Alibaba Group Strengthens Cooperation With Suning Commerce With New E-Commerce Initiatives

Alibaba Group announced today the launch of Suning Commerce’s official flagship store (http://suning.tmall.com) on Tmall.com, China’s largest third-party B2C platform for brands and retailers, a move that closely follows the announcement of Alibaba Group’s investment in Suning Commerce Group Limited made last week.

Japan’s leading duty-free group Laox Co. Ltd., in which Suning holds a majority stake, has also launched its official overseas flagship store (http://laox.tmall.hk) on Tmall Global, an overseas platform and an extension to Tmall.com’s B2C business which enables overseas merchants to enter China’s online retail market. Together with recently announced additions, this marks as a further expansion of duty-free stores on Tmall Global.

Alibaba Group and Suning Commerce Group have entered into a strategic alliance, through Alibaba’s 19.99% stake investment in Suning announced last week, in order to build on synergies in e-commerce, logistics, and new businesses through joint omni-channel initiatives. Through the cooperation, Alibaba and Suning will be able to provide holistic and more convenient shopping experiences for consumers in China.

“Just one week following the strategic cooperation between Alibaba Group and Suning Commerce, we now welcome the launch of the official Laox store on Tmall Global in tandem with the Suning launch on Tmall.com,” said Jeff Zhang, president of China retail marketplaces of Alibaba Group. “The speed of integration and global import strategy efforts from both parties has exceeded expectations. This year, both Alibaba and Suning are focused on globalization initiatives and we’ve agreed on import strategies and will work together to rapidly establish a new, globalized business ecosystem.”

“Laox has 85 years of experience in the retail business in Japan, and has retained the unique focus and customer service of Japanese companies,” said Luo Yiwen, CEO of Laox Co. Ltd. “China is an important overseas market and it is our goal to achieve rapid growth through online and offline integration. This is why we launched on Suning Commerce and now on Tmall Global as well. We look forward to expanding our coverage for consumers in China through this cooperation in order to enable them to purchase Laox products and services without leaving China.”

Suning’s flagship store on Tmall.com will offer a variety of popular consumer electronic products, while looking to expand in mother and baby products, cosmetics, supermarket and overseas goods for the hundreds of millions of Chinese shoppers on Tmall platforms.

Laox, meanwhile, will introduce a range of discounted small kitchen appliances and cosmetic products through Tmall Global. The addition of Laox further expands Tmall Global’s World Duty Free service, which is one of the strategic initiatives of Alibaba Group’s globalization strategy.

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company is the largest online and mobile commerce company in the world in terms of gross merchandise volume. Founded in 1999, the company provides the fundamental technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help businesses leverage the power of the Internet to establish an online presence and conduct commerce with hundreds of millions of consumers and other businesses.

Alibaba Group’s major businesses include:

• Taobao Marketplace (www.taobao.com), China's largest online shopping destination
• Tmall.com (www.tmall.com), China’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers
• Juhuasuan (www.juhuasuan.com), China’s most popular online group buying marketplace
• Alitrip (www.alitrip.com), a leading online travel booking platform
• AliExpress (www.aliexpress.com), a global online marketplace for consumers to buy directly from China
• Alibaba.com (www.alibaba.com), China’s largest global online wholesale platform for small businesses
• 1688.com (www.1688.com), a leading online wholesale marketplace in China
• Aliyun (www.aliyun.com), a provider of cloud computing services to businesses and entrepreneurs

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