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“Jack Ma is an Icon for China’s Private Sector”

June 27, 2016 By Liu Sha

With humble beginnings in Hangzhou, Jack Ma went on to create an e-commerce titan that has grabbed the attention of China and the world. Today Jack Ma and Alibaba’s story has become the stuff that legends are made of. Duncan Clark has witnessed firsthand Jack Ma’s dizzying rise in China’s e-commerce firmament. A former investment banker at Morgan Stanley, Clark first got to know Jack Ma in 1999 when he met him in the small Hangzhou apartment where Ma and his friends famously founded Alibaba. In this interview, Clark, also the author of Alibaba, the House that Jack Ma Built, talks about Alibaba’s incredible story and its impact on China.

Filed Under: All Articles, Consumers, eCommerce, Retail, Technology Tagged With: Alibaba, eCommerce, Jack Ma, Technology

Chinese Consumers Up Their Vanity Spending

June 7, 2016 By Liu Sha and Deng Yuanyuan

Just how much time and energy would you spend pondering over which dustbin to buy next? Chances are, not a lot. But for some consumers in China, even seemingly mundane things like trashcans have started to become significant from a social status point of view. More and more Chinese consumers are shifting their consumption of even routine everyday things to more premium categories. They are often influenced by their own experiences or those of their peers, travels abroad, foreign movies or social media. But increasingly now there are a whole host of services that are geared towards exposing Chinese people to newer things—and making them buy.

Filed Under: All Articles, Consumers, Know China, Marketing Tagged With: Chinese Consumers, Consumer Behavior, eCommerce

The Second Hand Market in China: Old is the New New

April 19, 2016 By Hudson Lockett

In China second hand is the latest in thing. Perceptions of greater acceptance for gently used goods is reflected in investors’ enthusiasm for the many start-ups that are now aiming to become the premier national platforms for used goods, ranging from cars to phones, to luxury items and even Han dynasty antiques. Diverse as these markets are, they are all reputation-based businesses where success requires mechanisms to guard against users trying to pass off bad goods as good-as-new. So what is fuelling the growth of second hand markets in China? And how are sellers dealing with the critical issue of creating and maintaining consumer trust?

Filed Under: All Articles, Consumers, eCommerce, Know China Tagged With: Chinese Consumers, eCommerce, secondhand

Alibaba’s Massive IP Protection Challenge

January 27, 2016 By David Friesen

Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce firm, recently smashed global records for its ‘Single’s Day’ promotion on 11th November 2015, selling $14.3 billion worth of merchandise in just 24 hours. This is the equivalent to 120,000 orders placed every minute, covering both online spaces such as Taobao and Tmall as well as 180,000 brick and mortar sites across 330 cities in China. The numbers are staggering, but they also show a problem with the sheer scale of selling—how to ensure the quality and authenticity, of goods. Alibaba is now tightening the screws on fake goods being sold on its platforms, but can it stay one step ahead of counterfeiters?

Filed Under: All Articles, eCommerce, Intellectual Property, Policy and Law Tagged With: Alibaba, Brands, eCommerce, Intellectual Property

How Alibaba Pulled Off Its Singles Day Shopping Fest

November 18, 2015 By Li Hui

This year Alibaba broke all records on Singles Day with sales of $14.3 billion. Singles Day, or China’s Black Friday, was first invented by Alibaba in 2009. The idea was to create an annual sales event with crazy discounts supposedly for those who are single. (The fact that everyone, irrespective of their romantic status, jumped in and shopped is a different matter altogether.) This year a whopping 95 million users joined the cyber shopping fest. In other words, approximately almost one out of eight people in the world clicked the “buy” button on Alibaba’s marketplaces. What did it take to pull this off?

Filed Under: Digital Economy, eCommerce, Infographics Tagged With: Alibaba, Alipay, eCommerce, Infographics, Jack Ma, Tmall

The New Empire Builders: China’s Digital Conglomerates

September 22, 2015 By Colin Shek

With companies like Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent branching out into new areas, China is witnessing the rise of a new breed of digital conglomerates.

Filed Under: All Articles, China, Digital Economy, eCommerce, Know China, Mergers and Acquisitions, Retail, Winning in China Tagged With: Alibaba, Baidu, eCommerce, Internet Companies, Jack Ma, Slider, Tencent

A (Big) Fish Called Wanda: Wang Jianlin’s Business Empire

September 17, 2015 By Li Hui

Wang Jianlin’s sprawling business conglomerate, the Dalian Wanda Group, has its fingers in many pies: from real estate and retail to sports and entertainment.

Filed Under: All Articles, Infographics, Know China, Mergers and Acquisitions, Movie Industry, Real Estate, Tourism, Winning in China Tagged With: Baidu, eCommerce, Infographic, Investment, Real Estate, Slider, Tencent, Tourism, Wanda

Taobao and Tmall are Built as “Mono-Category Worlds”

July 21, 2015 By Li Hui

Miko Wormuth, CEO of TWICE Fashion Accessories, on what it takes to build a business from scratch in China and the challenges of operating on e-commerce platforms like Taobao and Tmall.

Filed Under: All Articles, Best Practice, Consumers, Conversations, Entrepreneurship, Know China, Retail, The Chinapreneurs Tagged With: Branding, Chinese Fashion Industry, eCommerce, Retail, Slider, Taobao, The Chinapreneurs, Tmall

Ghost Malls in China: Where Have all the Shoppers Gone?

June 9, 2015 By Helen Roxburgh     

With the rise of e-commerce and more discerning consumers, the recent growth of malls in China risks becoming redundant.

Filed Under: All Articles, Digital Economy, eCommerce, Innovation, Know China, O2O, Retail, Technology Tagged With: Alibaba, eCommerce, O2O, Retail, Shopping, Slider, Tmall

Alibaba Results Surprise Wall Street

May 8, 2015 By CKGSB Knowledge

By posting a 45% jump in revenues, the Alibaba results have defied expectations. A quick look at the big numbers.

Filed Under: All Articles, Digital Economy, eCommerce, Infographics, Know China, Retail Tagged With: Alibaba, eCommerce, Infographics, Jack Ma, Slider, Taobao, Tmall

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Information, analysis, and interviews about the Chinese economy and doing business in China, from the people who know it best. Presented by the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, China's leading business school.


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