Alibaba is working directly with foreign embassies in China to expand its influence and sales potential around the world.
The e-commerce company has opened 11 official country pavilions on its Tmall Global platform and cooperative partnerships between Juhuasuan, Alibaba's group-buying platform, and 26 foreign embassies in China.
A total of 11 countries, including United States, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, France, Britain, Spain, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Turkey will launch country pavilions on Tmall Global, an extension of Tmall.com China's largest third-party B2C platform for brands and retailers. These country pavilions are curated online verticals aimed at providing Chinese consumers with a one-stop shop for popular products from a particular country and other travel and cultural information. Brands already on Tmall.com and Tmall Global can opt to join their originating country's pavilion.
In May, Korea was the first country to launch a country pavilion on Tmall.com, allowing small-medium Korean enterprises to sell authentic products such as cosmetics and apparel directly to Chinese consumers.
By cooperating with various governments and official trade agencies and utilizing Cainiao's, Alibaba Group's logistics affiliate's, extensive logistics network, Alibaba's e-commerce platforms are able to help small businesses anywhere sell high-quality products directly into China. As a pioneer of large-scale cross-border e-commerce, Alibaba not only lowers trade barriers for those looking to sell into China, but also meets the needs of China's rising middle class consumers who are increasingly looking for high quality, imported products.
According to a recently released report on cross-border e-commerce by Accenture, by 2020, China is expected to become the world's biggest cross-border B2C market.