MadeInChina.com Acquired!

MadeInChina.com is a B2B e-commerce site that focuses on helping foreigners to source supplies that are made in China.

It works like Alibaba.com (HKG:1688) but this space is certainly big enough for more players to enter and fight for. MadeInChina charges a commission whenever a deal is successfully transacted on the site. Business is good with sales growth rate from Q3 to Q4 in 2011 seeing a 700 percent increase. Its rapid growth has caught ePRO’s attention, who announced on December 31 that it acquired the site back in November.

ePRO is a Hong Kong Stock Exchange listed solutions company focusing on the e-commerce space. I’m not entirely sure how ePRO is going to work/run MadeInChina. They didn’t explain much in the statement.

Perhaps ePRO has gotten so sick of doing things for others and decided to run an e-commerce business themselves. I’m sure they have the financial muscle and knowledge to pull things together. Or at least bite into a little of Alibaba’s revenue in 2012.

One thing is for sure, ePRO will get potential clients through MadeInChina. Folks who buy supplies through MadeInChina.com are likely to be potential candidates for its ePRO e-commerce solution service.

A part of me also can’t help but think that ePRO could have acquired MadeInChina for just the domain name. It’s a pretty sweet URL for almost anything that is… uh… made in China. Especially if it is targeted at foreigners who know little about China, except that supplies made there are low-cost and that they help boost their profit margins.

MadeInChina is now operating only in English but will be made available in other languages soon, including French and Russian. If MadeInChina and ePRO take action fast enough, they might be able to capture the non-English speaking community as Alibaba.com only just recently made its site available in other languages.