Hong Kong-based e-commerce site Alibaba has confirmed it has filed the documents for its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The Chinese online retailer founded by Jack Ma 15 years ago announced its plans to file for an IPO a fortnight ago.

Alibaba filed for its IPO yesterday but did not disclose how many shares it intends to sell or the price range.

The size of the e-commerce company is bigger than eBay and Amazon combined. Alibaba powers 80% of all Chinese online consumer shopping, and on the Chinese equivalent of Black Friday processed sales of $5.7bn.

Alibaba currently has two big shareholders – Yahoo and Softbank.

In 2005 Yahoo paid $1bn for a 40% stake but in 2012 sold half of it back to Alibaba at the price of $7.1bn.

Yahoo now owns a 22.6% stake in the firm and Japanese telco and internet company Softbank owns 34%.