INTRODUCTION

The broadest definition of e-commerce is "the

conduct of transactions by electronic means." In
the interest of water safety, this series will sail in a
smaller pond. We will focus specifically on
purchases of goods and services from online stores
on the Web. Because this is an introductory course
with a limited schedule, we will focus our study
around the needs of a fictional e-enterprise,
ComeStudyAbroad.com, which has no bricks-and-
mortar counterpart, deals only in electronic
information, and does not engage in sales of
physical goods.
A client who purchases on the Internet is called
a cyberconsumer. E-Commerce is not only limited
to online sales, but also covers:
Preparation of estimates online

Consulting of users

Provision of an electronic catalog

Access plan to point of sales

Real-time management of product availability

(stock)
Online payment

Delivery tracking

After-sales service
In certain cases, electronic commerce makes it
possible to highly customize products, in particular
when the electronic commerce site is linked with
the production system of the enterprise (e.g.
business cards, customized items such as T-shirts,
cups, caps, etc.)
Finally, insofar as electronic services and products
are concerned (MP3 files, software programs, e-
books, etc.), electronic commerce makes it possible
to receive the purchase in a very short time, if not
immediately.
RELEVANCE OF
E-COMMERECE
Relevance of E-commerce in 21st century:
E-commerce have shown enormous growth in the
last few years. Sources say that the retail e-
commerce sales around world will reach 12.8% in
the year 2019 from 7.4% in 2015 (source 1). Get
your store online, expand your boundaries and do
not limit your customer reach, if not you will be left
behind in the market share.
E-commerce is popular because of its vast
advantages. It is very convenient for everyone to
shop anytime, anywhere and in any device instead
of visiting the shops in person. Researching the
products online is much simpler and more efficient
than in stores with features like product
comparisons which are offered by most e-
commerce portals.
Running an e-commerce business requires far less
capital investments compared to owning physical
shops. No need to invest on recruiting sales staff,
rentals for high end retail stores and unwanted
overheads. The only responsibility on you have in
an online shop is to promote your website and
deliver quality products on-time to the customers.
1. E-Commerce Influences Purchase Decisions
When customers are deciding on a purchase, they
start by looking online.
Your website is your showroom, where customers
can research your product and see all the reasons
it is right for them.
2. E-Commerce Taps into Social Media
It's a social world out there, with customers turning
to social media such as Facebook and Twitter to
research potential purchases.
3. E-Commerce Is Convenient
Whether they're just getting through the door after
a 10-hour work day, or getting the shopping done
at the crack of dawn before the kids get up,
customers appreciate the convenience of online
shopping.

4. E-Commerce Can Broaden Your Brand

E-Commerce can be used in ways a traditional
bricks and mortar store couldn't, whether that is by
offering intangible products, providing some kind of
web search, or giving customers the ability to order
a product to their exact specifications.
 INTRODUCTION
TO E-COMMERCE
COMPANY
 Alibaba

Alibaba is the world's biggest e-commerce

platform. Over 420 million people scooped up $485
billion worth of stuff last fiscal year on Alibaba's
sites. The company went public in 2014, raising
$25 billion -- more than Facebook -- in the largest
offering in the history of the New York Stock
Exchange. Here are key things to know:

WHAT IS ALIBABA?
Alibaba's e-commerce platforms cater to both
Chinese and global consumers, though the majority
of its transactions are generated domestically. At
its heart is Taobao, a Chinese consumer-to-
consumer website much like eBay. Tmall offers
merchants official storefronts to consumers in
China. Alibaba and AliExpress connect businesses
in China with buyers around the world.

WHAT ELSE DOES ALIBABA DO?

