Hong Kong-October 23, 2000-
Alibaba.com (www.alibaba.com), business-to-business marketplace for global trade and host to China's largest domestic online B2B
community today launched its "My Trade Activity" e-document system, a comprehensive communication and
documentation system designed to bring time and cost savings to
buyers and sellers around the world.
My Trade Activity is based on the XML standard, making it compatible with leading e-commerce systems around the world and bringing a powerful new tool to importers and
exporters. Using the My Trade Activity e-document system, members can conduct a complete set of negotiations leading to
transactions using an integrated suite of
e-documents which allow members to:
* Send a request for quote (RFQ)
* Send a quote
* Send a purchase order (PO)
* Receive and respond to inquiries
* Conduct negotiations online
* Search, sort and manage e-documents in one centralized
location
During the system's beta testing period on Alibaba.com's English language international site (www.alibaba.com), members submitted an average of over 3,000 e-documents
per day. Alibaba.com will soon roll out a Chinese language version to serve its more than 200,000 Chinese-speaking members.
"We expect the trend in online B2B commerce to follow three phases--
flow/order_t/'>information flow, document
flow and finally, transactions," said Alibaba.com CEO Jack Ma. "To date,
Alibaba.com has grown its 375,000-strong membership base by facilitating information flow. With the launch of My Trade Activity we are helping our members manage their
trade communications and
documentation online. This new product brings Alibaba.com one step closer to online B2B transactions."
"Alibaba.com has developed a world-class XML-based e-document platform compatible with systems used by the leading buyers and sellers around the world," said John Wu,
CTO of Alibaba.com and formerly chief architect of Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq: YHOO) search engine. "Alibaba.com members can be assured that they are using the leading
international technologies because My Trade Activity is based on the XML standard, the international technical standard for exchanging documents in B2B transactions."