Alibaba is continuing to prepare for its long-awaited IPO

All eyes in the tech industry are on Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba after it finally kickstarted its long-awaited IPO by submitting its prospectus. As many talked up the event, which may very well be the world’s biggest IPO potentially raising up to $20 billion, some in the US are puzzled that Alibaba hasn’t explicitly announced plans to expand its consumer-to-consumer eBay-like empire into the US — think in particular of its marketplace Taobao. On the other hand, Alibaba has always had international business-to-business operations. It also has AliExpress, which pivoted last year to allow individual consumers to purchase goods from Chinese manufacturers at wholesale prices, that is linking China up to the world.