Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall Platforms Collaborate with Douyin to Attract New Users Ahead of Midyear Shopping Festival

Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall platforms collaborate with Douyin to attract customers. The "Star Cube Plan" facilitates Douyin marketing and Taobao transactions. Alibaba collaborates with approximately 200 online sites.

Credit: Bloomberg

This agreement comes as Alibaba plans to spend billions of yuan on promotions for China's traditional midyear shopping extravaganza.

The "Star Cube Plan" is a collaboration between Alibaba's digital marketing platform, Alimama, and Douyin's digital marketing tool, Xingtu. The goal is to help retailers on Taobao and Tmall gain clients from Douyin's user base. This scheme allows retailers to advertise on Douyin, track how consumers are driven to their Taobao and Tmall stores, and monitor their browsing and purchase habits.

This approach is part of Alibaba's overall goal to seek new growth prospects by luring clients from other platforms through external collaboration. With rising rivalry from rivals such as PDD Holdings and even Douyin itself, Alibaba has already secured relationships with more than 200 online platforms, including Tencent Holdings.

In addition to the collaboration with Douyin, Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall Group have announced a series of initiatives to encourage customers and merchants to take part in the next midyear campaign. These include allocating over 200 billion yuan (US$27.7 million) for a rapid settlement programme to relieve cash flow pressure for eligible merchants, collaborating with logistics unit Cainiao and fintech spin-off Ant Group to provide subsidies and shipping insurance, and providing free access to over ten artificial intelligence tools to all Taobao and Tmall merchants.

On the consumer side, Alibaba intends to distribute over 10 billion yuan in coupons to its 88VIP members, as well as 5 billion yuan for live-streaming prizes, specialised categories, and virtual shopping venues. They have also improved the price guarantee feature, allowing Tmall customers to request reimbursements for price disparities until July 5, if additional reductions are available after their purchases.

The 618 event, or midyear shopping carnival, will include big e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com battling for customers with discounts, cash subsidies, and lively marketing campaigns. Alibaba will kick off the event on June 18, with a second sales window beginning on May 31. This year, there will be no presales stage, which formerly allowed customers to make deposits on preferred items in exchange for a discounted price during the actual sales period.

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• Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall platforms partner with Douyin to attract users

• "Star Cube Plan" facilitates marketing on Douyin and transactions on Taobao

• Alibaba forms collaborations with over 200 online platforms

Source: SCMP