Single's Day triggers Alibaba's market expansion

Office of Tmall.com. [File photo]

Tmall.com, the largest online retail store within the Alibaba Group, announced on Thursday that it expects the rapidly growing entertainment festival Single's Day, Nov. 11, to be the turning point of its global business expansion, Sina.com reported.

The festival has become increasingly popular in China in recent years, and is particularly favored and celebrated by young people. It got its name because the date consists of four "ones" (11/11). Young singles like to hold parties and send each other gifts on this day, resulting in it becoming the nation's largest online shopping day.

Tmall's announcement drew an immediate response from Taobao.com and AliExpress, two other major online platforms under Alibaba, confirming their determination to actively participate in the event as well. This demonstrates the globalized environment in which Alibaba now operates, with its e-commerce platforms, "Cainiao Network" logistics platform, cloud computing and large data capacity.

Tmall mainly focuses on domestic customers by importing well-known retail brands from the United States, Japan and South Korea. America's Costco supermarket's flagship Tmall store sold three tons of nuts and nearly 1.5 tons of dried cranberries within three days of going online.

Taobao, meanwhile, targets markets in Southeast Asian countries and regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, as well as further afield in the United States and Canada. It ranks first among all e-commerce platforms in Hong Kong and third in Taiwan in terms of gross merchandise volume.

AliExpress focuses on foreign customers. In 2013, the number of goods sold on its platform exceeded 100 million, ranking first among all e-commerce retailers in Russia and Brazil. At present, Chinese mainland companies use this outlet to sell their products in more than 220 countries.

In addition to the e-commerce platform, cooperative partners like Alipay (a third-party online payment platform with no transaction fees), banks, transnational businesses, Cainiao Network and courier companies also support Alibaba's globalized system.

Cainiao Network, Alibaba's logistics branch, has established an overseas storage network and a major air freight service lines covering five continents. Targeting consumers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, Cainiao has also introduced 8,000 overseas automatic delivery centers.

Alibaba's globalization has led to huge overseas business expansion of its cooperative courier companies. Following Cainiao, traditional domestic courier companies like SF-Express, STO-Express, ZTO-Express and YTO-Express have also expanded their business to overseas storage, cross-country transport and overseas automatic delivery.

Alibaba's payment system has also been expanding in recent years. For example, it has implemented programs with the E. Sun Bank of Taiwan and Citibank so that consumers enjoy a preferential cash discount of 10 percent when using their bank cards during the Single's Day period. In Hong Kong, Octopus and PPS also support payments to Alibaba.

Digital cross-border e-commerce logistics is an emerging trend. For example, Cainiao's central logistics information system network has realized real-time visual tracking from packaging, weighing, transport and customs clearance, transferring and automatic delivery.

Delivery times have also been shortened through use of bonded goods. Dutiable imported commodities are transported to bonded warehouses in China under customs supervision and are released for delivery once the customer has paid. Through this process, Cainiao Network has now formed a complete system to serve cross-border commerce and trade.

The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group made a spectacular initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in September with an initial price of US$68 a share, raising a total of US$25 billion. Partly due to this, Jack Ma founder of Alibaba, topped the China Rich List issued by Forbes on Oct. 27 with a net worth US$19.5 billion.