Alibaba open to US merchants for first time amid trade war

Bloomberg

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is opening its oldest online platform to US merchants, promising to help American businesses at a time US-Chinese tensions are darkening the outlook for global trade.
The Chinese e-commerce giant opened up Alibaba.com to US sellers for the first time, allowing them to peddle to buyers around the world who seek merchandise to stock shelves or materials to make products.
Alibaba says it now wants American producers to hawk their wares as well, eventually helping them tap a vast Chinese market. Fruit and vegetable wholesaler Robinson Fresh and Office Depot Inc will be among the first US names to join Alibaba.com.
Two years after billionaire founder Jack Ma promised Donald Trump he would help create a million American jobs, Alibaba is opening up its wholesale platform to US sellers who want to tap a multi-trillion dollar global procurement market. The initiative could generate new income and also goodwill for Alibaba in the US, particularly as Washington and Beijing spar over trade. The threat of rising tariffs is now encouraging businesses to source their merchandise and components locally, said John Caplan, president of Alibaba’s North American business-to-business effort.

Rollout Plan
US business owners “increasingly want to find domestic producers because of trade concerns and this platform will allow them to do that,” he told Bloomberg News. He anticipates strong demand for American agricultural produce and consumer products. “Anything you put on or in your body.”
Alibaba will send staff to promote the service to businesses and local chambers of commerce, and plans a September promotional event to drum up awareness, Caplan added.
“The success of this programme will depend on whether Alibaba can recruit a strong number of successful sellers,” said Jillian Ryan, analyst at researcher eMarketer.
“It will ultimately determine whether Alibaba will be able go toe-to-toe with Amazon in the B2B commodity market.”
The Chinese internet powerhouse is opening up Alibaba.com just as a decelerating home economy depresses the top line. The online retailer is expected to soon post its slowest quarterly revenue growth in three years.
Unlike its better-known consumer bazaars Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba.com was originally envisioned as a way to match foreign firms with Chinese wholesalers of everything from watches and shoes to raw textiles.
Operating under the motto “global trade starts here,” Alibaba.com now connects about 150,000 mostly Chinese sellers.
Like rival JD.com Inc, Alibaba is trying to grab a bigger slice of so-called cross-border e-commerce, particularly as affluent consumers in China buy more.