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E-commerce industry has entered the preparation rhythm for “Double 11”.
Taobao Further Expands Global Market: Logistics Is Key
On September 22, Taobao’s cross-border business “Taobao Overseas” announced that it will invest 1 billion yuan in marketing subsidies in overseas markets during this year’s “Double 11” to help 100,000 merchants double their overseas transactions.
According to Ye Jianqiu, General Manager of Taobao Overseas, this year’s “Double 11” will be launched simultaneously in 20 countries and regions for the first time, with 5 different language versions targeting global consumers.
In an interview with media including a reporter from National Business Daily, Ye Jianqiu said that the KPI of Taobao Overseas for this “Double 11” mainly focuses on two core indicators: user experience and user growth. “We require sustainable and healthy growth internally, so the first priority is user experience, which must not decline.”
In recent years, Taobao has started to发力 in the global market. In September 2024, based on the successful experience of big apparel going overseas, Taobao Overseas’ strategy was fully upgraded to the “Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan”, with the platform providing overseas postage subsidies to directly offer free shipping to overseas consumers.
On September 23 this year, AliExpress launched the “Super Brand Overseas Plan”, using half the cost of brands on Amazon to achieve higher transactions. Some views believe that this move means AliExpress is launching a frontal challenge to Amazon to compete for mid-to-high-end brands.
It is understood that the Taobao Overseas version was first launched in 2015 to meet the spontaneous shopping needs of overseas Chinese, managed by a small team at that time. In 2016, “Taobao Overseas” was upgraded to “Tmall Overseas”, and in 2018, the business was renamed “Tmall Taobao Overseas”, belonging to Tmall’s Import and Export Business Group; since 2022, the business has been under Alibaba’s International Digital Business Group along with AliExpress and Lazada, and has gradually gained momentum.
Different from other cross-border e-commerce platforms, Taobao Overseas focuses on a light asset model of “0 return/refund, 0 operation cost”. Merchants only need to sign the “Overseas Growth Plan” in their original Taobao stores to automatically synchronize sales to overseas sites, with the platform covering returns and providing a complete overseas link.
Ye Jianqiu revealed that since the launch of the “Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan” in 2024, more than one million merchants have joined.
During “Double 11”, Taobao Overseas will invest 1 billion yuan in marketing expenses. According to official sources, new users placing their first order in 16 countries and regions can participate in the “1 yuan purchase”. In addition, Ye Jianqiu said that Taobao Overseas will place multilingual advertisements for Taobao in key online and offline landmarks in all core markets.
In terms of logistics, during “Double 11”, 12 overseas sites of Taobao will support cross-border free shipping and free return services. Among them, Hong Kong and Macau will achieve “zero-threshold free shipping”, and Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, etc. will issue large freight coupons every day.
It is worth mentioning that in April this year, affected by the turmoil caused by Trump’s tariff新政, Taobao’s download volume soared in App download markets in many overseas countries and regions. Public data shows that as of April 16, Taobao ranked second in the U.S. App download list, also rose to second in Canada, the UK, etc., and even ranked first in the French market.
“Through this incident, our feeling is still to return to cross-border logistics. The most important thing to do this business is to build logistics,” Ye Jianqiu said, adding that Taobao is more determined to cover more countries in logistics experience, including providing a more certain service experience.
He revealed that Taobao Overseas’ logistics network is very diversified. “AE (AliExpress) has its own logistics department, and we also have our own logistics department, as well as an integrated middle platform logistics team. Some are shared capabilities, some are built separately.”
Will Taobao Overseas Be the ‘Catfish’ in Cross-Border E-Commerce?
“This year is the first truly global ‘Double 11’,” said Yi Shan, Head of Taobao Overseas Merchants Recruitment. Taobao Overseas has launched five language versions, including Chinese, English, Thai, Russian, and Malay. “This means more local users can shop on Taobao.”
With the further development of Taobao Overseas, what are the main differences between it and other Alibaba’s overseas businesses? Will it conflict with other Alibaba businesses?
“For merchants, Taobao merchants can go overseas with one click on the Taobao platform; they are naturally on the Taobao platform,” Ye Jianqiu said. “Of course, some merchants now open stores on AliExpress, which requires them to re-enter the AliExpress platform. For users, these are two different Apps, and for Alibaba, they are managed by different business teams.”
In addition, currently, the target markets of Taobao Overseas and AliExpress are also clearly different.
Ye Jianqiu revealed that Taobao Overseas mainly focuses on Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan markets, while AliExpress focuses more on European markets. Taobao Overseas does not follow the traditional boutique or brand route. “We hope that Taobao overseas will still maintain the consumer mindset of ‘the omnipotent Taobao’.”
According to Taobao Overseas, during “Double 11”, more than 1 million merchants will simultaneously sell to overseas regions, and the number of cross-border free shipping products will reach 400 million.
In addition, during “Double 11”, Taobao Overseas will focus on supporting several industries such as big apparel, 3C digital, furniture and home, sports and outdoor, toys and trendy play, and automotive and motorcycle parts.
Yi Shan introduced that for the above key industries, Taobao will launch industry-specific channel pages overseas during the big promotion to boost the explosion of the entire industry. “Not only ‘Double 11’, this will be the platform’s long-term operation strategy in the future.”
It is worth mentioning that AliExpress, another cross-border e-commerce platform under Alibaba, is also making efforts simultaneously. On September 23, AliExpress announced the launch of the “Super Brand Overseas Plan”, recruiting well-known brands including Tmall brands and Amazon top sellers.
Yan Zhi, Head of AliExpress Brand Overseas, introduced that the essence of this brand overseas upgrade is that AliExpress has made changes from the underlying capabilities, providing a systematic brand overseas strategy, transforming from brands adapting to platform operation requirements and relying on big promotions for explosions to the platform doing brand upgrading from the bottom up.
Currently, in the cross-border e-commerce track, major overseas platforms have their own strengths.
Zhuang Shuai, Founder of Bailian Consulting, told reporters that SHEIN’s model focuses on its own brand, mainly in apparel; Temu focuses on full托管 and semi托管 models, operating full-category products. In Zhuang Shuai’s view, Taobao Overseas belongs to the platform model. “In fact, existing Taobao merchants sell directly on the overseas Taobao App.”
Compared with the domestic market, the global market has more uncertainties and broader exploration space. Currently, in 2025, Alibaba is trying to break through growth bottlenecks and find new growth points in the domestic market; on the other hand, it is also actively expanding the global market to seek more development possibilities.
