360buy.com, the nation's second-largest e-commerce website, on Monday confirmed the appointment of Kate Yingchun Kui as its vice-president.

Analysts expect Kui, a former board member of Merrill Lynch (Asia-Pacific), to use her banking experience to help arrange the company's approaching initial public offering overseas, probably in the United States.

360buy declined to comment on the IPO issue on Monday.

360buy, which competes with Alibaba Group's Tmall in the business-to-customer market, had nearly 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) in sales last year.

Its investors include Digital Sky Technologies — one of the largest institutional investors in Facebook — and Robin Li, founder of Baidu.

360buy plans to hire 20,000 staff members this year, pushing its payroll over 35,000, according to the company. The number of registered users for its services is likely to surpass 100 million this year.