Alibaba Attempts to Grow International Presence

New Offerings for US Entrepreneurs

Alibaba.com, the business-to-business arm of China’s Alibaba Group (BABA), is rolling out new incentives to gain popularity among entrepreneurs in the US. The company announced on Tuesday that it is now offering new financing and freight-shipping services for small businesses in the US. It will also start offering virtual “trade shows” for US-based wholesalers and manufacturers.

Alibaba has been working to become a part of the US market for some time. However, issues such as trade tensions and tariffs have made it more difficult to get American businesses to utilize Chinese e-commerce giant’s platform.

Alibaba’s Backstory

Alibaba’s core business still revolves around Taobao and Tmall, which are online marketplaces, mostly in China. However, the company is also growing Alibaba.com, a platform for non-Chinese companies to purchase goods from wholesalers and manufacturers. Currently, the platform is being used by over 10 million businesses. The US has been Alibaba.com’s fastest-growing market for the past year.

Alibaba’s shopping and delivery services are often compared to Amazon’s (AMZN) business model. However, some of the Chinese company’s financing and shipping options are actually more similar to offerings from Square (SQ) and PayPal (PYPL).

Alibaba’s International Revenue Is Up

Alibaba has offered non-Chinese companies the opportunity to purchase wholesale goods from global manufacturers and wholesalers since last July. At the end of March, Alibaba reported a 17% year-over-year increase in revenue from Alibaba.com’s international commerce wholesale business, coming to a total of $1.4 billion.

This $1.4 billion is a small amount compared to the almost $47 billion that Alibaba’s core Chinese retail business generated in revenue last year. However, the double-digit annual increase shows that the company’s international presence is on the rise.

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