Opinion | Sina, Jingdong Mall in new e-commerce moves

We're seeing some interesting moves today on the dynamic e-commerce front, with new signals that Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) intends to make a serious play into the space using its popular Weibo microblogging service as its primary platform. At the same time, the industry's second largest player Jingdong Mall is throwing out a new challenge by preparing to enter the B2B space now dominated by industry leader Alibaba.

All of this underscores just how rapidly the e-commerce space is evolving, as companies realise just how important the business will be to China's fast-changing retail landscape. E-commerce sales have exploded in China over the last few years, with B2C sales rising 80 per cent in the first half of last year alone. At that rate, China's B2C business was on track to reach 430 billion yuan (US$68 billion) last year, and should easily pass the 1 trillion yuan mark in the next two years.

That tie-up would have presumably let Alibaba become Sina's e-commerce partner; but this latest series of Sina initiatives indicates it now wants to develop e-commerce by itself. I personally like this new Xiaoxi Tong service, as it combines Sina's established strength in social networking with a marketing service and communication channel that many merchants should find attractive.

Sina should continue to look for similar ways to build its e-commerce business, and avoid trying to compete with existing players by setting up more traditional online shops and shopping malls. If it retains this more focused strategy, I would give its e-commerce initiative a good chance of success. That could help Weibo to finally reach its goal of becoming profitable within the next year, a critical step before an IPO that was highly anticipated a couple of years ago but was later shelved due to the profitability issue.