The International Strategies of Alibaba Group in the Discourse of Chinese Business and Marketing Communication

【Abstract】As the presentation of the service provider for e-commerce in China， Alibaba Group is an internationally competitive enterprise group. This paper focuses on the international strategy exhibited in the process of marketing communication.

【Keywords】e-commerce； Alibaba Group； marketing communication； strategy

【中图分类号】H31 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】2095-3089（2016）12-0003-01

The original concept of electronic commerce mainly referred to global， paperless， web-based and high？鄄efficient trade by using up？鄄dated network communication and techniques of computer. However it did not extend to the logistics domain and made it focus on electronic tools rather than traditional paper media. But with the improvement and development of information exchange technology included in e？鄄commerce， capital flow and business flow generally are subjected to the various elements of development lag from traditional logistics industry. So recently the direction of technological innovation in e？鄄commerce is showing favor towards electronic logistics. At the end of 1990s， people began to be familiar with and generally adopt the e？鄄commerce. It is an uprising electronic technology？鄄based commercial way， which breaks the restrain of time and space.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese e？鄄commerce company that provides consumer？鄄to？鄄consumer， business？鄄to？鄄consumer and business？鄄to？鄄business sales services via web portals. It also provides electronic payment services， a shopping search engine and data？鄄centric cloud computing services. Plenty of previous data has confirmed that there are four key strategies which push Alibaba Group to further prosperity.

Firstly， Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma expresses that China is stepping from Information Technology Age into Data Technology Age， and the goal of the coming decade is to construct infrastructure of China business. The Big Data Strategy of Alibaba Group， on the one hand provides services for existing e？鄄commerce platform， miniature financial service which is carrying out as well as data？鄄based macroeconomic forecast. On the other hand the strategy has powerful approval from IT capital and infrastructure.

Secondly， on November 6th 2007， after Alibaba became a listed corporation in Hongkong， some problems began to emerge， such as the increased audit fees of Alibaba and the declined Nasdaq index， etc. Considering these issues， Alibaba started to discuss about delisting from market on February 21st 2012. And on June 20th 2012， Alibaba delisted formally. From the collected data of share price， such behavior has positive meaning on value of stock and is in conformity of the principle that composite earnings are more than cost of delisting. Also such behavior as a capital strategy has obeyed industrial strategy and made arrangement for future operation of whole group.

Thirdly， AliExpress is a branch of Alibaba International Websites， which operated its commissioning in April 2009. The practice is to make plan for medium and long term development， searching for effective way to break out and grow fast. the entry threshold of AliExpress is much lower and its procedure of transaction is simple and energetic. These characters meet the need to do export business quickly of most small companies and at the meantime increase their volume of business. On the other hand foreign consumers could enjoy the high quality goods with lower price through AliExpress platform， which can attract more potential buyers to promote the continuous development of international business of AliExpress. Moreover， diversified patterns of payment might effectively promote the generalization and application of the platform， laying foundation to the international development.

The last is overseas purchasing strategy. With the increasing of economic level， appreciation of the RMB， convenience of international payment， endless problems of goods safety， as well as domestic and overseas price differentials， more and more people begin to do overseas purchasing. Alibaba launched a platform called “International Tmall” platform in 2014. With the first shopping festival coming after relisting， Alibaba stuck to the direction of internalization by adopting direct？鄄purchasing model of overseas brands. Through this model， this platform successfully introduced overseas merchants from more than 20 countries， giving convenience to domestic buyers in purchasing products from other countries and realizing the international trend of commodities.

Alibaba Group， as the most influential e？鄄commerce， directly touches on the domestic business service and integral international competitiveness. Carrying out international strategies， not only puts burden on the shoulder of Alibaba， but also is an inevitable way to follow the trend of times and realize self development. Additionally， with the continuous grow of integral competitive strength， Alibaba group has accumulated enough development potential in implementing international strategies and global resource allocation. We could believe that under the arduous struggle from whole stakeholders of Alibaba group and the rational guidance of international strategies， Alibaba group surely will receive new situation， creating more glorious achievement.

作者简介：

周洋洋， 山西财经大学经贸外语学院2014级外国语言学及应用语言学硕士研究生。