Amazon better watch out

Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce group, is overhauling its business model of a fast-growing subsidiary in an attempt to offer a complete international service which can challenge Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer.

Trudy Dai, President of Alibaba’s wholesale marketplaces division AliExpress, which sells goods from Chinese retailers to customers in more than 150 countries – is making changes to enable retailers from other countries to also sell products on its platform around the world.

AliExpress has for the first time opened its platform to vendors overseas allowing small and medium-sized businesses in Russia, Turkey, Italy and Spain to register and sell their products to other countries in the AliExpress network.

AliExpress’s new “local to global” service strategy is intimately connected to Alibaba’s broader globalisation strategy”.

Alibaba’s subsidiary Lazada, south-east Asia’s largest ecommerce platform and other affiliated companies, around the world including their s takes in Indonesia’s Tokopedia and India’s Snapdeal are all joining forces to make this a success.

In 2018, AliExpress contributed 94 per cent for the company’s international ecommerce retail businesses.