Alibaba has a financial affiliate that also runs a
leading online payment platform called Alipay.
Alibaba has stakes in Sina Weibo, China's version of
Twitter, as well as Youku Tudou, a video platform
akin to YouTube. It's also a major backer of Didi
Chuxing, China's dominant ride-hailing app and an
investor in Uber rival Lyft in the U.S. It has made
investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars
each into various sectors including Singapore's
postal service, the photo- and video-sharing app
Snapchat, newspaper publisher South China
Morning Post group and upstart Chinese
smartphone maker Meizu. It's building up a cloud
computing and internet infrastructure business,
setting up data centers in the U.S. and elsewhere
in the world.
WHO'S BEHIND THE COMPANY?
Alibaba was founded in the living room of Jack
Ma, a former English teacher. A self-made
billionaire, Ma is a folk hero to some Chinese.
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE HATE ALIBABA?
There is widespread suspicion that Alibaba
knowingly profits from the sale of fakes on its
platforms - a point Gucci America, among
others, has made in an ongoing U.S. lawsuit.
Some brands complain about how slow and
difficult it is to get fakes removed from
Alibaba's sites. Alibaba says it has spent tens
of millions of dollars on anti-counterfeiting
and that it is constantly trying to improve its
systems.
WHERE'S THE NAME FROM?
Ma wanted a name people around the world
would recognize. He asked a waitress in a San
Francisco restaurant if she recognized the
name Alibaba and she said, "Yes, open
sesame!" Drawn from "Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves," the name stuck.
COMPETITORS
 Global Competitors

Amazon.com Inc

Amazon.com Inc , founded in 1944, is a Fortune

100 company. The company in its model is much
closer to the traditional style of retailing, as it
indulges in direct selling, owning distribution
centers and warehouses (unlike Alibaba). Amazon
has built a strong reputation among its customers
by providing satisfactory service and customer
experience.

eBay Inc
Alibaba is closer to eBay in its set-up, bringing
buyers and sellers together on a platform and even
providing a payment system like eBays PayPal,
called AliPay. According to eBays 10-K, it
is primarily a transaction-based business that
generates revenue from the transactions and
payments that we successfully enable.

Tencent

Tencent, primarily an internet company, was

founded in 1998. With its steady growth over the
years, it is among the largest and widely used
Internet service portals in China. The companys
stock, Tencent Holdings Limited (0700.HK) is listed
on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

JD.com
JD.com is Chinas largest direct online sales
company in terms of transaction volume, with
a market share in China of 54.3% in the second
quarter of 2014, according to iResearch. JD.com is
similar to Amazon.com Inc in its business model it
involves in direct sales, holds inventory,
manages logistics and shipping the way a typical
ecommerce company works. The company is listed
in the U.S.
ARCHITECTURAL
FRAMEWORK OF
THE COMPANY
Architectural framework of Alibaba:

According to Zhu, there are 3 pillars for artificial

intelligence learning and decision making.
The first is big data, as petabytes or megabytes
data are just the foundation pool for machine
learning and pattern recognition. The second is
cloud computing, as cloud would facilitate high
performance, scalability, accessibility, cheap cost,
and security of computation. The third is research
innovations on both algorithm and CPU chips
level.
Zhu also pinpointed the features of global
machine learning platforms. For example,
Amazon has launched machine learning in its web
service platform, but only supports very limited
functions like regression and classification.
Googles cloud platform, Tenserflow, is quite
advanced and open sourced, and perhaps the best
for professional developers, as the technical bar is
rather high for people who dont know Python.
Microsofts machine learning platform, Azure, has
a relatively more user friendly graphical interface.
In this respect, Alibaba s Platform of Artificial
Intelligence (PAI), is more like Microsofts style.
Dr. Zhu also demonstrated the features and
functions of Alibabas cloud-based and graphical
platform (PAI): searching experiments, components
and models, managing experiments, exploring data
tables, listing algorithms and tools, managing
models, generating binary classification and editing
diffusion matrix. In search for data intelligence, PAI
is now based on big data collection and analytics,
comprehensive data-mining, distributed
computing, and advanced algorithm.
According to Zhu, PAIs customers include
traditional giants (like Sinopac, CNPC, etc.),
startups, governments (Zhejiang provincial
governments meteorological administration and
traffic management), and researchers (like data
scientists, engineers, and developers).
TECHNOLOGY
BEHIND THE
COMPANY
Alibaba Groups cloud computing arm, develops
highly scalable platforms for cloud computing and
data management. It provides a
comprehensive suite of cloud computing services
to support participants of Alibaba Groups online
and mobile commerce ecosystem, including sellers
and other third-party customers and businesses.
Alibaba Cloud is a business within Alibaba Group.
 MONEY
TRANSACTION
AND SAFETY
FEATURES
Alibaba.com Transaction Services Agreement:

