The hype and speculation when Alibaba Group Holding Limited went IPO last September has finally simmered down. However, Alibaba, an enormous Chinese e-commerce company, isn’t the first Chinese IPO in that industry. Vipshop Holdings, a rival Chinese e-commerce company has been IPO for over a year now. It’s stock exploded to $80 a share during it’s opening and making it the most valuable Chinese e-commerce stock at the time.
Vipshop Holdings was founded in August 2008. Initially a luxury online retailer, it shifted focus towards mass consumer products such as footwear, sporting goods, and gifts. The focus on more accessible fashion and lifestyle goods is what brought Vipshop to the spotlight.
Vipshop Holdings has become one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world now. The current company stock value closing on October 15, 2014 is at around $185 per a share. The CEO has an estimated net worth of $800 million. The company has expanded vastly employing over 8,000 people with headquarters in Guangzhou, China. Vipshop has over 48 million registered users and 12 million repeating customers. Vipshop has high customer retention and loyalty given in 2013 that 93% of orders were from recurring customers. With products from over 8,700 brands (international and domestic) Vipshop shows that Alibaba isn’t the only player in the business. In context to the Silicon Valley, Vipshop Holdings has recently opened a new office in San Jose and is recruiting for its engineering team to develop and expand the company.