As a result of the purchase, web search giant Yahoo.com now holds a 40% stake in the Chinese firm, which runs the country's biggest auction and trading sites, as reported by BBC. The report also says that Alibaba.com, "is best known for its online auction site Taobao.com, as well as flagship trading site Alibaba.com which helps small and medium-sized companies find customers at home and abroad." Alibaba earns fees from product suppliers who list on its Web site, while allowing buyers to browse for free. The company also earns fees from value-added services such as priority listing, according to MarketWatch.

Alibaba.com's business model puts it in direct competition with eBay, which also has a site focused on the Philippine e-commerce market. Coincidentally, we started a poll last week, entitled "E-commerce sites: Auction.ph vs. eBay.ph vs. PinoyBuyNSell.com vs. Sulit.com.ph", intended to see which among these e-commerce sites are preferred by our readers (the poll will remain open for the rest of the month of November).

Which among these Philippine e-commerce sites will emerge as the market leader is still to be seen. While the scale of business-to-business e-commerce in the Philippines is definitely smaller compared to that of China, the potential profits would still be considerable for the market leader.