Alibaba Group Announces Strategic Investment in Mei.com

Mei.com and Tmall.com will Cooperate to Enhance the Development of Supply Chain Services in Cross-Platform Retail Services

HANGZHOU, China--()--Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) announced today it has invested in Mei.com, China’s leading flash sales platform for luxury and fashion products. This cooperation will enhance Mei.com’s supply chain services of the sales of limited time discounted quality products from well-known international luxury and fashion brands to consumers in China.

The investment will enable Alibaba Group to integrate resources from its B2C platform Tmall.com, China’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers, to form a specialized services team to support Mei.com’s development and assist them in growing their user base, brand cooperation base, logistic services and IT infrastructure services. Mei.com’s close cooperation with a wide selection of luxury brands will complement Tmall.com’s existing selection of affordable luxury goods for Chinese consumers.

Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group said, “Alibaba Group’s ecosystem and its multi-level cross-platform retail services will be further enhanced with our investment in Mei.com. We hope that Mei.com will exert its advantages to create synergy with Tmall in providing more premium luxury goods to consumers. At the same time, Alibaba will help Mei.com and other brand partners enter our ecosystem to allow more efficiency in helping them locate consumer groups, conduct brand marketing and establish an online supply chain system.”

Thibault Villet, founder and CEO of Mei.com said, “We are very pleased to receive this strategic investment from Alibaba Group. The two parties complement each other and together with Tmall, we will bring premium and trusted genuine brands to consumers. In the future, we see a significant opportunity to provide enhanced shopping experiences for Chinese customers in search of affordable fashion and luxury products.”

Mei.com operates an online flash sales business model with limited time on discounted luxury goods for its online shoppers. Sales events are launched every day at 9am to promote genuine goods that are offered at significantly reduced prices. Similar to Tmall.com, Mei.com cooperates directly with international brands or official designated brand distributors and has successfully cooperated with more than 2,400 brands across the world. Around 280 well-known international brands including Armani, Zegna, Michael Kors, Trussardi, Roger Vivier, Longchamp, Tumi, and Guerlain has partnered exclusively with Mei.com in China’s e-commerce market.

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

About Tmall.com

Launched in April 2008, Tmall.com (www.tmall.com) is dedicated to providing a premium shopping experience for increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers in search of top-quality branded merchandise. A large number of international and Chinese brands and retailers have established storefronts on Tmall.com. According to iResearch, Tmall.com was the largest brands and retail platform in China in terms of gross merchandise volume in 2013. Tmall.com is a business within Alibaba Group.

Contacts

Alibaba Group Holding Limited
Cecilia Kwok, +852 9132 7709
ceciliakwok@hk.alibaba-inc.com
Rachel Chan, +852 9400 0979
rachelchan@hk.alibaba-inc.com

Contacts

Alibaba Group Holding Limited
Cecilia Kwok, +852 9132 7709
ceciliakwok@hk.alibaba-inc.com
Rachel Chan, +852 9400 0979
rachelchan@hk.alibaba-inc.com