Author | Xie Xiaobai
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Recently, Alibaba International Station released the cross-border index of the September Purchase Festival, full of topics.
For example: One tenth of Americans are practicing yoga, 80% of the global fishing market belongs to "Made in China", excavators represent China, and half of the houses in the United States need to be renovated....
Source: 36Kr
In addition, data from Alibaba International Station in September showed that the global manufacturing industry has recovered, driving the demand for food machinery , plastic machinery , machine tools, etc. to increase. It seems that everything is beautiful, exceeding our expectations...
even some media have begun to compare Alibaba with Amazon , believes that Alibaba can "roll" to Amazon to fly. Is this true?
In fact, this battle has just begun. Tang Xing (nickname: Pingchou), who acted as the "pioneer", announced his resignation.
The battle has not begun, and the main general is "dead" first. What's the situation?
In fact, in July, there was news on Maimai that Tang Xing resigned. Subsequently, Wang Yu, the market leader of Alibaba Group, refuted the rumors under Maimai's real name and clarified that it was "false news".
But only one month later, the news of Tang Xing's resignation was confirmed by several insiders of Alibaba. What exactly causes the "pioneer" to run away before the battle?
Tangxing
01
failed to win in the first battle
Alibaba's overseas business did not meet the expected target. Judging from the latest financial report released by Alibaba, overseas business has not seen significant growth.
August 4, 2022, Alibaba released its first quarter and 2022 fiscal year financial reports for the 2023 fiscal year ended June 30, 2022. Data shows that in June, the revenue of the international commercial branch increased by 2% year-on-year to RMB 15.5 billion.
Among them, the revenue of international retail business fell by 3% to RMB 10.5 billion, and the revenue of AliExpress and Trendyol fell, but was offset by positive revenue growth of Lazada.
International wholesale business Alibaba.com's revenue increased by 12% to RMB 4.9 billion. This increase was mainly due to the 16% increase in transaction volume completed by Alibaba.com, which in turn drove the revenue growth of cross-border related value-added services.
"In the past few years, Alibaba's overseas market has grown rapidly, but we still have a long way to go before becoming a truly global company and making greater achievements in the overseas market with broad potential.
"To this end, we need to form an overall strategic blueprint and organizational guarantee for the overseas market, and move forward firmly. ”
Zhang Yong expressed his expectations for overseas business in that internal letter of adjustment.
Zhang Yong
In fact, after the major adjustment of Alibaba's organizational structure, overseas business became the top priority.
especially arranged the highly anticipated Jiang Fan takes over, but in the past eight months, Alibaba International Business has not yet set a growth myth, but is facing the dilemma of "forwards".
So how much impact will Tang Xing's departure have?
02
The talented "power forward"
Judging from personal resume, Tang Xing is a typical technical executive .
has a doctorate in mathematics and a second bachelor's degree in economic management . He was the technical director of Google Shanghai R&D Center. He is fully responsible for the Google video search business and participate in the research and development of YouTube video search services. He has a good reputation in the industry.
2012 From March 2019 to 2019, he became the iQiyi CTO, responsible for technical products, and was called the "best CTO" of by his colleagues.
Tang Xing
In August 2019, Tang Xing joined Taobao. Please note that this time point is highly consistent with the time when Zhang Yong became Alibaba's "top leader".
After joining Alibaba, the first tough battle was - during the "Double 11" period of , he served as the technical commander-in-chief and achieved 100% of the core trading system going to the cloud.
It's hard not to contact Zhang Yong's most correct thing during his time at Alibaba is all in wireless. Through , Taobao , Alibaba successfully obtained a ticket for the mobile Internet era and created the "Double 11" that now affects the consumption concept of a generation.
Although Alibaba can continue to promote cloud computing and digitalization until the next trend comes, Alibaba may also become mediocre in this process, but anyone with discerning eyes realizes that Alibaba is standing in the stage of needing all in again.
After all, the traffic is at its peak now.
"Taobao is essentially an e-commerce. The logic of e-commerce is not to generate traffic, it itself is consumption."
"To this day, the entire strategy of (Taobao) has not changed at all. It is just that in different periods, different products, different operating means (and product technology) are used to achieve the highest efficiency."
Tang Xing bluntly expressed his views in an interview. Where should
go?
Tang Xing was once regarded as an important figure in Alibaba's transformation.
Especially we have seen changes in Alibaba's organizational structure. In December 2021, Zhang Yong, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, issued an internal letter, switching the positions of Dai Shan and Jiang Fan.
Jiang Fan is in charge of overseas businesses such as AliExpress. With the mobilization, Tang Xing went overseas with Jiang Fan as the CTO of Alibaba's overseas digital business sector, and also went to the overseas digital business sector together. Caf also went to the overseas digital business sector.
