You must be aware that Alibaba is one of the e-commerce giants in China and it is also worth noting that they have been doing all they can to do as much business in their home market as possible. However, we also know that the growth in Chinese market is slowing down due to the economic depression right now and that is also the reason why they are going for the cash burn model. Apart from that, these Chinese companies are also looking to invest and grow in foreign markets as the demand for Chinese products has grown overseas.
Due to that reason, Alibaba’s AliExpress is now looking to expand in markets like Spain and even South Korea. As far as Spain is concerned, AliExpress has already reduced their delivery time in the country to just 9 days on average which took months earlier. Apart from that, AliExpress has also announced 9 charter flights daily that will go to Spain so that the delivery time can be expedited even more. This is comparable to AliExpress’ logistics hub, Belgium, in Europe. AliExpress’ commercial director for Europe says that they are “focused on the basics” and added that “We’ll be investing a lot in the user experience, including logistics, also free returns, paying by instalments, product selection and quality, and guaranteed prices. This is really our main direction for the year … retail basics.”
Apart from their investment in Spain, AliExpress also announced investment in South Korea up to 100 billion won so as to improve logistics as well as price-performance ratio and user experience in the country. AliExpress South Korea General Manager said that their daily users have grown by over 60% in the last month compared to the same time last year. One market analyst believes that AliExpress chose Spain as their next target market because “they are less contested than markets such as the US, particularly for lower cost Chinese cross-border goods”. Apart from AliExpress, Temu is also looking to invest in other countries apart from the US and even ByteDance-owned TikTok is looking to expand in markets like the UK and other European countries.
