11 August 2015.
Three of China's biggest companies have joined forces to challenge Alibaba in the Chinese ecommerce market.
Baidu, Tencent and Wanda have just launched their own ecommerce site, Ffan.
The companies poured 1 billion US dollars into the joint project, although commentators have said that the resulting site is sparse and “odd-looking”.
Ffan currently has just 2 product categories, film tickets and food, meaning that it is unlikely to usurp Alibaba as a general-purpose ecommerce retailer any time soon.
One feature that sets it apart however is its focus on local products. When a user goes onto the site they are asked to provide their city, with the results then returning local products and services.