. Corresponding to this, ByteDance and Pinduoduo have also launched the "going overseas action", especially the new cross-border e-commerce platforms represented by Shein have created a path overseas.
How to fight Alibaba this time?
03
Challenges many times
Alibaba's overseas business continues to be in turmoil.
insiders revealed that Jiang Fan has been in a state of crazy business trips and recruiting people this year, but has carried out a series of sorting and re-layouts.
In terms of organizational structure, Jiang Fan unified Taobao Tmall overseas, Lazada's cross-border business and AliExpress cross-border business to AliExpress, and handed it over to Zhang Kaifu, the former head of Taobao industry, to manage it uniformly.
That is to say, the cross-border related supply parts are integrated to form a cross-border merchant middle platform. Merchants no longer need to operate in multiple Alibaba's overseas channels, and only publish products once.
However, after sorting out the architecture, Alibaba's overseas business has also been challenged by some objective environment.
Alibaba's financial report shows that : In June, the overall order volume from Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz fell by 4% year-on-year.
Zhang Yong also said in the subsequent conference call, "This quarter was affected by changes in the EU VAT tax policy, local currency depreciation, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the gradual recovery of life in the regional market, and returning to offline. Our international retail business has declined."
Ali faced the challenge, but their opponents began to attack hard.
After launching the cross-border e-commerce platform TEMU in early September, Pinduoduo not only surpassed Amazon for the first time in a single day in the United States, but also announced the official launch of the "2022 Duoduo Overseas Support Plan" on September 19, providing integrated service solutions for manufacturing merchants to go overseas. It is planned to invest a 10 billion resource package to create 100 overseas brands in the first phase and support 10,000 manufacturing companies to directly connect to overseas markets.
Overseas version of Pinduoduo "Temu"
Another overseas e-commerce company, SHEIN, is increasing its investment in in the United States, and plans to open two large American distribution centers by 2025. During this period, the third distribution center will be planned in the northeastern United States. They expect that after all local distribution centers are opened, customers will receive delivery times from about two weeks to three or four days now, and also said they will recruit 3,000 people in the United States.
SHEIN
"Despite multiple challenges, we still believe that there are huge opportunities in overseas markets under the general trend of digitalization. At present, we have established a certain scale foundation in overseas markets."
Zhang Yong still expressed his confidence in international business, and at the same time, he said that the total annual GMV scale of international retail business has exceeded US$50 billion.
. Another person close to Alibaba once revealed that the construction of the logistics system is the highest priority in the implementation of the globalization strategy. In Alibaba's overseas business strategy, building a localized logistics network is the top priority.
It is obvious that Tang Xing, as the CTO responsible for Alibaba's overseas digital business sector, also serves as the general manager of the basic platform center of AliExpress, under pressure from both inside and outside.
But it has to be said that Alibaba’s overseas trip is urgent.
04
is right now to go overseas
HuaChuang Securities research report pointed out that in one year starting from 2021, the proportion of Chinese brands among Amazon's leading sellers fell from 42.3% to 36.9% at the end of 2021, and sellers of pan-product + third-party were seriously damaged.
What’s more important is that a large number of Chinese sellers in have no way to appeal, and Amazon has the “final right to explain the store closure.”
It can be said that is not only a hard technology such as chips and aircraft engines, but also a rulemaker can "bottleneck".
This also shows from another perspective that only after China's platform economy , represented by Taobao, Pinduoduo, and SHEIN, can it be able to solve the "core problem" that Chinese products are stuck in overseas travel after they become world-class e-commerce platforms.
In layman's terms, if you want to go overseas, you have to rely on the Chinese e-commerce platform.
Production workshops and laboratories are lifebloods, and shelves are also lifebloods. From this perspective, we can find that we can't afford to lose or lose this trip to the sea.
In fact, as early as 1999, Alibaba determined its earliest business line: Alibaba International Station.
Based on this calculation, Alibaba has been going overseas for 23 years. Not only has it not "volume" to Amazon, but SHEIN and Pinduoduo seem to have come to the forefront.
Alibaba's international business should be accelerated, and perhaps Alibaba is in the stage of needing all in again.
After joining Alibaba, the first tough battle was - during the "Double 11" period of , he served as the technical commander-in-chief and achieved 100% of the core trading system going to the cloud.
It's hard not to contact Zhang Yong's most correct thing during his time at Alibaba is all in wireless. Through , Taobao , Alibaba successfully obtained a ticket for the mobile Internet era and created the "Double 11" that now affects the consumption concept of a generation.
Although Alibaba can continue to promote cloud computing and digitalization until the next trend comes, Alibaba may also become mediocre in this process, but anyone with discerning eyes realizes that Alibaba is standing in the stage of needing all in again.
After all, the traffic is at its peak now.
"Taobao is essentially an e-commerce. The logic of e-commerce is not to generate traffic, it itself is consumption."
