In a bid to extend the size of its e-commerce supply operations in the US, Alibaba.com, the Chinese e-commerce company for small businesses, is to acquire Auctiva, a third-party developer of tools for eBay sellers,

With more than 170,000 active users, Auctiva provides a variety of listing, marketing and management tools, as well as image hosting and online storefronts set to enable small businesses to sell via e-commerce on sites like eBay or Amazon.

Once the aquisition is completed, Alibaba.com intends to integrate Auctiva’s e-commerce technology platform with AliExpress.com, its wholesale transaction platform, enabling Auctiva users to connect to AliExpress via a tab on the Auctiva web-based platform.

The acquisition of Auctiva follows the recent purchase of Vendio Services, a multi-channel e-commerce services provider. Online merchants who use both Auctiva and Vendio will have direct access to almost 1.5 million supplier storefronts on Alibaba.com's sourcing platform and AliExpress.The combination of both the Auctiva and Vendio acquisitions brings more than 250,000 new customers to Alibaba.com.