China’s Alibaba courts Canadian sellers
E-commerce giant Alibaba is increasing its drive to enlist Canadian businesses to sell into China’s US$5-trillion retail market.
The Chinese online marketplace and its billionaire founder Jack Ma will host a Gateway Canada business summit in Toronto on Sept. 25, aiming to encourage small-to medium sized businesses in areas such as consumer products, seafood, agriculture and tourism to offer their wares to Alibaba’s more than half a billion Chinese customers.
The move follows the Amazon rival’s launch of a Canadian “pavilion” on its T-mall e-commerce platform during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s G20 visit to China last September, and a growing demand in China for products such as Canadian lobster and cherries.
“The demand for foreign products is growing every year because of the quality of the products, the price of the products and the safety of the products,” Alibaba president Michael Evans said in an interview Wednesday.
Alibaba’s mission, he said, is to connect small businesses from all over the world to each other and to new sources of consumption, “and the biggest new source of consumption is in China.”
Currently, more than 30 Canadian businesses sell their goods to the Chinese through Alibaba, including vitamin maker Jamieson, juice and snack company Sun-Rype Products, Clearwater Seafoods, and fashion retailers such as Roots, Aldo and Lululemon.
The online giant garnered attention in Canada in 2014 when it sold 100,000 Canadian lobsters on “Singles Day,” a Chinese counterpart to Valentine’s Day.
E-commerce, which accounts for about 15 per cent of China’s retail market, is expected to grow to 30 per cent by 2020.