Alibaba all set to take B2B in India to a whole new level, to aid sellers on its platform.

While Alibaba puts in place its plans of entering the consumer-facing e-commerce space in India, the CEO Jack Ma-led Chinese ecommerce behemoth has also taken several steps to strike partnerships to improve its existing business-to-business marketplace venture here in India.

According to some sources, Alibaba might partner with DHL and Delhivery to provide Indian sellers with domestic and international logistics support and also financial support with the help of its already existing partners like Aditya Birla Group's NBFC arm, IDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Some players already exist in this space like IndiaMART and startups including Moglix, mSupply.com and Ofbusiness, besides Amazon Business, which has a small presence here.

There have been rumors about Alibaba's entering into the consumer e-commerce market through an acquisition, which will pit it against Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, where it's a small shareholder.

An Alibaba spokesperson confirmed the partnerships.

"Their B2B platform has been around for years but they haven't been able to make much progress scaling it. Now it seems they are seriously looking to focus on the B2B side by helping sellers with working capital and logistics. They'll also bring in Chinese vendors onto the site as they have great depth in the merchant ecosystem back home," a person privy to the developments told TOI.

In 2015, Alibaba.com reported a profit of Rs 1.3 crore as per filings made to the Registrar of Companies. The number was almost the same a year ago.

Alibaba has been operating in India since 2007 and it had claimed that its marketplace had 4.46 million registered Indian buyers and sellers at the end of 2014.
(image:Reuters)