Nowadays taking part in an affiliate program of a worldwide known company is often viewed as a promising business opportunity. The commercial success of such a collaboration, of course, depends on the business’s strength. So let’s take a look at AliExpress company to understand why its affiliate program is becoming increasingly appealing to both regional and foreign entrepreneurs.
What is AliExpress?
AliExpress, a global online marketplace, was launched in 2010 in order to sell various consumer goods worldwide. Nowadays AliExpress features:
- More than 200,000 sellers;
- More than 100 million products;
- 30 product categories;
- Shipping to 200 countries.
A significant number of sellers provide free shipping to any destination in the world, even though sometimes the delivery can take up to a month for an especially remote corner of the planet.
As for now, this online retailer is considered to be one of the fastest growing divisions of Alibaba Group Holding as the average annual growth of the platform amounts to
300%. Aibaba, the parent company of AliExpress, in turn, has a reputation of China’s leading e-commerce company.
What do we know about Alibaba?
According to the latest market updates, Alibaba’s online retail platforms account for at least 80% of the e-commerce market in China. What is even more astonishing, in October 2014 the company managed to outperform Wal-mart and become the
biggest retailer in the world.
To gain insight into the company’s unique market position and extraordinary growth prospective, it is reasonable to look at some statistical facts describing Alibaba’s performance:
- The total amount of sales registered in 2014 is estimated at $420 billion. Just compare it with only $170 billion achieved in 2012!
- The customer base of the company is unrivalled. Only in China, which was originally considered to be the primary market for Alibaba operations, the population amounts to 1,4 billion people. Given that the website allows selling and shipment operations nearly for every country in the world, the target audience becomes wider every day.
- To perform effectively, Alibaba has about 25,000 employees responsible for handling and managing all the operations.
As for now, Alibaba competes successfully with numerous worldwide retailers as the company is characterized with an exceptionally strong presence in both regional and international markets. The factors determining the company’s rapid growth are:
- Dominance in the mobile commerce segment;
- Opportunities for international growth;
- Strong financial position.
What does the future of e-commerce hold?
As customers tend to look beyond the geographic borders to get the best shopping deal or find something that is not readily available in their own countries, cross-border e-commerce is bound to keep growing in the long term. As internetretailer.com website informs, China Post has increased the volume of outbound shipments by 70% in 2015. The most common shipment destinations were USA, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Russia.
According to a research that was carried out by Alibaba in collaboration with consulting firm Accenture, around 50% of global Internet users will make their purchases across borders by 2020. In other words, the online retail industry is thriving – why not try to capitalize on its high speed growth?
