimum Order Size | 1 | 1 | Usually>100 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Number of Staff | 750000 | 14000 | 102000 | 400 | 568 | 4500 | 400 | 500 |
| # of Warehouses | 175 | Just transit | 173 – Video | See Alibaba | Several | 37 Global | See Alibaba | See Alibaba |
SCALE | ||||||||
| Global Sales USD | $90B | $22B | $55B | Large | Large | $.35B | Massive | Large |
| Number of Listings | 12M | 1.3B | ? | 1B | 33M | ? | 50M | 100M |
| Number of Sellers | 2M | 25M | 1M | 60M | 2.2M | ? | .2M | ? |
| Number of Buyers | 300M | 182M | 10M | 660M | 26M | ? | 500M | 60M |
| Country of Origin | US | US | China | China | China | China | China | China |
| Pref.Payment Proxy | CreditCard | PayPal | AliPay | AliPay | PayPal | PayPal | Alibaba | AliPay |
| Shipping Costs | Often free | Often Free | Mixed | Usually Free | Often free | Usually Free | Usually Free | Often Free |
CONSUMER | ||||||||
| Business to Business | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Business to Consumer | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Consumer to Consumer | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Buyer protection | Usually | Yes | Limited | Usually | Limited | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Privateproducts | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Delivery Time to US UK Canada | 1 Day | < 5 Days | 15-60 days | 15-60 days | 5-60 days | 15-60 days | 15-60 days | 15-60 days |
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