Alibaba.com has announced its acquisition of Vendio, a multi-channel e-commerce company offering solutions for small businesses that let them sell through channels such as eBay, Amazon, and their own Vendio-supported stores.

Through the acquisition, Alibaba is gaining access to over 80,000 targeted small businesses in the U.S. and can direct them to Alibaba’s own Aliexpress wholesale transaction platform.

Chris Dawson at e-commerce commentary site TameBay makes an interesting point:

"The acquisition will also give Alibaba a real insight into eBay and Amazon sales from the Vendio merchants. They’ll be able to mine the data to see exactly what’s selling and for what price from those 80,000 merchants.

I’m not sure who will be least pleased at the acquisition from a data perspective – Vendio customers or eBay, but one thing is for sure – it’s a good deal for Alibaba.

"At Alibaba.com, our goal is to make it easier for our customers around the world to do business by providing solutions that increase margins, productivity and competitiveness through e-commerce," says Alibaba CEO David Wei. "We continue to look for synergies and investment opportunities to grow our customer base, acquire additional technology and add new applications that will help our customer base grow and prosper. Vendio is our first acquisition in the U.S. and we are open for more partnership opportunities. The connection of Vendio with Alibaba.com will completely integrate the e-commerce value chain between the B2B and B2C platforms, fully realizing the B2B2C model. I am confident that our complementary businesses will create enhanced opportunities for our customers."

The acquisition is part of a $100 million investment plan for AliExpress that Alibaba.com announced back in April. However, actual financial terms of this deal were not disclosed. It is expected to close as early as next month.