Michael Evans, CEO of Alibaba Group, said the corporate will bring its Tmall e-commerce site to Europe.
Chesnot | Getty Images | News Getty’s paintings
PARIS – Alibaba will expand one of its key Chinese e-commerce sites to Europe, the corporate’s CEO said on Thursday, marking a significant step in the Chinese tech giant’s international push.
The announcement comes just over two months after Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, announced plans to separate its operations into six units, aiming to offer each unit greater autonomy and faster decision-making powers.
Michael Evans, CEO of Alibaba, said the corporate will bring one of its Chinese e-commerce services, Tmall, to Europe.
“So you are going to see something called Tmall that we now have in China grow to be Tmall in Europe, which implies we will serve local brands and local consumers in the local market,” Evans said on the Viva Tech conference in Paris, France.
Evans revealed that the corporate is currently running a pilot project in Spain that “will be expanded across Europe”.
In China, Tmall is Alibaba’s website and app that focuses on selling foreign brands to Chinese consumers.
The launch of Tmall in Europe reflects Alibaba’s significant shift in strategy for its international e-commerce operations.
While Alibaba’s international give attention to online shopping isn’t latest, it has focused on a site called AliExpress in Europe. Nonetheless, AliExpress ships goods from China to Europe. Shipping times are sometimes long, although products might be cheaper than rivals.
Nonetheless, Evans suggests that Tmall in Europe will give attention to selling local brands to local customers. It’s unclear if this will be connected to AliExpress in any way.
One of Alibaba’s six independent corporations known as Taobao Tmall Commerce Group and focuses on its two important e-commerce products in China. Nevertheless it also has a Global Digital Commerce unit focused on pushing Alibaba’s e-commerce overseas.
“Europe is the highest priority for all corporations which have a global component. By that I mean multinational trading corporations, cloud business, especially logistics business,” said Evans.