Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce group, is overhauling the business model of a fast-growing subsidiary in a bid to offer a full international service able to challenge Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer.
Trudy Dai, president of Alibaba’s wholesale marketplaces division, told the Financial Times that AliExpress— an ecommerce business that sells goods from Chinese retailers to customers in more than 150 countries — is making changes to enable retailers from other countries to also sell products on its platform around the world.
“From the very first day that Alibaba was founded we had a ‘global dream’,” said Ms Dai, who along with Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, was part of the company’s first executive team in 1999.