Alibaba is a platform operated by the Chinese e-commerce company of the same name that focuses on overseas business customers.
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BEIJING—Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is accelerating its global expansion with new services aimed at attracting small businesses in the United States and Europe.
Alibaba.com – the company’s business-to-business platform that sells products to companies outside China – on Thursday announced the launch of “Alibaba Guarantee” to provide greater certainty in delivery, payment and dispute resolution.
The platform is part of Alibaba’s fast-growing international business, which also sells products directly to overseas consumers through websites such as AliExpress.
While Chinese consumers have long enjoyed delivery tracking and favorable return policies, small businesses buying from cross-border e-commerce platforms have not been able to do so due to the increased complexity of international trade.
Alibaba said in a press release that the company’s new service aims to provide buyers with clearer delivery dates and free local returns.
“We think this is in line with the current global trend,” Alibaba President Zhang Kuo said in an interview on Thursday, according to a CNBC translation of his remarks.
He pointed to the trend of increasingly fragmented supply chains and said more and more local companies, whether in the cosmetics or automotive industries, need to source globally to protect profit margins.
This online platform mainly sells products from Chinese suppliers to small businesses in Europe, the United States and other parts of the world. Alibaba’s website says you can buy single products or in bulk, but notes on its user registration page that “suppliers prefer to do business with the company.”
Zhang claims that Alibaba’s number of buyers has at least tripled in the past five years, with the total value of online goods worth about $50 billion. GMV measures total sales during a specific period.
Equipment requirements
Some of the more popular products sold on Alibaba’s sites over the past three or four years include machines for custom printing T-shirts or laser cutting, Zhang said.
He noted that demand for such machines has been driven by greater interest in diversifying supply chains since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. The growth of the new energy vehicle industry has also created demand for new car parts, which are sold on Alibaba’s website, Zhang said.
Sports products are also popular with European consumers, he said.
November, Alibaba invests in German B2B company Visable and its European marketplace Europages.
Alibaba works with many EU suppliers that sell products within the bloc, Zhang said, adding that the company aims to help the region accelerate digitalization by using more business technologies.
Intra-EU trade activity is much greater He noted that trade with other countries was more important than the EU’s.
Alibaba will also start integrating artificial intelligence tools into the platform this year, Zhang said.
He said these include the ability for merchants to use artificial intelligence to quickly generate product descriptions through search keywords, or to provide customer service support during non-working hours.
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