Alibaba Group has bought a USD200 million stake in fledgling U.S. retail website ShopRunner in one of the largest U.S. investments made by the Chinese e-commerce firm. ShopRunner is a three-year-old retail startup backed by eBay and run by former Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson. The Wall Street Journal reported that eBay sold its 30% stake to Alibaba and other unspecified investors, which valued ShopRunner at about USD600 million. “The U.S. market in the long run is very interesting to us. Coming into this market is about learning about American consumers and how the market operates,”said Joe Tsai, Alibaba’s Executive Vice Chairman in an interview. Alibaba has decided to forego listing in Hong Kong, and is not aiming to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S. ShopRunner was founded in 2010 and offers free two-day shipping of goods by major brands from Calvin Klein to health products retailer GNC. It hopes to make inroads into the business of much larger rival Amazon.com with features such as free shipping on returns and unlimited two-day shipping.