Ways To Boost Sales And The Obstacle Encountered

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) boost Singles’ Day Sales

During the first two hours of Singles Day, Alibaba sold over US$7 billion worth of goods by using the VR and AR gamification. The company recorded breaking sales of US$17.7 billion and achieved 32% growth in gross merchandise volume. This is due to the cutting edge VR, AR gamification, pervasive and star-studded promotions.

In 2016, Macy’s worked with Alibaba on Buy + VR experience for its first Singles Day. Alibaba started to sell 150,000 cardboard VR headsets and Google Cardboard for 1 yuan on Taobao in order to slot in the smartphones and explore virtual world of stores in late October.

From Nov, 1-11, customers could utilize the Taobao’s app to “walk” around the shop, “take” goods to examine virtually, and make purchases by staring at floating buttons. The virtual-reality shopping trip provides discounts on Singles Day itself helps to make the shopping bonanza popular. Alibaba is pre-empting the VR strike.

The company has previously held online competition and giveaways of “red packet”, which is voucher in the lead-up to 11 November. In 2016, Alibaba created a “Pokemon Go” style augmented reality game to capture the customers and improve sales activity by requiring them make repeat purchases in order to win the rewards. For instance, shoppers catch Tmall’s cat mascot in the game of Tmall app at the participating restaurants and shops to unlock and win the “red packets”.

Alibaba's Tmall to boost supermarket sales

Tmall.com's workers prepare cartons for goods that need to be sent by post at a sorting center in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Based on iResearch Consulting Group, Tmall has led China's B2C market in the first quarter of this year, accounting for 58.6 percent of the 373.7billion yuan ($61.02 billion) market between January and March. [Photo/China Daily]

Tmall.com, is a business-to-customer platform of e-commerce under Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's. It has boosted its online supermarket offering aggressively with a massive national discount campaign in Beijing It is became a threat to competitors in the  emerging online superstore market in the country, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc's yhd.com.

Alibaba in Hangzhou, is giving cash incentives of 1 billion yuan ($161 million) for the Beijing consumers who making order on Tmall Supermarket from July 23 to 31.

The president of Alibaba's retail business unit said that Tmall Supermarket make itself as a main player in the nascent online supermarket sector through Alibaba's vast e-commerce ecosystem which included its payments systems and supply chain and logistics network.

US retail giant Wal-Mart had fully controlled of the China's leading online supermarket, Shanghai-based yhd.com. However, Alibaba has moved based on solid foundations rather than merely stealing the thunder of Wal-Mart's announcement.

Alibaba's logistics able to provide same-day delivery in Beijing for those customers who can place their orders online not exceed by 11 am every day during the promotion. An e-commerce analyst mentioned that efficient delivery was important for online supermarket businesses.

Tmall has dominated the China's B2C market as it has hold majority number of China's online shopping shoppers and traffic, as it can move very fast to get a lot of customers to buy goods, and no exception on online supermarket sales.

Based on iResearch Consulting Group, Tmall has the proportion of 8.6 percent of the 373.7 billion yuan ($61.02 billion) market which leading China's B2C market in the first quarter of this year. Mo Daiqing, an analyst in China E-Business Research Center stated that it is not easy for Tmall Supermarket to achieve this kind of dominance. The price of groceries that sell online are slightly cheaper than those sell offline.

Alibaba’s Online Business Marketing Strategies

Alibaba target on two marketplaces which are the China marketplaces that aim to focus on the local trading between the suppliers and buyers in China and the global marketplace based in English Language for the international exporters and importers. China with double size of U.S. market can be considered as the largest internet marketplace in the world. There are 560 million of Internet users spending around 20 hours a week online. Notably, China is more favor of the e-retailing than the traditional retailing. These two marketplaces are the most- visited B2B website on the Internet. Alibaba has targeted on small and medium-sized private entities and sole proprietor as they have great potential to succeed in the e-trade. Alibaba has provided its e-trade services by developing websites with different languages and vary their design and layouts, which make its websites localize to the local cultural in overseas in order to gain a large portion of market share. Alibaba has created different language websites in order to obtain highest profit and goals by expanding its market to different regions All these leads to Alibaba’s global success

Other than that, Alibaba penetrate into a new market by offering freebies in order to attract customer to adopt Alibaba as an online marketing platform. For example, Alibaba gives free copies of Shopkeeper TM of Alisoft. It is a package that consist of accounting, consumer resource management, stock management tools for registered users. Alibaba also has adopt  internet promotion strategy to promotes its services, such as direct marketing, public relations, and discounts for certain items during special days such as media advertising, festivals, and sponsoring of events in order to attract awareness of  customers toward Alibaba.

Alibaba faces a long fight over counterfeit goods

Alibaba sued two watch sellers on its Taobao platform for goodwill violations and damages for the contract, claiming 1.4 million yuan ($201,482). This is the first lawsuit for Alibaba against the marketplace seller. Even though the damages sought are miniscule compared to Alibaba’s recent quarterly revenue of $5.14 million, the company wants to give punishment to the counterfeiters to protect the brand owners.

The company suspected a Taobao merchant sold counterfeit Swarovski watches and made purchases from that seller and found that the watches were counterfeit products. Police arrested the seller in August and confiscated more than 125 fake Swarovski watches worth of 2 million yuan ($287,831).

Alibaba, as a China-based company, has greater exposure to counterfeiting compared to Amazon. Chinese customers are more price-sensitive and less averse to purchasing counterfeit products. However, the company can simplify the procedures to report the instance of counterfeiting to make it easier for the brand owners. Alibaba also can utilize its political leverage and global profile to push the government to prosecute more forgers.