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Whoah....

I can honestly say I don't know much about this company, being that it's based in Asia and I am nowhere near there.

However....now that they have gone public, and their value is more than eBay *and* Amazon COMBINED.....I'd say they are going to be a player in the rest of the known world!

http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/10/investing/alibaba-ipo-record-china-ecommerce/

Alibaba is the company that owns and operates aliexpress correct?

I've gotten some stuff for my hobby from them.

Nicely ran operation.

I can't help but believe this story will eventually wind up in my Take the money and run - China Style thread.

I was thinking the same thing Breotan.

I can't help but wonder if its just China's latest "lets swindle some western investors of all their cash and then abscond behind our impenetrable boarders" act.

I'm going to agree with Grey Templar and Breotan on this. Something seems amiss.

Yeah... pretty sure companies of that worth just pop into existence out of nowhere...

 Soladrin wrote:
Yeah... pretty sure companies of that worth just pop into existence out of nowhere...

I had a buddy of mine, a few years ago buy a bunch of his stuff from them, and, at the time they seemed pretty legit... Alibaba didn't really pop out of nowhere, this is just their IPO. Of course, that they are valued so highly is definitely eyebrow raising, but most everyone that I've known who's used them has been happy with them.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Yeah... pretty sure companies of that worth just pop into existence out of nowhere...

I had a buddy of mine, a few years ago buy a bunch of his stuff from them, and, at the time they seemed pretty legit... Alibaba didn't really pop out of nowhere, this is just their IPO. Of course, that they are valued so highly is definitely eyebrow raising, but most everyone that I've known who's used them has been happy with them.

Fair enough, I've never heard of them.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Yeah... pretty sure companies of that worth just pop into existence out of nowhere...

I had a buddy of mine, a few years ago buy a bunch of his stuff from them, and, at the time they seemed pretty legit... Alibaba didn't really pop out of nowhere, this is just their IPO. Of course, that they are valued so highly is definitely eyebrow raising, but most everyone that I've known who's used them has been happy with them.

Not really.

They have been around for a while now. What is surprising and sad is how few seem to know of this company.

The reason Alibaba is worth so much is that they are focused on providing expedited international trade of raw production materials. They have expanded into almost every industry by providing quick and mostly reliable contacts of raw material producers via the internet.

This is huge. Say you are a manufacturer that has lost a key supplier. Instead of spending days, weeks or months searching for a new vendor a company can now just click on Alibaba.

By creating such a resource the chinese have positioned themselves to profit and possibly control a good portion of the worlds industrial production. Due to this, I highly doubt that the company will cash grab and fold. Alibaba is to important to the Chinese economy, both for money generated and for strategic projection of economic power/control.

At least that is my opinion of Alibaba's position and purpose.

Later,
ff

I'm shocked by how many people don't know of Alibaba. It's huge here in Asia and is certainly not a pump and dump kind of scheme -_- It kind of disappoints me so many people are willing to just believe that without any evidence. The CEO has been invited to multiple conferences in Asia and I've even attended one by him in Singapore before several years back. This was already when they were pretty well known.