Chinese B2C e-commerce company 360buy.com will start to explore the B2B market in China while continuing to enhance its existing B2C market.
According to local media reports, 360buy.com plans to establish a team with 300 agents in Chengdu and the team's goal for 2009 is to reach cooperation with between 300,000 and 500,000 small and medium-sized enterprises clients and to realize sales of CNY1 billion. Within the year 2009, 360buy.com will reportedly set up branches in more than 20 first-tier Chinese cities and the company will increase the number of its branches to 100 before the end of 2010.
Though 360buy.com refuses to give comment on this rumor, because of the ever-increasing competition in the Chinese B2C industry and the invasion of the C2C industry, 360buy.com's development speed may slow down. If it can set up a 300-person agent team and set up 100 branches, its sales will be increased significantly.
Statistics provided by the market research firm Analysys International show that in March 2009, 360buy.com achieved sales of over CNY200 million, making it the only B2C company that has monthly sales of over CNY200 million in China.
Previous to this, 360buy.com Vice President Yan Xiaoqing told local media that 360buy.com had sales of CNY1.3 billion in 2008 and its goal for 2009 is to realize a year-on-year increase of 300%, reaching sales of CNY4 billion.
What is their market size and how are they situated to ither compete or cooperate with Alibaba.com?