Unless you’ve been stranded on a deserted island for the past few months, you know that the China-based internet giant Alibaba Group will be going public this Friday. What you may not know is that the businesses that serve as the cornerstone of Alibaba’s success are primarily services that are aimed at serving small business owners and managers. How important are small businesses to Alibaba’s success? “The Alibaba culture is about championing small businesses,” the company says first thing on its “culture and values” page.

Today, Alibaba.com (the English-language portal operated by Alibaba Group) handles sales between importers and exporters from more than 240 countries and regions. Its Chinese-language portal 1688.com serves domestic business-to-business trade in China. In addition, Alibaba.com offers a transaction-based retail website, AliExpress.com, which allows smaller buyers to buy small quantities of goods at wholesale prices. It also runs an online payment system alipay.com, a competitor to Paypal.

If none of those businesses (other than Alipay) sound like anything you’ve heard of in the U.S., it’s because there are no large-scale, pure-play U.S. versions of such marketplaces. While Amazon and Ebay are ecommerce powerhouses, Alibaba generates more sales (as measured by “Gross Merchandise Volume”) in its marketplaces than the two of those companies combined.

Small business services

Pundits are predicting the company could raise over $20 billion with its public offering this week. Expect to see the company use its experience in serving small business markets in other countries–along with it large cash holdings–to provide it with plenty of opportunities to grow in the U.S.

In addition to its wholesale marketplace, the company has technology platforms (like a cloud service business) serving markets around the globe that will likely head to U.S.

11Main.com

The company has already made small steps into the U.S. marketplace, as well. An example is its launch earlier this year of a U.S. consumer “local” shopping site called 11 Main. Still in a testing phases, the site already hosts more than 1,000 merchants in categories such as clothing, fashion accessories and jewelry as well as interior goods and arts and crafts.

Have you used an Alibaba service? Share your experience in the comments below.