Time for Amazon to move over? China's Alibaba takes on the world

Using a combination of word of mouth and advertising, Alibaba is tapping the millions of Chinese outside its homeland - from Singapore to San Francisco - to accelerate global expansion.

The e-commerce giant, which this week meets potential investors for its initial public offering in the United States, is attracting people of Chinese heritage drawn by hard-to-find items on its Taobao Marketplace like pineapple cakes and motorbike brake pads, as well as bargain-basement prices.

"I buy everything on the platform because it's so cheap," said Sam Ng, a 33-year-old web designer in San Francisco who shops for car gadgets and Korean fashion on the website and learned about Taobao from friends.

"If Alibaba's strategy is to follow the Chinese diaspora, it's a smart strategy because you don't have to build a brand from scratch," said Niraj Dawar, a professor of marketing at the Ivey Business School in Canada. "To be a global player, they eventually have to serve markets that are non-Chinese."