In its continuing push to give more international merchants access to Chinese consumers, Alibaba Group today said it will launch nearly a dozen country “pavilions” on the e-commerce giant’s Tmall Global online marketplace.
A total of 11 countries including the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, France, Britain, Spain, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Turkey are working with Tmall Global to build out their pavilions—essentially curated, vertical shopping sites designed to promote popular products and authentic specialties from selected SMEs from each country, as well as provide travel and cultural information to China’s online shoppers. South Korea’s government became the first country to launch an official pavilion on Alibaba’s Tmall.com in May.
“Alibaba Group has been incubating this country pavilion project for some time now,” said Jeff Zhang, president of China retail marketplaces for Alibaba Group, calling the 11 sites launched today the “first fruit of this ongoing project to make global trade easier.” Merchants that are already selling on Tmall.com and Tmall Global marketplaces can opt to join their country’s pavilion if they meet certain requirements, according to Alibaba.
Alibaba Group in recent months has been aggressively promoting the growth of cross-border online shopping with government officials and business leaders around the world. Earlier this month, Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma visited the U.S. to talk about Alibaba’s international strategy and how small businesses can use the Web to sell directly to Chinese consumers, who are increasingly looking for high quality, imported products.
Read Jack’s Ma’s Wall Street Journal Op-ed on the China Market Opportunity
According to a recent report on cross-border e-commerce by Accenture, China is expected to become the world’s biggest cross-border B2C market by 2020.
Alibaba’s group-buying platform, Juhuasuan, also is joining the company’s cross-border drive. Alibaba announced today it has entered into partnerships with the embassies of 26 countries on marketing and promotion of their country’s products via Juhuasuan.
These countries are: the U.S., Canada, Russia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Australia, Thailand, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Greece, Mexico, Singapore, Finland, Indonesia, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, Nepal, Israel, South Africa, and Malaysia.
