Alibaba plans to connect 100 million Chinese consumers globally with its Taobao marketplace through the launch of Tmall World.
The new service will provide Chinese-speaking consumers living outside of China with access to the 1.2 billion products being sold through Alibaba’s platforms including its Tmall and Taobao sites.
Alibaba will provide logistics, payment and all localisation support for the new service, which aims to give brands and merchants on its platforms access to Chinese consumers globally.
Tmall World has initially launched in four “priority” markets; Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, all of which have large Chinese-speaking populations.
The launch coincides with the annual 6.18 online shopping festival and Alibaba has kicked off a three-day sales promotion across its platforms to offer discounts to Chinese consumers both within China and abroad.
The launch is the latest move in Alibaba’s globalisation strategy as the brand continues to strive towards its goal of reaching 2 billion people worldwide by 2020.
Alibaba has recently increased its presence in South East Asia after taking a majority stake in the region’s leading ecommerce platform Lazada and is considering a complete buy-out of the company.
Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Financial also recently launched its online payment service Alipay in Singapore and Malaysia after merging with Lazada’s online payment platform helloPay.
Alibaba also recently launched Taobao Collection, an English language version of the online marketplace in Malaysia and Singapore.
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