Contracting Party. This Agreement is entered

into between you (also referred to as Member
hereinafter) and the Alibaba.com entity listed
below (Alibaba.com or we) for use of
Alibaba.coms certain transaction services as
described below. If you are registered or resident
outside the mainland China, you are contracting
with Alibaba.com Singapore E-Commerce Private
Limited (incorporated in Singapore with Company
Reg. No. 200720572D).
 Transactional Terms. Alibaba.com provides an
online transaction platform and ancillary services
(Transaction Services) on the Alibaba.com Sites
which allow registered members of the
Alibaba.com Sites to conclude online transactions
for products or services within the Alibaba.com
Sites subject to the terms of this Agreement.
General Terms. You agree that you shall also
comply with relevant rules and policies published
on the Alibaba.com Sites which are also
incorporated into this Agreement by reference
(General Terms). The General Terms include
without limitation:
Terms of Use;
Product Listing Policy;
Privacy Policy; and
Binding Agreement. This Agreement, including
the Transactional Terms and the General Terms,
and,to the extent as applicable, the Alipay Services
Agreement and the Alibaba.com Supplemental
Services Agreement, form a legally binding
agreement between you and Alibaba.com in
relation to your use of the Transaction Services. By
accessing and using the Transaction Services, you
agree to accept and be bound by this Agreement.
Please do not use the Transaction Services if you
do not accept all of the terms of this Agreement.

Amendments. You acknowledge and agree that

Alibaba.com may amend any terms of this
Agreement including the Transactional Terms and
the General Terms at any time by posting the
relevant amended and restated version on the
Sites. The amended terms shall be effective
immediately upon posting. By continuing to use
the Transaction Services, you agree that the
amended terms will apply to you. This Agreement
may not otherwise be amended except in writing
by an authorized officer of Alibaba.com.
Safety verifications by Alibaba
BENEFITS OF E-
COMMERCE
Some advantages of alibaba for customers
and other businesses:

The first advantage is location--China. With 560

million Internet users spending 20 hours a week
online, China is by far the largest Internet market
in the world--twice the size of the U.S. market. And
notably, China is skipping traditional retailing in
favor of e-tailing.
Just as China jumped straight to wireless
communications, China may skip a generation of
brick-and-mortar retail build-out through
aggressive e-commerce adoption, writes Ken Hao.
This generates great growth opportunities for
Internet retailers, especially for early movers like
Alibaba.
The second advantage is economies of scope;
the cost savings associated with the offering for
sale of different products by a single corporation
through the same sales channels. In this case,
sites. Alibaba has two retail sites Taobao, which
features thousands of non-brand name products
sold by smaller-unknown merchants; and Tmall, for
brand name products. The variety of products
offered on each side, especially Taobao is
astonishing.
The third advantage is scale, the cost savings
associated with a larger volume of sales. What
sets Alibaba apart is size, writes Juro Osawa. The
company has said that Taobao and Tmall account
for more than half of all parcel deliveries in China.
In 2012, the combined transaction volume of
Taobao and Tmall topped one trillion yuan ($163
billion), more than Amazon and eBay combined.
The fourth advantage, and perhaps the most
important, is networking, the benefits arising
from an expanding network of users of a product or
service. The larger the network, the more valuable
the product becomes to each user.
Alibaba is a form of collective entrepreneurship
between the company and thousands of merchants
that join the network -- Alibaba provides the
platform, and the merchants provide the products.
This model, which relies on revenue sharing rather
than listing fees, makes it easier for additional
merchants to join the network. And the larger the
network, the greater the benefits for each
merchant, as it attracts a large volume of customer
traffic.
The fifth advantage is Alibabas good
relations with the Chinese government.
Though such relations are important in every
country, they are particularly important in China,
where the government is the gatekeeper of the
economy, deciding who will be in what business
and for how long.
Alibaba, for instance, was one of the five
companies chosen by the Chinese government to
enter Internet banking, an enormous opportunity in
a country where banks are owned by the
government.
These are significant competitive advantages for
Alibaba but are they sustainable?
Most likely not. For three reasons. First, Alibabas
model that charges no listing fees and has no
warehouses to keep inventories makes it very likely
to be replicated by othersmuch easier than
Amazons model.
Second, Chinas Internet economy is highly
competitive, with new competitors entering quickly
and eroding operation margins, as we wrote in a
previous piece.
 LIMITATIONS
AND
CHALLENGES
FACED BY THE
COMPANY
Limitations faced by Alibaba:

