English-language portal launched at Alibaba’s Tmall Global
Alibaba Group Holding is further expanding in the international e-commerce sector, this time through the launch of an English-language portal on Tmall. This step should bring about a twofold increase in the number of international brands on the flagship retail platform.
On Wednesday, the Tmall Global English-language platform started working with the goal of increasing the number of sellers and enterprises from all over the world that offer their goods to the Chinese consumers. Seeing that it’s the world’s second-largest economy, it shouldn’t be difficult to lure the merchants and manufacturers to the portal.
Indeed, Alibaba Group Holding confirmed that the number of brands available on Tmall Global is slated to increase from the current 20,000 to 40,000 in a matter of just 3 years.
The marketplace aims to link top global brands with potential Chinese consumers, said Yi Qian, one of company’s top managers. The English-language platform will allow to reach out to a greater number of sellers, especially the small and medium-sized international businesses.
This step is taken over a month after Alibaba had estimated its yearly revenue to exceed 500 billion yuan (USD72.7 billion) in 2019. The trade war between the US and China is not projected to affect the revenue.
The company plans to invest more in China’s smaller towns and rural areas, and engage the previously ambivalent consumers. At this time these consumers account to approximately 20% of the total Alibaba orders, a number that still has growth potential.
Plans are already in place for Alibaba to increase investments in China’s lower-tier cities and rural areas, helping the company engage more consumers. Lower-tier cities are estimated to account for only 20 per cent of total orders for Alibaba, which means plenty of room to grow for the company.
The trade war with the USA, private entrepreneurs facing a high level of debt and financing issues – these factors are the background for this major effort undertaken by Alibaba. These are also the factors that have also led to Beijing setting a somewhat lower growth target for the economy – 6-6.5% annually.
International e-commerce has been a lucrative and growing segment since 2014, Deloitte reports. Imported goods in China are up an impressive 39.8% year to year compared to 79.8 billion yuan in 2018, as the Ministry of Commerce officially reports.
Tmall Global English-language portal offers a practical guide to international merchants to facilitate the opening of a store there and using various tools offered by Tmall, such as Overseas Fulfillment, which provides a financially viable method of launching their business in China.
Support is provided to qualified applicants within 72 hours of their application, and advice on the optimization of the operations on the platform is also available to global merchants.
English is only the first of a number of foreign language slated to appear on Tmall Global. Others include Spanish, Japanese and Korean, among others.
Established in 2014, Tmall Global presents brands that offer goods in over 4,000 categories and from 77 countries and regions.
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