CRI听力:Alibaba's Success Sparks Debate over Chinese Online Business Model

More than a hundred of sellers and buyers on Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao platforms were on-hand at Alibaba's headquarters in the city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang to share the announcement that Alibaba has already processed 3-trillion yuan worth of sales through its current fiscal year.

This represents almost 10 percent all retail spending China this past year.

Chinese home appliance giant Haier jumped on to Tmall.com 4-years ago.

Vice chair Li Huagang says the move has worked well for the company.

"This platform can test both your production and after-sale capabilities. Before, we could hardly get aware of whether our customers satisfied with our products, but it became easy as soon as we got online. Cooperation with the online platform helps improve our overall capability."

Figures from Alibaba show there are more than one billion products being sold on its online marketplaces, along with more than 10 million active vendors and over 400 million regular buyers.

Home appliances, clothes, electronic devices and baby products are some of the most popular goods bought on the Alibaba platform.

Young people are its major customers.

More than half of all Taobao users are women.

When it comes to the advantage of its online business, Alibaba Vice Chair Gao Hongbing says online platforms have brought sellers and buyers closer together than ever.

"The reason behind the 3 trillion and the uNPRecedented expansion is the platform that has enabled business more free online than offline transactions. Manufacturers used to think their work was complete as soon as the goods reached the wholesalers, but when they went online, they realized they had to figure out how to better communicate with customers, manage inventories and improve their products. All of these indeed helped with the development with the manufacturing industry."

Zhang Yong, Alibaba CEO, suggests the company's internet-based business model might also play a role in the country's current economic restructuring move.

"Today, we can't talk about the supply-side reform and the economy upgrading without mentioning the internet and online platforms that can help product makers better understand their customers so as to make the economic reform targeted."

With Alibaba eyeing the target of hitting 6 trillion yuan in revenues by 2020, Zhang Yong says priorities are going to be given to improving logistics and cloud-based facilities in the coming years.