Dive Brief:
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Hangzhou, China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will unveil a U.S. e-commerce website, 11Main.com. The new site will operate through Alibaba subsidiaries Vendio and Auctiva, which are sales platforms for sellers on auction and sales sites like eBay and Amazon Marketplace.
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The launch continues Alibaba’s expansion worldwide, including a $200-million investment in e-retail site shoprunner.com, which offers free shipping and other deals from a variety of e-merchants for a $79 annual membership fee.
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Alibaba is also preparing for an IPO later this year, which Reuters analysts value at $140 billion.
Dive Insight:
Alibaba is an e-commerce behemoth. Besides being China’s — and the world’s — biggest digital shopping mall, the company is also a network of e-businesses that includes China’s most-used online payment system, business-to-business commerce sites, cloud computing, and more. Apple made news earlier this year when it joined Alibaba’s marketplace in China, because it was a signal that Apple’s getting serious about making retail inroads there. Joining 11Main.com won’t signal that for any individual e-merchant just yet, but it is a boutique e-marketplace that could present a challenge to Amazon’s domination in the U.S.