Beijing, China – 8 October 2008 – Taobao, China's largest consumer e-commerce company, today announced that its parent company, Alibaba Group, will invest RMB5 billion (US$[1]732 million) over the next five years to further strengthen the Taobao marketplace (www.taobao.com) as the shopping destination of choice for Chinese consumers. The investment will be used for building a world-leading platform for merchants and providing the best online shopping experience for consumers. In addition, Taobao will continue to offer its services for free to buyers and individual sellers.
Taobao is the most trusted online commerce platform for Chinese consumers. According to China IntelliConsulting Corporation, 33% of China's Internet users have shopped online and 76% of these users have purchased items on Taobao.
Since its founding in 2003, Taobao has created an e-commerce ecosystem consisting of 80 million registered users and over 1 million sellers, as well as third-party service providers in payment, logistics and verification and a network of 400,000 web publishers in its affiliate marketing program. Moreover, Taobao will soon open its technology platform to independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop applications for Taobao's substantial user base, including advanced product display and special visual effect functionalities.
With 200 million items in selection, Taobao gives Chinese consumers the most comprehensive product choice on the Internet. Today, Taobao takes care of the everyday shopping needs of Chinese consumers, who purchase items such as clothing, accessories, cosmetics, home appliances, mobile phones, computers and digital cameras.
Jonathan Lu, President of Taobao, said, "The RMB5 billion investment into the Taobao ecosystem demonstrates our long-term confidence in the Chinese economy, our optimism for China's domestic consumption and our commitment towards creating job opportunities for entrepreneurs who harness the power of the Taobao marketplace."
He continued, "Given the rapid growth of Internet use in China, we expect online shopping will become a mainstream Internet application in the near future. Today, only one-third of Internet users in China have shopped online and we believe that by continuing to offer Taobao's services for free we can accelerate e-commerce adoption and market growth."
According to iResearch, China's online shopping market grew in gross merchandise volume (GMV) from RMB16 billion in 2005 to RMB56 billion in 2007. iResearch further projects that industry GMV will be RMB126 billion in 2008, growing to exceed RMB500 billion by 2011. The 33% online shopping penetration rate estimated by China IntelliConsulting Corporation in September 2008 has increased from 26% estimated by iResearch in 2007.
Source: http://news.alibaba.com/
The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) , the government owned nodal agency for cotton trading in India has reduced the sale price of the Gujarat grown variety of cotton; Shankar-6. CCI has brought down the price of cotton by around Rs 400 per candy.
CCI is currently selling Shankar – 6 variety of cotton at Rs 23,100 per candy against Rs 23,500 per candy prevailing one week back. CCI in the current cotton season has purchased cotton totaling to 10 million bales across all varities.
Fibre2fashion spoke to Mr Subhash Grover, Managing Director of Cotton Corporation of India, who replied by saying that, “Since February and till the second week of April, prices of cotton were going high”.
He added by saying, “Due to reduced demand by mills and no feasibility of export of cotton, since third week of April prices have started going down by 300 to 400 Rs per candy”.
Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/
The Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Surat Embroidery Association had recently organised a textile exhibition ‘fibre to fashion Expo 2009’, which ran from April 17-21, 2009 and received enthusiastic participation from exhibitors and visitors alike from across India.
The trade fair had around 120 participants from across the spectrum of the value chain extending from textiles to clothing like fibres, yarns, fabrics, accessories, packaging, technical textiles, machinery and many other sub-categories from the sector. Alongside, seminars had also been arranged to impart technical knowledge.
One of the exhibitors was a software company called Exilant Consulting which is a leading provider of information technology services. Exilant has developed best-in-class software for the apparel industry, which enables cycle time reduction, improvement of process efficiencies and lowering cost of manufacture.
‘SEAMLESS-ERP’ offers features that no other apparel manufacturing software does since it has been designed to address problems faced by the industry. It covers every aspect of the apparel manufacturing process, be it, merchandizing, costing, sampling, fabric and trims procurement, stores, shipping and production.
Speaking exclusively to Fibre2fashion, Mr Rajesh Dwivedi, Customer Relations Manager at Exilant reminisced about his wonderful experiences at the fair and said, “We are participating at the ‘fibre to fashion’ expo at Surat for the first time and I must say that the industry here is overwhelmingly huge and dynamic”.
Brimming with excitement, he continued, “With large capacities in the fields of embroidery, weaving, fabric processing and apparel manufacturing, Surat is bound to become one of the biggest clusters for the related business in the world in the near future”.
“Being a software product solution provider for the textiles and the garment industry across the subcontinent and beyond, we believe that Surat has to take a head start to inculcate best practices driven through automated business solution”, he exuberantly added .
He said, “This would empower the business owners to compete with the best worldwide through enhanced capabilities on on-time delivery, quality creativity and flexibility. Usage of web based ERP solutions would help the manufacturers to effectively control and manage their multi-location manufacturing, processing and trading centers.
He concluded by saying, “Such technological tools are also critical to facilitate and sustain a fast paced expansion, what we could understand most of the business/manufacturers here are aiming at".
Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/
The global trade in green products is increasing dramatically, according to popular searches on Alibaba.com, the world’s leading B2B e-commerce company.
