Alibaba is about to have what could be the biggest IPO of all time. Last year, its sites brought in more dough that EBay and Amazon combined. So what exactly is Alibaba? To answer that, BloombergBusinessweek’s Sam Grobart did the obvious. He used Alibaba to make 280 pairs of brightly colored pants.

+ NPR: You can think of Alibaba like Amazon or Ebay, except you can buy way more on Alibaba — you can get a used 747 airplane, or an oil tanker, or 500 million tiny screws. (Funny, I prefer to pick those up in person.)