Alibaba.com is a Chinese company with operations in electronic commerce that has become focused on the west after scandalous revelations of fraud in an attempt to regain its good name and win the favor of American businesspeople.
Stanford University hosted a three-hour conference attended by about 200 people. It said that the company helps different businesses find Chinese producers for their products.
As one of the company's current clients, Jonathan Shriftman, put it, few people in the US is familiar with Alibaba. However, it has become much simpler to make products with its help. Last year Alibaba assisted him in finding a Chinese manufacturer of bikes he later resells at his site SoleBicycles.com.
Alibaba is headquartered in Hangzhou, (eastern China). It also has an office in the US (Santa Clara, California) staffed by about 60 engineers. Currently, the company regards the US as a top-priority region for its operations. Alibaba already acquired 2 companies in the US (Vendio Services Inc. and Auctivia) and intends to buy a few more.
Alibaba.com representatives also say they are going to expand their cooperation with colleges as during the economic crisis the company found many new clients among students who were looking for vendors to open their own companies.
Currently, Alibaba.com is trying to win respect of the American business, regain its positive image and confidence of clients.
It should be noted that the company's shares lost 8.2% since 21 February. On that day the company had to admit that over 2,300 sellers used the Alibaba.com site to defraud buyers from all over the world. David Wei, the Chief Executive Officer, and Elvis Lee, the Chief Operating Officer, resigned even though they were not accused of assisting in the fraud.
The company's shares grew 3.7% to $15.32 in Hong Kong on 4 March.
The company is still trying to recover from the scandal. During the conference in Stanford mentioned above, the company's representatives said the company values its clients and will surely remedy and deficiencies in its operations.
The event hosted by Stanford came as part of a week-long course of lectures and seminars intended to teach entrepreneurs to perceive their vendors and clients as a kind of global network (rather than only an entity within their own country).
Alibaba.com, whose founder also owns Taobao (an eBay-type online auction), plans to expand its overseas operations, including the US, India and Japan to compensate for a flagging interest in China.
Yahoo! Inc., the most visited web-portal in the US, is the largest shareholder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (73% of shares traded on Hong Kong Stock Exchange).
Some specialists believe the company is working on some serious project, possibly involving creation of an American counterpart of Taobao which could compete with eBay. However, the company's representatives point out they are not going to compete with eBay in the US. In their opinion, the company's main objective now in terms of its operations outside China is to raise awareness of such businesspeople as Mr. Shriftman who didn't know of its existence about a year ago until he ran a Google search for 'bike manufacturer'.
Notably, this year the company's representative plan to hold a series of international business seminars.
