Alibaba’s New U.S. Shopping Site Seems Like a Giant R&D Experiment
Summary
Alibaba unveiled its first shopping site in the U.S. on Wednesday, but the launch of the online market called 11 Main comes across more as a playground for experimentation than a shot across the bow at big U.S. e-commerce companies. The site, which launched in a beta form today, is an online destination where more than 1,000 small business owners can sell their wares. The site is not focusing on a single niche, though, instead displaying products from categories as diverse as fashion apparel, print books, jewelry and antiques. Effle spoke about the quality of the merchants 11 Main is choosing to work with, the focus on telling the story of the business owner and an upcoming marketing push as customer acquisition differentiators. It’s plausible to think that by launching a shopping site that competes with those potential targets in some ways in the U.S., Alibaba can learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of those and other similar U.S. businesses.
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