Alibaba's boutique shop 11 Main opens doors on mobile

Already an e-commerce giant in China, Alibaba is stepping up its first major marketplace play in the USA with new mobile apps to woo shoppers on the go.

The shopping site 11 Main^[1], which opened on the Web in June, can be browsed on new smartphone apps especially designed for Apple and Android devices. An iPad app will launch this year.

11 Main is not a full-frontal assault on the U.S. retail marketplace for Alibaba. Founder and chairman Jack Ma has said he wants Alibaba to become a global force^[2], but 11 Main "is an entree to the U.S. market," says BMO Capital Markets analyst Edward Williams. "It represents a real-world environment for them to see how the U.S. consumer operates and what they are interested in."

After today's mobile app launch, all the goods in the site's virtual Main Street-style market – from $28 candles to $800,000 wristwatches – can be bought on smartphones and other devices not only in the USA, but also in China.

"Our strategic priorities are to continue to maximize our growth with China's relatively under-penetrated online shopping population and to increase opportunities for merchants in the U.S. and internationally to sell their goods into China," said Jim Wilkinson, senior vice president of international corporate affairs for Alibaba Group.

Mobile makes up a growing segment of Alibaba's sales in its Taobao Marketplace, in which consumers sell to each other as on eBay, and Amazon-like Tmall retail offerings. Among its 307 million shoppers, about 217 million use Alibaba's mobile apps. The company's total mobile sales for the 12 months that ended in September hit $95 billion.

Since posting the biggest IPO in Wall Street history in September at $21.8 billion, Alibaba stock closed at a high Monday of $119.15, up 27%. That came in advance of Tuesday's Singles Day, an Alibaba-trademarked holiday for uncommitted people to buy gifts for themselves.

On that day, the company sold $9.34 billion in goods on Tmall, compared with $5.7 billion last year. Mobile sales accounted for 43% of sales, compared with 21% last year, Williams said.

11 Main arose from two business-to-business companies that Alibaba acquired in 2010, Auctiva and Vendio, which subsequently merged and began developing the site more than one year ago. 11 Main invites and vets its merchants, processes payments and even assists in shipping via the U.S. Postal Services.

The site benefits from Alibaba's "unique expertise and track record of success as the unrivaled leader in mobile," Wilkinson said.

11 Main showcases more than 1 million products from thousands of U.S. merchants with top-notch photography and, for some, videos showing the products in action. "We really wanted to empower them," says 11 Main president and general manager Mike Effle, the former CEO of Vendio. "Bringing them all together into one experience really helped consumers find these amazing unique shops with products that you wouldn't normally find at a mass merchant."

Shoppers on 11 Main can use Apple Pay — and other types of payments, including typing in a credit card number — a sign of growing possible collaboration that Ma hinted at last month.

11 Main merchant Ianthe Mauro is ready to ramp up production of her Objects With Purpose perfumes and candles should business boom when the apps go live.

The Southern California business owner considers herself "a mom-trepreneur" and says she's excited about the prospects of selling goods in China, as well as in the USA. "This is a way for me to cast a wider net," Mauro says.

China's online shopping holiday, Singles Day, has set record sales numbers, smashing last year's figures. E-commerce giant Alibaba raked in more than $9 billion throughout the day. Newslook

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References

1. ^{^} https://11main.com/ (11main.com)
2. ^{^} http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/09/16/alibaba-ipo-expansion-united-states-europe/15736493/ (rssfeeds.usatoday.com)