Amazon Expands Chinese Presence With Alibaba Partnership

Amazon has opened an online store on Tmall.com, Alibaba’s online marketplace, in an effort to expand in China.

Amazon joins the likes of Burberry and ASOS in partnering with Tmall to increase sales and brand awareness in the country.

Tmall.com

Tmall.com is a business-to-consumer marketplace which offers e-storefronts and payment portals to sellers. Amazon already has its own online store in China, but with Alibaba and national competitor JD.com controlling almost 90 percent of the country’s ecommerce, Amazon will now potentially unlock higher sales with the exposure to increased numbers of shoppers.

“We welcome Amazon to the Alibaba ecosystem, and their presence will further broaden the selection of products and elevate the shopping experience for Chinese consumers on Tmall,” a spokesperson from Alibaba said in an email statement.

The virtual shopfront from Amazon is currently in a test phase, and offers shoes, kitchen accessories as well as imported food and toys.

334 million buyers

According to Forbes, Amazon has been negotiating the deal for two years, and gives Amazon access to 334 million buyers on Taobao bazaar and Tmall.com.

China is the world’s largest e-commerce market, with Forrester Research claiming that the country’s online retail spending will exceed $1 trillion by 2019.

The news follows Alibaba’s decision to open a data centre in the United States to offer cloud services that will hopefully attract overseas Chinese business.

Located in Silicon Valley, the data centre will be run by Aliyun, Alibaba’s cloud computing division.

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