"To this day, the entire strategy of (Taobao) has not changed at all. It is just that in different periods, different products, different operating means (and product technology) are used to achieve the highest efficiency."
Tang Xing bluntly expressed his views in an interview. Where should
go?
Tang Xing was once regarded as an important figure in Alibaba's transformation.
Especially we have seen changes in Alibaba's organizational structure. In December 2021, Zhang Yong, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, issued an internal letter, switching the positions of Dai Shan and Jiang Fan.
Jiang Fan is in charge of overseas businesses such as AliExpress. With the mobilization, Tang Xing went overseas with Jiang Fan as the CTO of Alibaba's overseas digital business sector, and also went to the overseas digital business sector together. Caf also went to the overseas digital business sector.
. Corresponding to this, ByteDance and Pinduoduo have also launched the "going overseas action", especially the new cross-border e-commerce platforms represented by Shein have created a path overseas.
How to fight Alibaba this time?
03
Challenges many times
Alibaba's overseas business continues to be in turmoil.
insiders revealed that Jiang Fan has been in a state of crazy business trips and recruiting people this year, but has carried out a series of sorting and re-layouts.
In terms of organizational structure, Jiang Fan unified Taobao Tmall overseas, Lazada's cross-border business and AliExpress cross-border business to AliExpress, and handed it over to Zhang Kaifu, the former head of Taobao industry, to manage it uniformly.
That is to say, the cross-border related supply parts are integrated to form a cross-border merchant middle platform. Merchants no longer need to operate in multiple Alibaba's overseas channels, and only publish products once.
However, after sorting out the architecture, Alibaba's overseas business has also been challenged by some objective environment.
Alibaba's financial report shows that : In June, the overall order volume from Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz fell by 4% year-on-year.
Zhang Yong also said in the subsequent conference call, "This quarter was affected by changes in the EU VAT tax policy, local currency depreciation, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the gradual recovery of life in the regional market, and returning to offline. Our international retail business has declined."
Ali faced the challenge, but their opponents began to attack hard.
After launching the cross-border e-commerce platform TEMU in early September, Pinduoduo not only surpassed Amazon for the first time in a single day in the United States, but also announced the official launch of the "2022 Duoduo Overseas Support Plan" on September 19, providing integrated service solutions for manufacturing merchants to go overseas. It is planned to invest a 10 billion resource package to create 100 overseas brands in the first phase and support 10,000 manufacturing companies to directly connect to overseas markets.
Overseas version of Pinduoduo "Temu"
Another overseas e-commerce company, SHEIN, is increasing its investment in in the United States, and plans to open two large American distribution centers by 2025. During this period, the third distribution center will be planned in the northeastern United States. They expect that after all local distribution centers are opened, customers will receive delivery times from about two weeks to three or four days now, and also said they will recruit 3,000 people in the United States.
SHEIN
"Despite multiple challenges, we still believe that there are huge opportunities in overseas markets under the general trend of digitalization. At present, we have established a certain scale foundation in overseas markets."
Zhang Yong still expressed his confidence in international business, and at the same time, he said that the total annual GMV scale of international retail business has exceeded US$50 billion.
. Another person close to Alibaba once revealed that the construction of the logistics system is the highest priority in the implementation of the globalization strategy. In Alibaba's overseas business strategy, building a localized logistics network is the top priority.
It is obvious that Tang Xing, as the CTO responsible for Alibaba's overseas digital business sector, also serves as the general manager of the basic platform center of AliExpress, under pressure from both inside and outside.
But it has to be said that Alibaba’s overseas trip is urgent.
04
is right now to go overseas
HuaChuang Securities research report pointed out that in one year starting from 2021, the proportion of Chinese brands among Amazon's leading sellers fell from 42.3% to 36.9% at the end of 2021, and sellers of pan-product + third-party were seriously damaged.
What’s more important is that a large number of Chinese sellers in have no way to appeal, and Amazon has the “final right to explain the store closure.”
It can be said that is not only a hard technology such as chips and aircraft engines, but also a rulemaker can "bottleneck".
This also shows from another perspective that only after China's platform economy , represented by Taobao, Pinduoduo, and SHEIN, can it be able to solve the "core problem" that Chinese products are stuck in overseas travel after they become world-class e-commerce platforms.
In layman's terms, if you want to go overseas, you have to rely on the Chinese e-commerce platform.
Production workshops and laboratories are lifebloods, and shelves are also lifebloods. From this perspective, we can find that we can't afford to lose or lose this trip to the sea.
In fact, as early as 1999, Alibaba determined its earliest business line: Alibaba International Station.
Based on this calculation, Alibaba has been going overseas for 23 years. Not only has it not "volume" to Amazon, but SHEIN and Pinduoduo seem to have come to the forefront.
Alibaba's international business should be accelerated, and perhaps Alibaba is in the stage of needing all in again.
