Founded in China in 1999 by Jack Ma together with some collaborators, it aims to connect enterprises and brands with the opportunities deriving from the expanding Chinese market. We are talking about Alibaba, one of the main technological companies in the world, with a 768 billion dollars business recorded in fiscal year 2008.
Let’s examine more closely how it works: Alibaba provides the fundamental technology infrastructure to an ecosystem of digital marketplaces, allowing small and medium-sized enterprises to offer products and services worldwide, as well as to a catchment area of 552 million Chinese active consumers.
“Processed horticultural products are exported in small quantities and quite randomly, it would be appropriate if sales communication was developed first, to build up product knowledge. The enterprises willing to enter the Chinese market cannot escape this, and should invest an adequate sum to this channel and market.”
“In this context, Alibaba can support Italian enterprises - the manager concludes- by offering the opportunities of an online and off-line system which can introduce them directly into the Chinese market. We mustn’t forget the great potential of this market, with 550 million consumers.”
Digital Ecosystem
- Tmall and Tmall Global: B2C platforms that allow sales of products to Chinese consumers. In order to work on Tmall, a Chinese legal entity is required. On Tmall Global, instead, enterprises with no legal entity in China and no physical presence in the country are allowed to sell too.
- Alibaba.com : it is the largest global wholesale marketplace. Its buyers are sales agents, wholesalers, retailers, producers, plus small and medium sized enterprises involved in import-export.
- Alipay: the world’s leading payment method, managed by Ant Financial Services Group.
- Alibaba Cloud: the Chinese public cloud provider with the highest turnover in 2016, according to IDC. It offers cloud computing services worldwide and is the official cloud services partner of the International Olympic Committee.
- Aliexpress: global retail marketplace that enables consumers worldwide to purchase Chinese and international products. Among its main markets are Russia, Brazil and Spain.
- Cainiao: a logistic data platform, that leverages the capacity and capabilities of logistics partners to fulfil transactions between merchants and consumers at a large scale.
- Alimama: a marketing technology platform that enables merchants and brands to place various marketing formats on Alibaba Group's marketplaces and other third-party properties like websites and apps.
- Fliggy: previously known as “Alitrip,” is a travel service platform that offers Chinese consumers a wide range of products and services (airline, train and bus tickets, hotel bookings, vacation packages and tourist attraction tickets).
Contact:
Alibaba Group
C.so Europa, 13
20122 Milano
Tel.: +39 02 35960700
Web: www.alibabagroup.com/en/global/home