Jason Del Rey says, “It’s rare to see a billion-dollar M&A deal in the e-commerce industry, but there’s a chance we could see more than one in 2015 thanks to a confluence of events. Alibaba, flush with valuable stock following the biggest IPO ever, is poised to make big moves. The planned separation of eBay and PayPal could make both acquisition targets. And a group of giant but slow-growing startups could decide their best bet is to be bought by a major industry player. Here are five possible commerce and payments deals that would make waves in 2015, plus a short list of other M&A possibilities.

Alibaba buys eBay

EBay’s announcement that it would spin off its payments unit PayPal in 2015 was also a tacit acknowledgement that both businesses were for sale. The e-commerce industry loves to speculate that Alibaba — with its $263 billion market value — might want to gobble up eBay. Alibaba has no legitimate consumer presence in the U.S., which eBay would help with, and the two marketplaces could combine to challenge Amazon in emerging areas overseas. Plus, they both pride themselves on the same differentiator with Amazon: They don’t compete against their own vendors”.

A Handful of Blockbuster E-Commerce Acquisitions That Could Happen in 2015

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