AliExpress was officially launched in April 2010. It is an international trading platform built by Alibaba at a cost of US$100 million. It draws on the successful model of “Tmall” in China, replicates the domestic B2C model abroad, and forms a new B2C foreign trade platform. It is an online foreign trade trading platform that integrates orders, payment and logistics to help Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises contact terminal wholesalers and retailers, sell in small batches and batches quickly, and expand profit margins. The business has B2B mode and B2C mode, but the main one is B2C mode, accounting for 65% of the total business. This platform is suitable for products with small volume and high added value, covering a total of 30 first-level industry categories including, clothing, home furnishings, and products, mainly including clothing and accessories, mobile communications, bags, beauty and health, jewelry and watches, consumer electronics, computer networks, home furnishings, automobile and motorcycle accessories, lamps and lanterns and other advantageous industries.
After more than three years of rapid development, AliExpress has now covered overseas buyers in more than 220 countries and regions. The daily traffic of overseas buyers has exceeded 50 million, with a peak of 100 million, making it the world’s largest cross-border trading platform. AliExpress buyers are more sensitive to the cost-effectiveness of goods. Among them, Russia, Brazil, the United States and Australia account for most of AliExpress’s transaction volume. Unlike international platforms such as Amazon and eBay, AliExpress has grafted Taobao’s genes of being good at marketing activities. Low-price promotions cater to the needs of overseas buyers. In the past year, promotional activities have been organized frequently and effectively, with tens of thousands of orders for a single product in a day.
The services provided by the AliExpress platform are essentially the same as those of eBay, Dunhuang.com, etc. There are only slight differences in seller access, charging methods, and transaction processes. The AliExpress platform can actually be considered as a foreign trade version of Taobao. The core advantage of AliExpress is that under the new global trade situation, the purchasing methods of global buyers are undergoing drastic changes. Small batches and multiple batches are forming a new purchasing trend. More terminal wholesalers and retailers are purchasing directly online and supplying goods directly to terminal wholesalers and retailers. The shorter circulation and retail channels and direct online retail payment collection have expanded the profit space of small batches and multiple batches of products and created more profits for wholesalers and retailers.