In recent years, as global cross-border e-commerce has flourished, e-commerce giant Taobao has also charged to the front lines, genuinely diving deep into cross-border e-commerce operations since last year and driving rapid growth in Taobao's overseas expansion.

On September 22, Taobao Overseas announced that it will invest 1 billion yuan in marketing subsidies for overseas markets during this year's Double 11, with the goal of helping 100,000 merchants double their overseas transaction volumes during Double 11. Additionally, Taobao will launch Double 11 simultaneously across 20 countries and regions globally for the first time, offering five different language versions to serve consumers worldwide.

Behind this initiative is Taobao's merchandise supply advantage, as Taobao Overseas has rapidly grown into a formidable force among global cross-border e-commerce platforms. This also means that Taobao's overseas market space is being further expanded, with target consumers no longer limited to overseas Chinese or international students.

Merchant recruitment is currently a key focus for Taobao Overseas. Taobao Overseas General Manager Ye Jianqiu noted that since launching the "Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan" last year, over 1 million merchants from more than 10,000 industry categories have signed up to join the program. This plan has clearly become a crucial turning point for Taobao's overseas business development, driving it into an explosive growth period.

Ye Jianqiu revealed that the GMV growth rate of Taobao Overseas contracted merchants is already three times that of the overall Taobao overseas transaction volume. In terms of user growth, since April this year, Taobao's overseas new user growth has exceeded 200%, with more than half being non-Chinese users.

Earlier this year, Taobao also reached number one on the App Store download charts in 16 countries and regions globally. This series of data demonstrates the recognition of Taobao's merchandise supply and reflects the value of the Taobao Overseas team.

According to internal sources at Taobao Overseas, the overseas version of Taobao was first launched in 2015 to meet spontaneous shopping demands from overseas Chinese, managed by a small team. In 2016, "Taobao Overseas" was upgraded to "Tmall Overseas," and in 2018, the business was renamed "Tmall Taobao Overseas," belonging to the Tmall Import and Export Business Group. By 2022, Taobao's overseas business was transferred to Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, beginning to gradually strengthen its efforts.

However, it wasn't until 2024, marked by the launch of the "Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan," that the Taobao Overseas team began intensifying merchant recruitment and becoming more deeply involved in merchant operations and fulfillment. "It can be said that this is when Taobao Overseas truly gained operational capabilities," the internal source explained. Currently, the relationship between Taobao Overseas and domestic Taobao mainly involves cooperation in domestic merchant recruitment and integration of domestic supply, while overseas operations are completely separate.

However, Taobao Overseas currently doesn't have a separate app. When users open the Taobao app in overseas regions, it automatically switches to the overseas site. Taobao Overseas is positioned to become the preferred overseas platform for Taobao ecosystem merchants, serving merchants who already operate Taobao or Tmall stores domestically.

Reportedly, Taobao Overseas provides a light-asset model with "zero returns and refunds, zero operational costs." Merchants only need to sign the "Overseas Growth Plan" through their existing Taobao stores to automatically sync with overseas sites for sales, with the platform handling returns and providing complete overseas logistics chains.

Yi Shan, head of Taobao Overseas Merchant Center, stated that compared to other cross-border e-commerce platforms, Taobao Overseas provides the most lightweight overseas solution for Taobao ecosystem merchants, which is currently the platform's biggest differentiating factor.

According to reports, Taobao or Tmall merchants don't need to open new stores or build separate overseas operations teams. They simply need to enter their store account credentials and click "one-click contract" to join Taobao Overseas. Yi Shan told sources that compared to the popular fully-managed model in recent years, Taobao Overseas has made its business model more lightweight without changing merchants' operational and inventory rights, while merchants retain pricing control over their products.

The emphasis on lightweight business models stems from the Taobao Overseas team's insight that many domestic trade merchants remain hesitant due to various obstacles and bottlenecks despite the booming cross-border e-commerce industry. Yi Shan pointed out that the overseas supply chain is lengthy, and many merchants remain on the sidelines because they face challenges such as operations, customs clearance, overseas inventory, and returns/exchanges that increase costs. Therefore, Taobao Overseas has invested heavily in infrastructure construction, providing lightweight solutions to help merchants reduce costs.

"Regarding the returns and exchanges issue that most troubles merchants today, we've launched local return services across 12 global sites. Partner insurance companies handle all returns comprehensively, while we provide normal settlements to merchants. This measure or platform policy has greatly resolved the biggest challenge facing domestic trade merchants wanting to expand overseas," Yi Shan explained.

Since last year, the Taobao Overseas team has intensified infrastructure development across the entire overseas supply chain. Ye Jianqiu stated that the Taobao Overseas business team focuses more on building capabilities around "Almighty Taobao's" rich supply in several areas, including global direct mail logistics networks, language versions, and free shipping and return services.

Currently, Taobao Overseas offers direct mail services to 20 countries and regions, with 12 sites supporting cross-border free shipping and local return services. It has also launched four foreign language versions. "This represents the main capabilities and accumulations of Taobao Overseas during this period," Ye Jianqiu noted. In his view, with highly competitive and rich merchandise, building fulfillment capabilities on the overseas side allows Taobao Overseas to maintain its current growth rate, and there will be more investments and initiatives in these three areas and products in the future.

In recent years, as growth in China's domestic e-commerce industry has plateaued, e-commerce overseas expansion has stepped into the spotlight, becoming one of Alibaba's important strategies for finding a second growth curve. Currently, Alibaba Group has quite a few overseas businesses. In terms of consumer-facing cross-border e-commerce platforms, besides Taobao Overseas, Alibaba also operates AliExpress, Lazada, and others.

Regarding the positioning differences between these platforms, Ye Jianqiu noted that AliExpress focuses primarily on European and American markets, Lazada mainly handles Southeast Asian local e-commerce, while Taobao Overseas has 60-70% of its market in Asia, with some presence in Canada and Australia, so there's slight market overlap, but most are differentiated. "For us, the synergy of Taobao or the entire Alibaba overseas expansion is greater than competition. Because the global market is enormous with very low density, it's difficult for us to engage in intense internal competition in one location; it's more about synergy."

As China's e-commerce pioneer, Taobao possesses massive merchandise supply and has natural advantages for creating another cross-border e-commerce platform. Of course, current cross-border e-commerce competition has entered a "protracted war" phase, and to overtake competitors and create another Taobao overseas, Taobao Overseas still faces considerable challenges.