Cheaper quality. Not saying all the quality will

be bad but the perceived quality is lower.
Made in America is usually associated with
quality. Made in China more so with high
quantity, low quality. .
Language barrier Offer hard to communicate
with suppliers. Can cause mistakes.
 Little to no intellectual property protection
Your stuff can be copied. They did it with Beats
by Dre and will do it to anyone.
Longer shipping time Shipping from China
can take weeks or months depending on how
you order.
Extra costs You have to pay shipping fees,
duty costs on big shipments. be sure to ask
Scammers With anything there are big
scammers in China. People who disguise
themselves as suppliers and take money from
distant entrepreneurs. Make sure to do your
research.
Challenges faced by Alibaba:
Government structural control over internet
pipes
Alibaba noted that almost all access to the
Internet is maintained through state-owned
telecommunication operators and under ministry
regulatory control. This means it does not have
access to any alternative networks in the event of
disruptions, failures or other problems with Chinas
Internet infrastructure.
The challenge of monetizing mobile traffic
As access via mobile to Alibabas services
increases, it will need to be able to monetize the
platform as effectively as it does over the desktop.
In the interim, this could be a tough transition
which even Facebook is grappling with.

To date we have chosen not to display as many

marketing impressions on our mobile apps as
compared to whats on our personal computer-
based websites, Alibaba noted in its filing,
referring to its priority in attracting users first.
Tighter regulations over Alipay
Alibaba currently relies heavily on Alipay to
conduct payment processing and escrow services
in its marketplaces. The risk is that Alipays
business is highly regulated, so any further
clampdown could disrupt the business or increase
costs.
The company pointed out that regulators and third
parties in China have been increasing their focus to
online and mobile payment services, such as those
provided by Alipay. Recent examples include large
commercial banks in China reducing their existing
limits on transfers to linked accounts.
We rely on the convenience and ease of use that
Alipay provides to our users. If the quality, utility,
convenience or attractiveness of Alipays services
declines as a result of these limitations or for any
other reason, the attractiveness of our
marketplaces could be materially and adversely
affected, Alibaba noted. It added shifting to any
other provider would also see it no longer getting
the preferential terms from Alipay.
CONCLUSION
Alibaba Group makes it easy for anyone to buy or
sell online anywhere in the world. Alibaba group is
a family of Internet-based businesses that includes
business-to-business international trade, online
retail and payment platforms and data-centric
cloud computing services. The Group was founded
in 1999 by Jack Ma, a pioneer who has aspired to
help make the Internet accessible, trustworthy and
beneficial for everyone. The privately held Alibaba
Group reaches Internet users in more than 240
countries and regions, and employs 17,000 people
in more than 50 cities in Greater China, Japan,
Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.
(www.news.alibaba.com)

There are many companies partnered with Alibaba

group. Such companies:
Alibaba.com - Global leader in business-to-business
e-commerce

Taobao - China's largest Internet retail website and

one-stop platform for shopping, socializing and
information sharing

Alipay - China's leading third-party online payment

platform

Alibaba Cloud Computing - Developer of advanced

data-centric cloud computing services

China Yahoo! - One of China's leading Internet

portals

Although, since Alibaba group was found in 1999,

and won more than 6 awards and honors, I
recommend that the marketing management of
Alibaba group should look into consideration to
their promotional strategy. In fact, more of public
relations and advertising will pump up awareness.
Doing so, the group may benefit more buyers and
seller; after all, that is the marketing objective of
the group.
APPENDIX
 REFERENCE
&
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Google.com
Alibaba.com
Wikipedia.org
Azquotes.com
Google images