AliExpress to launch AE Mall, aiming expansion in North America, Korea and Middle Europe
On April 19, at its 2022 annual conference, Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce arm AliExpress announced three major goals for its future-launching AE Mall, optimizing its platform mechanisms, further investing in logistics in prominent markets such as Europe, Brazil, Korea and the US.
In the past year, as the COVID-19 pandemic gradually loses its grip on people’s dailies lives, and many countries return to norm, cross-border e-commerce has been particularly booming. The trade volume of the Chinese export cross-border e-commerce players amounted to 11.5 trillion yuan, up from 9.7 trillion yuan in the previous year, according to Statista.
In 2021, AliExpress has witnessed a 43% growth in its sellers with annual sales more than 1 million USD. In addition, the AliExpress platform has also attracted an additional 30% of new users globally, upped its logistics efficiency by 25%, and covered 8 countries with 14 warehouses thru its partnership with Cainiao Express.
Zhang Kaifu, Vice President of Alibaba and General Manager of AliExpress, told press that the cross-border marketplace has already helped merchants to localize their marketing strategies for each overseas market in the past year, so paying customers in Brazil tripled, GMV increased 44% in Korea, 30%-40% in Mexico and Chile.
Going forward, AliExpress intends to further expand its business with the launch of “AE Mall”. According to AliExpress, AE Mall will offer merchants who enroll in the program special perks, such as an AE Mall membership logo, and customer managers. AliExpress aimes to establish a more slim fitted environment for AE Mall merchants to not only increase sales but also grow as a brand.
In addition, AliExpress will continue to increase investment in the construction of overseas warehouses and other logistics infrastructure in key markets this year, including Spain, France, Brazil, Korea and the United States. It is expected that by the end of the year, the number of overseas pick-up hubs and self-service cabinets will double.
AliExpress will also optimize the platform mechanism through a series of initiatives this year. “Take logistics performance as an example, merchants who can guarantee shipping within 72 hours will be explicitly given “traffic boost,” said Zhang. The platform will offer merchants who ships from AliExpress’ warehouses additional support to incentivize merchants to achieve a shipping-within-72-hours rate of 90% or more.
In order to operate in multiple markets, the platform also vows to step up and help merchants adjust to fit regulations and standardized tests in each country, ensuring the quality of AliExpress’s shopping experience and protecting merchant’s rights and interests.
“Our long-term vision is to be the world’s largest cross-border e-commerce platform. Starting today, we will strive for becoming the cross-border platform that best understands Chinese merchants,” said Zhang.