A long-term strategic partnership has been established between China’s B2B e-commerce portal alibaba.com and Infomedia, India’s largest yellow pages and special interest publishing company.

Alibaba’s net profit rose to 967.8 million yuan, more than quadrupling that of last year. Currently, the Hang-zhou based company has nearly 300,000 paid members, possessing about a 70% market share of the online B2B trade in China.

And in India, since the launching of its Indian channel last December, around 20,000 Indian companies have signed up each month for it. The number of Alibaba’s members has already exceeded 400,000.

The partnership of the two sides will see the integration of the power of traditional print publishing with online media and e-commerce to provide India’s small and medium-sized companies with a one-stop solution for global and domestic trade.

“India is a priority market for Alibaba’s global plans and Infomedia will help provide on-ground support including sales, marketing and customer service,” said the Alibaba CEO Wei Zhe.

“We believe the alliance will help Alibaba become a major online trade platform in India by the end of 2008,” Wei said.

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Online clothing retailer PPG said it has plans to list in the US toward the end of this year or in early 2009, either on the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ.

Relying on the Internet and call centers, the company applies an e-commerce and traditional retail business model, which helped PPG to save the cost of maintaining retail outlets and attract $80 million in investment from TDF, JAFCO Asia, KPCB, and San Shan Capital Partners. Like Dell in the computer industry, its strong point lies in direct sales and 80% of its orders are over 250 yuan.

PPG’s biggest expense is advertising. The retailer spent 230 million yuan on advertising last year—about a third of its 700 million yuan in sales revenue. Its advertisement covers almost every possible channel—newspapers, TV, magazine and direct mail. Last year its ad budget shrank when management deemed market recognition was satisfactory.

“Now, we’re focusing our marketing strategy on branding,” said David Lee, its chairman. “We want to be another Gap.”
Instead of opening retail outlets, the company will strive to expand its business to second-and-third-tier cities through an intensive ad campaign in those markets. “We want to reach most cities across the nation in the next two years,” said Lee.

Besides, PPG is also looking for opportunities to explore the overseas market. It has set up a US subsidiary in late March and next stop will be Europe and beyond.

Like PPG, BPOVIA Ltd based in China also works through the internet and opens its door to all those who are looking for virtual assistants to tap the Chinese market.

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