
Updated · Mar 28, 2023
Updated · Jan 12, 2023
Hello, dear consumers.
Ready to go shopping?
We won’t do traditional go-to-the-mall shopping.
Instead, we’ll do some cross-border online shopping.
Sounds fun, right?
Today we won’t shop at Amazon, though. No, sir, not today.
We’ll take a look at Amazon’s Chinese competitor – AliExpress.
Ladies and gents – today we’ll check out the AliExpress market share and some other useful information about the Chinese retailer.
Ready?
These facts look unbelievable!
Only one company in the world achieves better results in the e-commerce sector.
Care to guess?
Amazon, of course.
Well, today we’ll visit the second largest e-commerce giant – the Alibaba group. We’ll look at AliExpress in particular.
In case you haven’t heard of AliExpress – it’s an e-commerce retailer, run by Alibaba, a Chinese multinational conglomerate specializing in e-commerce, retail, internet, and technology. You can buy almost everything there – from an $0.31 phone case to an $86,000 forklift.
As one of the most prominent e-commerce players worldwide, AliExpress is a major retailer. So allow me to explain its inner workings.
First off, let’s start with some:
You probably know about Amazon’s Prime Day. The Alibaba group takes advantage of another holiday – Singles’ Day. It occurs every year on November 11.
Why does it matter?
Because it’s the biggest shopping holiday in the world!
Check this out:
(Source: Statista)
As you may know, Single’s Day, a.k.a. Bachelor’s Day, is a holiday that Chinese students started in 1993 to celebrate being single. It became so major that Alibaba turned it into a 24-hour sales day in 2009.
I bet the youngsters would have never in their wildest dreams imagined that decades later, a big company like AliExpress would use it for one of its biggest sales campaigns.
AliExpress sales statistics show that as of November 2020, the Asian ecommerce giant made almost $75 billion in consumer spending.
Now, that’s way more than what shopping campaigns like Black Friday or Cyber Monday make in a day. So that makes the Chinese sales day the most profitable in the world!
(Source: Alibaba)
It has managed to position itself as a leading B2C platform. Since its inception in 2020, its customer base has grown steadily. As of Q4 of 2020, the company had over 150 million buyers.
(Source: Similarweb)
As of the first month of 2021, 500+ million people visited the AliExpress website. The traffic has remained relatively the same since December 2020, both on mobile web and desktop.
On average, potential shoppers visited about seven pages. The average duration per visit was six minutes.
Kudos to the Chinese online mall because the median benchmark for most website visits is two to three minutes.
(Source: Investopedia)
For comparison – Amazon’s global market share was 13.7%.
When it comes to this AliExpress vs. Amazon war, Amazon was also the undisputed champion in the US.
(Source: Beijing Review)
The Chinese international ecommerce trader is growing by the day. Predictions show that by 2030, AliExpress will increase its cross-border customer base to 30 million.
Expanding to South America, Europe, and the Middle East will play a massive role in bringing the online mall in front of more buyers’ eyes on an international level. The company also plans to amplify its localization in Poland, France, Spain, South America, the Middle East, and the Netherlands to attract more buyers.
(Source: Beijing Review)
March 2020 saw a 132% rise in the number of new stores in the international ecommerce arena, according to AliExpress statistics. Most investors were foreigners, which came as a huge surprise considering that the whole world was grappling with the effects of COVID-19.
(Source: eMarketer)
The European branch of AliExpress brought the organization some serious money in 2020. As a matter of money, it's been giving Amazon a run for its money the last few years.
Now in 2020, the Spanish division brought in over $30 billion. Due to its outstanding performance in the country, AliExpress is well on its way to boosting its ecommerce growth to be one of the highest in the region.
First of all, let’s check out the most frequent visitors on AliExpress.
(Source: Similar Web)
According to AliExpress statistics by country, Russia is the company's number one traffic source with about 9%. Other notable nations in this area are Spain with 8% and France with 7%.
(Source: AliExpress)
If you're looking for an online superstore with various product options, AliExpress has got you covered. It has over 10 classifications, each of which has its own subdivisions.
Examples include:
(Source: China Brands)
In 2020, the site sold more than 89,000 units, according to AliExpress sales statistics. Most of AliExpress’s trending products were phone and fashion accessories, followed by different kinds of jewelry.
The reason for this overwhelming number of sales is simple; the website has some of the most affordable prices.