Analysts had forecast that the multibillion-dollar green products market would lose momentum as consumers worldwide curtail their spending due to the economic downturn, but this trend is not supported by data collected by Alibaba.com. In fact, searches for alternative energy resources such as solar and wind, electric cars, bio-diesel and organic products increased steadily on Alibaba.com over the past two years, driven by growing mainstream environmental awareness, especially in developed countries along with large-scale government initiatives towards clean energy.
Historic rises in oil prices, which peaked at a record US$147 per barrel in the third quarter of 2008, further intensified global attention on the need for alternative energy. This is clearly reflected in the 67 percent increase in searches, particularly for solar energy products, on Alibaba.com during the same period compared to the third quarter of 2007, when oil prices were just US$77 per barrel.
Solar-powered energy and organic products are the fastest growing green sectors on Alibaba.com, increasing 71 percent and 68 percent year-on-year, respectively, in the first quarter of 2009. Solar lights are among the hottest green items sold online as some countries in Europe as well as the US move to replace traditional street lights with sun-powered alternatives. This trend is not just at a governmental level, as businesses and factories also move towards solar power for their outdoor lighting. Power savings and consumption reduction used to be the main objective for this shift, but the recession has brought other imperatives to the forefront, such as cost cutting.
“Despite the downturn, online trade in environmentally friendly products is holding up well. This is because going green not only saves money but also creates money, especially as more entrepreneurs develop innovative products to support growing global demand. Also, many consumer-based green options, such as switching to solar lights, both make economic sense and protect the environment. Entrepreneurs and SMEs are realizing that green is good business, as long as there is a fiscal motivation as well as an environmental one,” said David Wei, the CEO of Alibaba.com.
While consumers are lured to the “feel good” and cost-saving benefits of the green sector, entrepreneurs see a new growth industry with lots of business potential. Green technology is becoming more accessible to businesses of all sizes as costs are declining, and favorable government legislation and tax subsidies make it more sustainable. All these factors have led to exponential growth of the market for green goods.
“Climate change is having a positive impact on our business. Our sales have been growing by 30 to 40 percent over the past three years thanks to strong demand for green products from customers in the US, Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia. Solar lighting products are our most popular selling items,” said Xiao Benpeng, the International Trade Manager for Huangshi Donper Mech-Electric Group Solar Energy Co., Ltd., a Hubei-based company specializing in high-tech solar energy products and a member of Alibaba.com.
According to US President Barack Obama's stimulus bill, 10 percent of the funding will be allocated to environmental projects. In his inauguration speech, Obama pledged that America “will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories,” which has set the tone for the West, while China is committed to generate 16 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
“Around US$30 billion of China’s huge stimulus package is to be invested in energy conservation and ecological engineering. These large scale projects are going to have a major impact in driving awareness of green power and the desire for smaller-scale eco-friendly alternatives will escalate significantly, if not exponentially. Green is one of the new opportunities for entrepreneurs around the world, and e-commerce is clearly going to be the platform through which a significant amount of that business is conducted,” Wei concluded.
Source: http://uk.sys-con.com/
Hong Kong, July 18, Alibaba.com, the most-visited B2B marketplace on the Internet in terms of user traffic, and Hannover Fairs Shanghai Ltd, (HFS), the Chinese subsidiary of Deutsche Messe, a world leading organizer of trade fairs and exhibitions, today signed a strategic partnership to promote CeBIT Asia to Alibaba.com's millions of buyers and sellers.
CeBIT Asia will be held from October 10-13, 2007 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre and is run by Hannover Fairs China Ltd. The annual event enjoys broad support from the ICT sectors and application industries, professional associations, and boasts a strong lineup of businesses from China and abroad, including Germany, Australia, USA, Korea, and India. Last year, CeBIT Asia attracted 324 exhibitors and 38,238 visitors. This year, the show will join hands with PTC Asia and CeMAT Asia and collectively is expected to draw more than 2,000 exhibitors and 70,000 visitors.
This partnership aims to unite the online and offline trade communities, providing global buyers and sellers with more opportunities to connect and trade. Exhibitors are expected to achieve a higher return on investment as this cooperation will lead to more promotions online and at the trade show, thereby improving deal closing rates.
The announcement is part of the growth of Alibaba.com's Trade Show Partnership program launched in February last year. The CeBIT Asia cooperation is the first phase in a partnership that could eventually include fairs in Europe, the United States and the rest of Asia.
"Our cooperation with Alibaba.com, one of the world's largest online B2B marketplaces, will help us draw more qualified visitors from across the world with a tangible willingness to invest and significantly extend the reach of CeBIT Asia," said Mr. Fu Yu, Managing Director of Hannover Fairs China Ltd. "Moreover, it will effectively expand the exhibition coverage from several days to all year round."
"This is a major step forward in our Trade Show Partnership program," said David Wei, President of Alibaba.com. "CeBIT combines innovative products and quality suppliers with a huge networking platform. Alibaba.com does the same in the virtual world. Electronic components and supplies is one of the most popular categories on Alibaba.com, so CeBIT Asia is an ideal event to kick off our collaboration with Deutsche Messe."
CeBIT Hannover is Deutsche Messe's flagship event and is the world's largest exhibition. It attracted 480,000 international visitors earlier this year. In addition to CeBIT, Deutsche Messe has a large portfolio of leading international events, including Hannover Messe (industrial technology) and Biotechnica (biotechnology). Its main exhibition facility in Hannover, Germany is the world's largest, measuring over one million square meters and attracting 1.79 million trade show visitors per year.
Source: http://news.alibaba.com/
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