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Alipay ties up with Amazon.cn
By haozhou (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-04-15 15:11

Alibaba's affiliate Alipay has entered into a cooperation with Amazon, the world largest business-to-customer (B2C) e-commerce services provider.

The contract has been inked, and details are going to be released soon.

Source close to Alipay told the China Business News that Alipay is likely to marry with Amazon.cn, Amazon's Chinese branch, at first and then may extend overseas.

Under their cooperation, Amazon.cn will support online payment via Alipay's platform, in an effort to support its cash flow, which is always the problem caused by paying on delivery for B2C websits.

Almost 70 percent of Amazon.cn's businesses are paid on delivery, and large amount of cash usually stagnates at those delivery companies, insiders said.

Not long ago, Taobao.com announced plans to enter the B2C market. Hence it has become a competitor of Amazon.cn and Dangdang.com while at the same time its sister service Alipay began to cooperate with many vertical B2C websites, including redbaby.com.cn and 360buy.com.

Alipay's 2007 transaction volume hit 50 billion yuan, of which 70 percent came from Taobao.com. "We plan to lift non-through-Taobao business proportion to 50 percent this year," said Kong Fei, Alipay's senior market public relations manager.


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