Alibaba Group Holding said on Monday that it had signed a strategic partnership agreement with Unilever NV to help the consumer products group reach more Chinese shoppers.
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As part of the expanded partnership, Unilever China and Alibaba plan to expand distribution channels, focusing on consumers in rural communities while further developing cross-border e-commerce cooperation. Unilever opened its virtual store on Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace in 2011. There will also be efforts tied to the Alibaba cloud presence to help boost the consumer goods digital advertising push.
Unilever plc. (ADR) (NYSE:UL), a British-Dutch consumer goods giant, offers a wide range of products including edibles, beverages, personal care, cleaning agents, etc.
“We are very pleased to amplify our partnership with an industry leader such as Unilever”, said Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang the statement announcing the partnership.
Develop cross-border ecommerce cooperation on Tmall Global that allows Unilever merchandising through government-backed free trade zones and bonded warehouses in China.
Unilever’s sales in China fell by 20 percent in the final three months of 2014 as a slew of retailers were foced to cut inventories in the sector after sales began to stall.
The agreement between the two groups is an important milestone in a partnership that was initiated about five years back through a single Tmall store that has witnessed steady growth on a strong foundation of success and mutual trust over the past few years. “Alibaba and Unilever will innovate in Big Data analytics application, cross-border e-commerce, and supply chain management“.
“Alibaba is the leading internet company in China, with the most innovative thinking”, said Tiggelen. The developments suggest that Unilever will be housing its products on JD.Com’s overseas shopping platform, JD Worldwide.
The upcoming Unilever Week on Tmall, scheduled 22-24 July, will become an initiating event after the MOU. Many global luxury brands also took their hands off the e-commerce giant.
The group says that Alibaba’s process for complaints and requests to remove counterfeits is hard to navigate and that makes addressing the problem an onerous task, and calls on the company to make the process easier and faster.
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Alibaba shares rose 0.10% to $83.45 in pre-market trading Monday.
