HANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tmall Global, China’s leading cross-border e-commerce platform, announced today the launch of a new “World Duty Free” service that allows Chinese tourists to prepay for their duty-free purchases before going on vacation.
Tmall Global, a platform under Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA), also announced that Thailand’s largest duty-free retail group, King Power, will open a duty-free storefront on the platform (http://kingpowerdutyfree.tmall.hk/) and become the first company to offer this service to Chinese consumers. By launching the “World Duty Free” service, Tmall Global hopes to enhance cross-border e-commerce opportunities for global companies looking to reach Chinese shoppers when they travel.
“We are excited that Thailand’s King Power is launching its duty-free store on Tmall Global. Cross-border e-commerce has great potential in China and Tmall Global will continue to help brands and retailers sell into China through innovative solutions, at the same time providing Chinese consumers a wide variety of product choice,” said Maggie WU, head of Tmall Global.
The King Power Duty Free store on Tmall Global allows consumers to purchase stored-value cards online before their vacation and when they visit Thailand, users can then spend the value on those cards in five King Power shops in the country, including the stores in Bangkok’s Don Mueang International Airport and the Suvarnabhumi Airport. King Power’s duty-free stores host over 600 global brands.
In the future, the “World Duty Free” service on Tmall Global will support online purchase of specific duty-free items and delivery of those items to the airport for customers to pick up. Tmall Global is also working with duty-free companies in South Korea, Japan and Europe to open stores on the platform.
Through Tmall Global’s “World Duty Free” service, companies like King Power are able to tailor special promotional discounts for Chinese tourists and help them minimize the hassle of carrying cash and dealing with exchange rates. Although the King Power Duty Free store has been online for less than a month, the total order value from consumers has topped RMB 1 million (US$161,000), with an average order size of RMB 7135 ($1150).
According to tax rebate company, Global Blue, Chinese global shoppers accounted for nearly 30 percent of all tax-free shopping spending in the world last year.
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
- Alibaba Cloud Computing (www.aliyun.com), a provider of cloud computing services to businesses and entrepreneurs
