China’s Alibaba.com Acquires American E-commerce Company

Alibaba.com, the listed unit of the Chinese B2B e-commerce group Alibaba, has announced that it has reached a wholly purchase agreement with the American e-commerce company Vendio.

Alibaba.com said that it will integrate its AliExpress.com and Vendio to help Chinese manufacturers enter the American retail market via the Internet.

According to the website of Alibaba.com, this is the company’s first overseas acquisition since its establishment ten years ago. It also marks Alibaba.com’s substantial deployment for its entry into the U.S. market and its quickening of worldwide expansion. The company said that the acquisition will be completed in July 2010 and Vendio will maintain its own brand, businesses, and teams.

David Wei, CEO of Alibaba.com, claims that by acquiring Vendio, Alibaba.com will be able to attract over 80,000 quality American local buyers and potential customers to the market of AliExpress.com, so as to bring purchases with the value of billions of U.S. dollars to the Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Based in the Silicon Valley, California, Vendio has 11 years of online store retail service experience and it provides services to over 80,000 independent B2C retailers in the U.S. With Vendio’s e-commerce platform, merchants can establish their own online stores and seamlessly sell products across the Internet’s leading marketplaces, including eBay and Amazon.com. Its annual transaction value is reportedly over USD2 billion.