In 2011, the company said it planned to cooperate with partners to invest between 20 and 30 billion yuan as the initial investment for the long-term logistics project.
Xu Yong, chief consultant with the express and logistics website cecss.com, said that Alibaba's promise to deliver packages in 24 hours will be hard to fulfill.
"In first-tier cities, some unexpected factors, such as a traffic jam, could break your promise. While in China's central and western areas, because of their poor infrastructure, it is very likely that people cannot receive packages in one day," Xu said.
In addition, a single logistics network may naturally block Alibaba's e-commerce rivals, such as Jingdong Mall, from joining, Xu added.
"Express companies outside the alliance may also suffer because they cannot share the resources," he said.
Jingdong Mall, the second-biggest business-to-customer website in China, has established six logistics centers, covering more than 300 cities across China. The company is building up a warehouse and logistics system in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Last year, China's express delivery industry had 106 billion yuan in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 40 percent, according to the State Post Bureau.
The number of packages delivered last year increased 55 percent from a year earlier, and Ma Junsheng, director-general of the State Post Bureau, expected the figure to increase by 40 percent this year, hitting 8 billion.
A report from the Boston Consulting Group in 2012 suggested that China is likely to surpass the United States to become the world's biggest online retail market in 2015, a year in which the country's online retail sales are expected to be worth more than $360 billion.
Contact the writers at chenlimin@chinadaily.com.cn and shenjingting@chinadaily.com.cn
Beijing fantasy emerges in dense fog
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