China-based e-commerce giant Alibaba has opened its doors to vendors based in countries outside China on its Aliexpress platform. This however only applies to a select few other countries among them; Russia, Italy, Spain and Turkey.
Vendors, often small and medium-sized businesses, in the newly on-boarded countries will have their market expanded to over 150 countries.
Alibaba’s AliExpress is popular internationally for its unbelievably low prices and relatively quick shipping service. This makes it difficult to rival. Earlier this year Amazon pulled out of the Chinese market, citing the intense competition as its main reason for the move.
AliExpress President, Trudy Dai said, “This year is the first year for our ‘local to global’ strategy. This strategy is intimately connected to Alibaba’s broader globalization strategy.” A statement backed up by the move to open up the platform to foreign vendors.
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The move is also a jab taken in Amazon’s direction. The company (Alibaba) is establishing foothold to be able to compete with Amazon on a worldwide stage.
Amazon is currently the world’s largest online retailer.
