Chinese e-commerce giant and world’s largest retailer Alibaba Group has recently announced the launch of the Taobao Global US Merchants Network. The general purpose of the network is to serve American small and medium-sized businesses and create 1 million jobs according to their Chairman Jack Ma. The network will help U.S. small businesses easily connect with merchants operating within Alibaba’s network such as Tmall and Taobao. US small businesses on the network will have access to a centralised platform, “where they can connect with and sell their products to experienced Taobao Global merchants who sell to Chinese consumers”, according to the Alibaba statement.
Alibaba President Michael Evans said the following about the small businesses using Taobao:
“Alibaba created the Taobao Global U.S. Merchants Network to strengthen the connections between U.S. small businesses and Chinese consumers. The merchants who join this network are experts on Chinese consumers and are continually seeking new, unique American products for the millions of Chinese consumers they reach on Taobao.”
Taobao is akin to a Facebook of sorts in China in that there is significant engagement. People often share and view content, message their retailers and also live stream many different media. For the fiscal year 2017, the total amount of items sold on Taobao increased 17% year-over-year to $320 billion. Taobao claims to have over 500 million customers in their platform.
The move comes as Alibaba will shift their sights from courting the biggers brands such as Costcoand move to small brands that works on the periphery of customer awareness. The Network has an initial launch of over 300 U.S.-based Taobao Global merchant members. A matchmaking event at last month’s small business conference Gateway ’17 in Detroit connected 60 U.S. small businesses with 45 Taobao Global merchants.
Alibaba will also implement and encourage participation in training seminars on logistics and other ecommerce issues. This will also the merchants who are in the network understand trends in the Chinese market.
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