I knew of Alibaba years before the IPO hype. Being able to directly connect with China manufacturers for large orders of almost anything you can think of at the lowest possible prices is of course good business. It seemed shady though from a buyer protection standpoint just giving credit card info to this site for a large pallet-size order shipped from the other side of the world, not having had what we do now about this company in the spotlight becoming a household name and gaining trust. Before the IPO, they already had more sales than eBay and Amazon combined, and that's probably just mostly from sales within China. "Alibaba is responsible for 80 percent of all online sales in China with only 46 percent of China's consumers currently accessing the Internet. As this latter figure grows and China's middle class continues to develop, Alibaba is well positioned for growth."