(Yicai Global) Jan. 7 — Alibaba Group Holding will fully integrate the back end of its core e-commerce businesses Taobao and Tmall to promote a more efficient decision-making process and unified actions amid fierce competition, said Trudy Dai, a senior executive with the Chinese internet giant.
Alibaba will set three new centers to target merchants, platforms, and consumers, Mrs Dai, which is the Hangzhou-based firm’s president of Industrial E-Commerce and Community E-commerce, said in an internal letter yesterday.
The industrial operation and development center, which will target merchants, aims to consolidate the clothing and consumer electronics businesses, boost the development of fresh food, tourism, health, and home furniture categories, and expand commercial app Taobao’s business to upstream fields. It will integrate more than 10 large sections on Taobao and e-commerce site Tmall, group-buying platform Juhuasuan, and coupon platform Ten Billion Subsidies.
The platform strategy center will develop and operate merchants’ operation and marketing tools, as well as establish a team dedicated to the growth of medium, small, and micro-sized merchants. It will focus on the platforms.
Targeting consumers, the user operation and development center will mostly be responsible for developing and operating merchants’ tools related to user and member products, user growth, and store products.
Alibaba reached 1.2 billion consumers worldwide in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2021, over 200 million more than in the previous year. In China, its annual active consumers exceeded 953 million, up by 125 million in the same period.
Domestic annual active consumers will top one billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, as Alibaba expands to lower-tier markets, said Daniel Zhang, the firm’s board chairman and chief executive officer. The platforms’ average revenue per customer will be at CNY8,400 (USD1,315), he added.
Editors: Zhang Yushuo, Futura Costaglione