Thread: How a Chinese e-commerce company racked up $3 billion in sales in just one day

Last week Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba shocked the web with news that its subsidiaries Taobao (like a Chinese eBay) and T-mall (like Amazon) sold a massive $3.06 billion in product in a single 24-hour period.Three billion dollars is almost triple the entire 2011 Black Friday sales of e-commerce sites in the United States, and this is a testament to both the growing maturity of the Chinese online market and the central position Alibaba holds in China.
So how do you do $3 billion in sales in a single day? I interviewed an Alibaba spokesperson, who preferred to remain unnamed, to find out.
Almost as many users as Twitter

First of all, it helps to have users — lots of them.
The two sites, Taobao.com and Tmall.com, share a combined user base of half a billion registered users. That’s only about 30 percent of the total Chinese population, which means that Alibaba has a long runway for continued growth as the Chinese middle class continues to grow — and suggesting that a $10 billion day is not out of the realm of possibility in years to come.

(It also means, by the way, that it might be crazy for Yahoo to sell its stake in Alibaba now. Yahoo still owns 23 percent of the Chinese e-commerce giant after pocketing $7.6 billion U.S from selling almost half its original stake. Down the road, however, it might be like owning a 23 percent of Google, or Facebook … times 10.)
Both Taobao.com and Tmall process payments via Alipay, Alibaba’s payments processor. Alipay has over 700 million user accounts, presumably all with credit card payment information, as of mid-2012.

How a Chinese e-commerce company racked up $3 billion in sales in just one day | VentureBeat

Wow! $3 billion in sales in just one day how is possible?

The figure sounds a Bit suspect, but if so, quite an achievement.

Hmmm....everything from one company!
Wonder how much alibaba owns of factories, etc?

Originally Posted by robjones

The figure sounds a Bit suspect, but if so, quite an achievement.

That's a lot of money in a short time, I know that Alibaba is a huge site, plus their affiliate sites like Taobao and T-mall could do it. It is astonishing because we don't know the power of these companies in China, but imagine what bring eBay, Amazon and another huge one, I am sure we will be surprise.

Originally Posted by iowadawg

Hmmm....everything from one company!
Wonder how much alibaba owns of factories, etc?

It is quiet possible, but it is very impressive if you want my opinion.

That would mean that Asian customers have a lot more money than the current economies would seem to indicate.

There are a lot of crappy and counterfeit products suppliers on Alibaba, but it is a good place to find the source for some products.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

That would mean that Asian customers have a lot more money than the current economies would seem to indicate.

Lots of American investors are also moving into Asia, so the money behind this is probably from companies who put their faith in their economy.