In mid-January, 2010 eBay invited more than 200 Chinese Super Sellers to gather in Shanghai, China. The global online marketplace brand has seen some progress in the past three years after their initial defeat to Taobao.com.

Recently, Chinese sports brand Li Ning opened its first U.S. store in Portland, right next door to Nike’s headquarters!

It’s estimated that the annual sales volume of Li Ning in 2009 will exceed its biggest rival Nike for the first time, making Li Ning the No.1 sports goods retailer brand in China. But it seems they will not stop there. To gain international recognition, Li Ning is now expanding its brand overseas, the Portland store being only one example.

The Walt Disney Co. announced on August 31st that they will acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc., bringing 5,000 characters including Spider-Man and Iron Man into the Disney family. This move comes as Disney is losing its brand esteem with boys. It also lacks an internationally recognizable icon, as Mickey Mouse used to be.

On May 7th the Wall Street Journal reported that Geely, the Chinese automaker, plans to acquire GM's Saab and Ford's Volvo operations in Sweden. Geely is the second largest domestic auto producer in China, with its headquarters located in Zhejiang province and several subsidies set up throughout the country. In fact, Geely’s holding company has not confirmed that talks are taking place with GM and Volvo, but analysts suspect something is going on.

UPS has launched an innovative ad campaign to promote their small business services, an attempt to educate consumers that they “do more than shipping”.