Dive Brief:
- Alibaba.com has rolled out Alibaba Guaranteed, a service positioned to simplify global sourcing for small and medium-sized businesses using the e-commerce platform, according to a June 6 news release.
- The offering allows users to find products at fixed prices and low order minimums with a guaranteed delivery date, Rah Mahtani, Alibaba.com's North America head of marketing, said in an interview with Supply Chain Dive. The purpose is to avoid potentially lengthy supplier negotiations and heavy spending on new products.
- Products in the Alibaba Guaranteed category are required to be shipped within three to seven days, with fulfillment handled by Alibaba.com. Orders are currently eligible for shipping to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, according to the company's website.
Dive Insight:
Alibaba Guaranteed is designed to make global sourcing more like online shopping than a drawn out negotiation, according to Mahtani.
Since its soft launch in March, the service has aimed to lower the barrier to entry for small businesses to source and eventually launch new items, he added. So far, buyers are typically ordering in smaller quantities through the service and shipping via air cargo for faster transportation.
"It's an interesting differentiation between the traditional sourcing, where you see large order quantities with high ticket prices," Mahtani said. "With Alibaba Guaranteed, we see a large volume of orders with much smaller minimum order quantities, and people are even testing the water with five pieces, three pieces, and then engaging with the supplier to place much larger orders."
Going forward, Alibaba.com — part of China-based tech giant Alibaba Group — wants to increase the depth of products, suppliers and shipping capabilities for Alibaba Guaranteed. The company manages shipping for the service through its network of logistics providers.
"We're definitely looking at how we can be faster with shipping offerings," Mahtani said. "There's a variety of things that we're exploring to be able to do that."
