Digital Marketing Strategies of Alibaba: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of Alibaba's digital marketing strategies. It begins with a historical overview of the company's establishment in 1999 and its evolution in the online retail and wholesale market. The report explores Alibaba's functioning process, including its income and pricing strategies, promotional tactics, and e-commerce site functionalities. It examines the differences between Alibaba's various platforms like Alibaba.com and AliExpress, and how they cater to different consumer segments. The report also delves into how Alibaba satisfies its consumers online, highlighting its customer-first philosophy, site optimization, and unique rating system. A SWOT analysis is included to assess Alibaba's current market position and competitive landscape. The report also mentions interesting facts about the site, such as the number of shoppers and the presence of fake goods. Finally, it discusses the importance of regional settings, user engagement, and data security on the website. The report concludes by referencing the provided sources.

Digital Marketing

History of Alibaba
• In 1999, Alibaba Group was established and today has changed the landscape
of retail and wholesale online market as well as corporates in digital media,
cloud computing and event (Tan et al, 2015).
• At that time, the company launches a China marketplace for domestic
wholesale trade.
• Last year, the company revenue was gr own by 58% for the financial year
2018.

Alibaba Functioning Process in
Digital Marketing
• Alibaba functioning process in digital marketing includes its income and
pricing strategy and promotional tactics.
• For instance, the company offers free memberships from the starting to
attracts user its way to e-trade marketplace. However, it starts charging fees
where there are higher number of clients registered.
• The company also developed as the online payment-processing front runner
in China as it has cleared around 80 million of transactions per day. (Ter , Tan
& Pan, 2016).
• In extent with digital marketing, the company also adopts value added
services, freebies, rebates for specific products at the time of exceptional

Alibaba E-Commerce site
functioning
• Alibaba website i.e. Alibaba.com of large selection of goods available on their
e-commerce site. Taobao is one of the biggest shopping website under the
Alibaba Group that has grown to ranked ninth most popular site over the
globe by Alexa.com.
• Alibaba e-commerce site does not take any fees for transaction and
merchants can also join the website at no cost. The company website has a
distinct rating system benefits buyers to select from larger number of
merchants that states how many trades each seller has positively finished.
• The company site also allows merchants to have the choice to purchase
promotional and other services to make themselves show on distinct position
on the site.

Alibaba E-Commerce site
functioning different from its
competitors• Some of the primary competitors of company include JD.com, Amazon and
eBay (Jung, Ugboma & Liow, 2015). The company website provides business
to consumer, consumer to consumer and business to business goods and
services.
• The difference in functioning can be found with the company division as
Alibaba.com and AliExpress.com. Most of the members on Alibaba.com
include trading companies, manufacturers, resellers who trade in large
quantities. In addition, AliExpress serves as a global retail marketplace
providing quality products at factory prices in small quantity.

How Alibaba satisfy consumer
online ?
• The company operations and functioning are based on customer-first
philosophy and thus the company satisfy customers in the most effective way.
• To enhance customer experience online, the company optimise its site with
fast and low latency network and thus provide quick response to the
customers while they buy online.
• Unique rating system in their site allows customers to easily compare and
search for the right product. This leads to direct value creation for the
customers.
• The company have a self owned cloud infrastructure allowing them full control
to modify customer response as per the latest market trends and web
technologies.

SWOT Analysis
Strengths
• Strong growth in wholesale and retail
business.
• Well segmented product portfolio in more
than 200 countries.
Weakness
• Over dependence on Chinese economy.
• Negative impact on core competency due
to reduction of EBIDTA margins.
Opportunities
• To gain higher market share with
AliExpress and Lazada.
• Have the capability to grow as market
leader in cloud computing.
Threats
• High competition in E-commerce.
• Loosing of international marketplace share
to pre-existing player by AliPay.

Alibaba Current market position
• Alibaba dominates the
Chinese market with a 58.2%
market share (Kwok, 2018).
• The company yearly e-
commerce gain from 2010 to
2019 is also presented

Some interesting facts about
Alibaba Site
• According to the latest reports, nearly 636 million shoppers shop on Alibaba
website across various categories of products.
• Taobao is the biggest shopping website under the Alibaba Group where 7m
merchants sell their wares.
• Various critics said that fake goods appear rife on various Alibaba websites,
though, the enterprise proclaims to spend millions digging them out.

Some interesting facts about
Alibaba Site
• The website of Alibaba provides a filter in reference with regional settings
based on country/region, language and currency.
• According to research, the longer people stay on the site, the more money
they will spend. This creates an addition draw that keeps people on the site
longer and thus engages them for a longer period of time.
• The whole data and information on the website are managed by Alibaba on its
own cloud servers and this provides high security to the users.

References
■ Jung, J. C., Ugboma, M. A., & Liow, A. K. (2015). Does Alibaba's magic work
outside China?. Thunderbird International Business Review, 57(6), 505-518.
■ Kwok, S. (2018). Alibaba tops e-commerce market share while facing fresh
competition in China. Retrieved from
https://www.marketing-interactive.com/alibaba-tops-e-commerce-market-
share-while-facing-fresh-competition-in-china/
■ Tan, B., Pan, S. L., Lu, X., & Huang, L. (2015). The role of IS capabilities in the
development of multi-sided platforms: the digital ecosystem strategy of
Alibaba. com. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 16(4), 2.
■ Ter Chian Felix Tan, Tan, B., & Pan, S. L. (2016). Developing a Leading Digital
Multi-sided Platform: Examining IT Affordances and Competitive Actions in

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