天猫国际发布三大战略，“2000亿美元进口额”将如何实现? – iyiou.com
What happened: Tmall Global has unveiled two initiatives that further Alibaba’s plans to bring $200 billion worth of international goods into China over the next five years, a commitment the Chinese e-commerce giant made in November at the state-backed China International Import Expo. The company will achieve this goal with its Centralized Import Procurement program, which sources imported goods for all online and offline outlets within the Alibaba ecosystem. The company will also use its Tmall Overseas Fulfillment (TOF) system, a consignment solution that allows brands to place a small batch of products at one of the TOF centers to be sold on the Tmall Global platform.
Why it’s important: Demand for imported goods is gaining traction across age groups and regions in China. Those born after 2000, or “Generation Z”, are part of the fastest-growing consumer group for overseas goods. China’s cross-border e-commerce market has grown remarkably, with the proportion of imports to total e-commerce sales growing from 1.6% in 2014 to 10.2% in 2017, according to a joint report by Deloitte China, the China Chamber of International Commerce, and AliResearch. In addition to Alibaba, all major e-commerce platforms, like JD, Suning.com, NetEase Kaola, and Yangmatou have committed to answering Beijing’s call to boost the nation’s imports. These companies pledged to bring a combined total of over $250 billion worth of foreign goods to China.