(Source: Financial Times)
As you may know, there was a massive shortage of protective gear when the pandemic first hit. Even major ecommerce sites like Amazon or eBay couldn’t handle the demand.
AliExpress.com managed to bridge the gap between the factories and consumers by making the products readily available. The company also did some heavy advertising in Southern Europe to attract more clientele. Its efforts totally paid off.
Compared to previous years, visitors flocking the site rose by 20% compared to earlier years.
(Source: eMarketer)
According to AliExpress statistics, Spain’s sales revenue will grow by $8 billion by 2023, compared to 2020’s figure. Ever since it entered the Spanish market in 2019, it has continued to do well compared to its biggest competitor, Amazon.
The company’s retail sales grew by 12% in 2020, and by 2023, its income in the region will increase by eight billion dollars. Industry experts attribute the growth to its pocket-friendly prices, which the Spaniards welcomed with open arms as they are conscious about their spending.
AliExpress’s experts know that people view 4.2x more products within apps. And they took advantage of that fact.
(Source: Google)
In addition to attracting more people, the AliExpress mobile app increased the conversion rate of iOS users by 82%. According to AliExpress statistics, people visited twice more pages via the app.
(Source: Similar Web)
Russian iOS users have other favorite shopping apps. The AliExpress app is the fourth choice for iPhone users.
As we already saw, AliExpress isn’t America’s most popular shopping site, and the app’s ranking confirms it. It doesn’t make the top 5 for either Android or iOS.
However:
The app is just one of the tools you can use to bring financial benefits to your business. So, a reasonable question arises:
“We are never in lack of money. We lack people with dreams, who can die for those dreams.” – Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba.
(Source: Statista)
The consolidated income from Alibaba group subsidiaries was worth over $72 billion as of 2020’s fiscal year. That’s $45 billion more compared to 2010’s proceeds.
(Source: Business Wire)
In the fiscal year ending March 2020, AliExpress revenue for GMV reached a historic $1 trillion. According to the company's Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang, its 960 million customer base worldwide made it possible for digital sales to continue to rise amidst the pandemic.
Makes a lot of sense bearing in mind that ordering online was the way to go during the 2020 shutdowns.
(Source: Trefis)
China’s commerce has been growing in the last decade thanks to its homegrown factories. By 2020, Alibaba was reaping the benefits, and its price appreciation grew by almost 150%.
(Source: µStat)
According to µStat and Mustat, the company earns over $18,511 daily from advertisements. The CPC banner ads make the website a total of $6.75 million a year.
I could almost imagine the marketers in their office chairs with a broad smile on their faces.
(Sources: YCharts, Macrotrends, Yahoo Finance)
According to various sources, Alibaba’s valuation was over $480 billion in market capitalization in 2020. That’s almost twice as low as Amazon’s. Although the two companies have a different approach towards their customers, their goal is the same – more significant market share.
Here’s the thing:
If Alibaba manages to hold its first place in China, things will change because:
(Source: Global Times)
Due to the pandemic, the overall retail sales dropped by 3.9% YOY in 2020. However, industry experts predict that things will improve in 2021 with more than 10% positive growth.
(Source: Similar Web)
Direct traffic is an important metric because it helps you determine the legitimacy of your visitors. Almost ¾ of visitors on AliExpress were from the avenue.
Searches accounted for almost 20%, while referrals contributed to 8% of the website’s traffic.
(Source: SimilarWeb)
A January 2020 AliExpress analysis revealed that the website got 4.49% of its traffic from social media. Of the figure, Facebook brought in about 26% of visitors, while Vkontakte contributed around 25% of Alibaba’s social networking site traffic.
Alibaba is the most prominent Chinese Amazon competitor, but what are the differences between the two?
Let’s begin:
Let’s compare the number of employees who work for each of the tech giants:
(Source: Statista)
The Chinese Amazon competitor has come a long way since 2012 when it only had 21,000 employees. As of March 2020, the company had 177,600 full time-staff on the payroll. Most of the workers are in the research and development, customer service, and operations departments.
The Chinese ecommerce giant is doing exceptionally well in offering employment opportunities. As a matter of fact, Alibaba’s personnel was way more than Facebook and Yahoo totals.
(Source: Washington Post)
The number of online shoppers increased in 2020, forcing Amazon to create 400K+ jobs. The new positions were in the delivery and warehouse departments.
Wanna know why the company decided to get more workers when everyone else was downsizing?
