Tmall Global's booth at the China International Consumer Products Expo 2022. Photo credit: Alibaba Group

This week, Alibaba Group’s B2C cross-border platform Tmall Global rolled out an incubation program for 1,000 international brands to accelerate growth in China. 

In other news, business units across Alibaba’s ecosystem launched measures to help the visually impaired in China access resources. 

Alibaba said it is seeking to upgrade its secondary listing in Hong Kong to primary status to attract more investors from China.

Tmall Global to Help 1,000 Brands Grow in China 

Alibaba’s B2C cross-border platform Tmall Global announced this week that it would incubate around 1,000 international brands in the next three years. 

The platform shared its ambition at the China International Consumer Products Expo 2022, held between July 26 to July 30 in Hainan. 

Tmall Global will support the brands in marketing and cross-border logistics to help them reach RMB10 million ($1.48 million) in annual gross merchandise value (GMV) by the end of 2025.

Fifteen global brands have signed on, including Procter & Gamble’s beauty business Tula Skincare and Bayer’s supplement brand One A Day. 

More than 29,000 global retailers from over 87 countries have opened stores on Tmall Global, and 80% of them made their market entry to China through the platform, the latest data from the platform shows.  

Alibaba Helps The Visually Impaired Access Library Resources 

Alibaba’s ecosystem rolled out measures this week to make library resources and services accessible to the visually impaired. 

The group’s cloud computing arm, Alibaba Cloud, announced that it would help the Braille Library of China move its resources, including audiobooks, ebooks and films, to the cloud, giving people across China access on any device at any time.

Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics network, will provide free delivery for the visually impaired who want to borrow physical copies of books from the Braille Library of China. They can place a hold order on a book and Cainiao will deliver it to their doorstep and return it for free. 

The measures announced this week extend Alibaba’s earlier efforts to improve access for the visually impaired. In December 2020, Alibaba helped the Braille Library of China adopt Optical Character Recognition technology that can read text written on images for the visually impaired.

Alibaba Seeks Dual-Primary Listing In Hong Kong And New York

Alibaba said it is seeking to upgrade its secondary listing in Hong Kong to primary status to attract more investors from China.

The platform company’s board of directors has authorized management to apply for a dual-primary listing on the Main Board of Hong Kong’s stock exchange, in addition to its existing listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Alibaba Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang said the move was made “in the hopes of fostering a wider and more diversified investor base to share in Alibaba’s growth and future, especially from China and other markets in Asia.”

Read more here

Alibaba Group Chairman Daniel Zhang’s 2022 Letter to Shareholders

Alibaba published its annual report on Tuesday for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022. 

In a letter addressed to shareholders, Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang laid out the company’s guiding principle in response to the ever-changing environment globally and in China. 

“This may be the year in which changes in the external environment have been most severe in decades. In response to these big and impactful changes, our guiding principle has been “be confident, be flexible and be ourselves,” the letter reads. 

Read the full letter here 

What the Queen’s Grocer, Fortnum & Mason, Wants to Learn from China

British retailer Fortnum & Mason accelerated its digital transformation through the coronavirus pandemic as the number of tourists visiting its flagship Piccadilly store dwindled.

A critical leg in this digital journey is its recent launch on Alibaba’s Tmall Global, the largest cross-border marketplace in China, which counts 1.3 billion consumers in its ecosystem.

“There’s an awful lot to learn from China about the way consumers interact digitally,” Fortnum’s CEO Tom Athron told Alizila. “We’re just beginning to uncover the digital opportunity.”

The family-owned business is gleaning insights from China, such as how to swiftly spot emerging shopping trends and adapt its range of products to suit local tastes.

Read the full story here

Cainiao Promises More Doorstep Deliveries in Year Ahead Across China

Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao Network vowed to increase end-to-end delivery fulfilment in the year ahead across China at an annual industry summit in Hangzhou this week, as the platform develops its global postal service.

Last-mile delivery is the Achilles heel of logistics companies; house-to-house stops are slow, labor intensive and account for up to 28% of total shipment cost, according to research group Euromonitor International. 

“To safeguard a stable and smooth logistics and supply chain, adopting a holistic end-to-end mindset is essential,” Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang told the event’s audience.

Making this vision a reality is increasingly difficult due to insufficient manpower and rising costs. But Cainiao has a plan.

Learn about Cainiao’s plan here

Italy’s Moncler Sees China Sales Rebound in June; Tmall Soft Launch

Italian luxury brand Moncler said that its sales in China rebounded strongly in June after lockdowns on the mainland ended, and it was able to reopen stores.

“Even though the first half of the year was marked by strong macroeconomic and geopolitical instability, we have exceeded our expectations,” Remo Ruffini, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Moncler, said in a statement.

Several luxury brands have reported a bump from revenge spending, a tendency to splurge after a frugal period among Chinese consumers as they came out of lockdowns across mainland China.

The Milan-headquartered company, whose brands include Moncler and Stone Island, is launching on Tmall this year.

The Tmall launch has long been in the works as Moncler looks to attract a younger audience in the world’s second-largest economy.

Get the full scoop here

Women’s Fashion Tops Livestreaming Rankings on Alibaba’s Taobao

Women’s clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, home furnishing, plus food & beverage were the top-ranked categories in livestreaming by GMV generated in 2021, said Alibaba’s online marketplace Taobao in a new report.

In China, 460 million people watched livestreams on e-commerce platforms last year. Over 50 billion viewers have watched Taobao’s live sessions since 2016, according to the platform’s 2022 Taobao Livestream Annual New Consumption Trend Report, written in collaboration with research agency iResearch.

The average viewing time for Taobao livestreaming sessions rose by 25.8% year-on-year in 2021, and the number of products sold via those live sessions jumped by 53% year-on-year, the report added.

Read highlights from the report here