AliExpress continues to invest heavily in cross-border retail infrastructure to help Chinese supply chains leverage their advantages in the global market

On April 13, the 2021 AliExpress Global Annual Merchant Summit was held in Guangzhou. At the meeting, Wang Mingqiang, Vice President of Alibaba Group and General Manager of AliExpress, said: "AliExpress has explored a unique cross-border retail model, a model that can not only highlight the cross-border supply advantages of "high quality and low price" of Made in China, but also provide merchants with "quasi-localized" service capabilities in logistics fulfillment and user experience." In the future, AliExpress will continue to improve and upgrade various infrastructures to create more opportunities for Chinese companies to "discover" new markets.

AliExpress General Manager Wang Mingqiang speaks at the Merchant Summit

Founded in 2010, Alibaba AliExpress is China's largest cross-border retail e-commerce platform. It currently has sites in 18 languages, covering more than 220 countries and regions around the world.

Cross-border retail e-commerce model helps Chinese manufacturing give full play to its advantages

Under the global epidemic, overseas markets have been increasingly dependent on Chinese manufacturing. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs, China's import and export volume hit a record high in 2020, with a total export value of 17.93 trillion yuan, an increase of 4% compared with 2019.

As the preferred cross-border retail platform for Chinese companies, AliExpress has continued to invest in the construction of various infrastructures such as product supply, logistics, payment, and technology, which has also enabled the supply chain advantages of Chinese manufacturing to be fully utilized.

In the last fiscal year, AliExpress maintained high growth, with particularly strong growth in the past six months. In Russia, the largest market, AliExpress continued to maintain its leading position in user penetration. In key national markets such as Spain and France, as well as emerging markets such as Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and Latin America, AliExpress's growth rate reached the highest level in the past three years.

Wang Mingqiang believes that Made in China has the world's largest, most comprehensive and best-equipped supply chain manufacturing system, which can provide a wide range of high-quality and low-priced goods. The convenient and fast shopping experience of cross-border retail e-commerce has made "Chinese-style online shopping" increasingly popular in overseas markets. " Once the online consumption habit is formed, it is irreversible. Cross-border retail exports have changed from an option to a must. "

Under the epidemic, "stay-at-home economy" categories such as home furnishings, sports, and leisure have achieved explosive growth. Mould King, a toy company located in Shantou, originally focused on offline exports. Its product quality is comparable to that of international first-tier brands, but its price is less than one-fifth of that of international first-tier brands. It is a representative of "high quality and low price" made in China. In March 2020, during the global epidemic, Mould King entered AliExpress to transform into a cross-border retailer. In the wave of "stay-at-home economy", Mould King discovered the first pot of gold in cross-border retail e-commerce. In 2020, the Double 11 orders increased by 100%, of which the German market increased by 500%.

AliExpress continues to invest in infrastructure construction to provide merchants with "quasi-localized" services

In the past, AliExpress has upgraded its infrastructure construction in logistics, payment, technology, digitalization, etc. Relying on AliExpress's infrastructure, merchants can enjoy "quasi-localized" services that are almost the same as local sales when selling rich varieties, high-quality and low-priced Chinese-made goods to the world, gaining greater competitiveness in the international market.

"More than 95% of our products are in AliExpress's preferred warehouses and overseas warehouses." Shi Enrong, cross-border e-commerce sales manager of Teclast, a brand that sells tablets and laptops, said that relying on the warehouse and distribution infrastructure built by AliExpress, Teclast was able to better carry out brand operations. In just one year after setting up the flagship store, sales increased by 200%. Lingdu Electronics, China's largest manufacturer of driving recorders, started to expand its own brands overseas after entering AliExpress. Relying on AliExpress's various infrastructures, it quickly opened up overseas markets. Currently, it has overseas warehouses in 9 countries with stock, and the warehouse-to-shipment penetration rate is over 80%. Sales increased by more than 60% year-on-year compared with the previous fiscal year.

The logistics supply chain is the top priority of infrastructure. From last year to this year, the number of charter flights cooperated by AliExpress and Cainiao has doubled, exceeding 300 flights per month. On the basis of overseas warehouses in Spain and France, Britain and Germany will also add overseas warehouses. The coverage of the "cross-border 10-day delivery" logistics network has expanded to six countries: Britain, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. In key countries such as Russia, Spain, and France, the proportion of "10-day delivery" packages has exceeded 80%. Low-cost and efficient combined logistics covers more than 50 countries, and the timeliness has increased by 4-5 times compared to before. AliExpress also provides merchants with "logistics hosting and global delivery" services by establishing a network of preferred warehouses in Dongguan, Weihai, and Hong Kong, and expanding the preferred warehouses of origin in Yiwu and Xuchang.

AliExpress Dongguan Preferred Warehouse Distribution Center

In terms of supply-side infrastructure, AliExpress helps merchants create competitive products based on the digital capabilities of the platform, optimizes the supply -side structure, and establishes a "high quality and low price" mentality across all price ranges. In terms of technology, during Tmall's Double 11 last year, AliExpress and DAMO Academy launched the world's first AI real-time translation live broadcast, which can simultaneously translate from Chinese to English, Russian, and Spanish. It allows Chinese merchants to broadcast in Chinese with one click, covering more than one billion people in English, Spanish, and Russian-speaking regions around the world.

Deeply cultivate key national markets in Russia, Spain and France, and help merchants explore new markets in Brazil, Japan and South Korea

In the past year, AliExpress has achieved rapid development in key markets such as Spain and France, which also benefited from the deep cultivation of infrastructure construction. Spain and France have set up multiple official overseas warehouses, and with the cooperation of Cainiao charter flights and local delivery networks, the coverage of overseas warehouses within 3-7 days and cross-border 10-day delivery has been continuously expanded. With the improvement of consumer experience, the year-on-year growth of GMV in Spain and France has reached the highest level in the past three years.

In the next phase, Spain and France will continue to increase logistics infrastructure, plan to add large distribution centers, and establish 30,000 self-pickup networks. In Russia, the largest market, AliExpress will continue to deepen localization through the integration of social and e-commerce, and the number of self-pickup outlets will increase to 8,000.

In addition, AliExpress's heavy investment in infrastructure solutions is also being used to open up new markets and explore more opportunities for Chinese companies.

In the past period of time, many infrastructure projects in the Brazilian market have made rapid progress: in the past six months, Brazil's logistics costs have dropped by nearly 20%, customs clearance speed has increased by an average of 1.2 days, and key areas can achieve "cross-border delivery within 12 days". AliExpress and Alipay cooperated in Brazil to increase the payment success rate by 20%, and will also develop installment payments through platform interest subsidies in the future.

As a result, Brazil has become one of the most promising emerging markets for AliExpress. During the AliExpress 3.28 promotion this year, sales in Brazil increased 8 times year-on-year. The number of new users in the Brazilian market has increased nearly 10 times year-on-year in the past year.

"AliExpress has exported a cross-border retail e-commerce model that includes logistics and payment to overseas markets. This model has been proven to have strong vitality and is replicable globally," said Wang Mingqiang.

AliExpress Platform

Guangzhou