The company’s online orders went through the roof during the pandemic. Therefore, it had to hire more staff to cope with the high influx of digital orders
(Source: Practical eCommerce)
During 2020’s Single’s Day, BABA sold around 16 million items in 24 hours. That’s about 500K purchases per second. The goods were from 250K brands and were mostly for domestic use.
(Source: Investopedia)
For comparison – Amazon’s global market share is 13.7%.
And Amazon is also the undisputed champion in the US.
(Source: Web Retailer)
It looks like Amazon got more hits when it comes to the general product category in 2020. As of February 2020, Amazon garnered 5B+ visitors while AliExpress got around 600K visits.
(Source: Alexa)
As of February 2021, AliExpress analysis shows that the site ranks number 38 in traffic and engagement. That’s a significant improvement compared to its position in the last quarter of 2020, which was #40.
While Alibaba has some great competitors worldwide, the company is the dominant power in China.
(Source: Goldman Sachs)
One of Alibaba’s main competitors in China is JD.com. According to Goldman Sachs, Alibaba took the lion’s share of the market in China in 2020. As a result, the two companies owned a collective 81% of the total e-commerce retail market.
To break down the figure further:
Alibaba’s market share was 69%, while JD was a distant second with 12%.
(Source: Alibaba Group)
In 2018, BABA’s customer base was about 600,000. Two years later, the number of its consumers in China almost hit the one billion mark. According to Alibaba’s international market, the site had about 190 million customers in 2020.
(Source: Statista)
China’s Fortune 500 listed Alibaba as the number one online company in China as of 2020. At the time, Alibaba’s valuation was worth 489 billion Yuan (about $75 billion).
Second place went to Tencent with 377 billion Yuan (around $58 billion), while Xiaomi took the third position with 205 billion Yuan ($31+ billion).
Jack Ma must be very proud of his 1999’s initiative!
(Source: Statista)
More than half of China’s ecommerce sales came from Alibaba in 2020. All the income didn’t come from Chinese clients only, as Alibaba’s international market also brought about 23 billion Yuan which translates to around three billion dollars.
Alibaba was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, a former English teacher.
(Source: Forbes)
With a net worth of $39.6 billion, the founder of Alibaba is the richest man in the most populated country in the world. His wealth places him at #21 in the world.
Back in the day, when the company started, they didn’t have enough money to hire professionals. Instead, Jack Ma hired farmers as salesmen, which was still an upgrade from their current jobs. An ideal win-win situation.
(Source: Techtimes)
As of today, Jack Ma still uses his computer as an everyday user. Basically, he browses the internet and sends emails. So, the founder of a massive tech giant is famous for… not being a techie!
This is crazy:
He first saw a computer in Seattle in 1995.
And his first Yahoo search?
“Beer.”
Cheers.
(Source: The Guardian)
He borrowed that money from 17 of his friends, ex-students, and colleagues. Needless to say, most of them are extremely rich in 2020.
(Source: Techtimes)
When he ended his teaching career, Jack Ma tried to get a job at a Chinese KFC branch. He failed.
The funny thing is:
He was the only rejected candidate. Out of 24 candidates, 23 were hired.
That’s everyone except for the future billionaire! Maybe he should thank the manager. We can all agree things turned out alright for him in the end.
There is a great variety of amazing stuff on the website, but let’s see just a few of them.
(Source: AliExpress)
For about $15 the Force will be with you, even when it rains.
(Source: AliExpress)
According to AliExpress product statistics, 296 retailers would gladly sell you such a toilet brush. Some of them would even throw in toilet paper with Trump’s face to sweeten the deal.
Just a special treat if your friends are Democrats. Or if you are. Cleaning the toilet with Trump’s head could be… relaxing.
(Source: AliExpress)
From a hoodie with a crying Kim print to a phone case – you can get a crying Kim Kardashian all over you. I wonder if Kanye secretly ordered some.
Well, boys and girls, we are done for the day.
The online retail industry’s growing at a fast pace. And Alibaba is one of the best examples.
We looked at one of its subsidiaries – AliExpress, and its market share. I’m sure you’ll all agree that things are looking great for the Chinese giant.
Deyan Georgiev
Deyan has been fascinated by technology his whole life. From the first Tetris game all the way to Falcon Heavy. Working for TechJury is like a dream come true, combining both his passions – writing and technology. In his free time (which is pretty scarce, thanks to his three kids), Deyan enjoys traveling and exploring new places. Always with a few chargers and a couple of gadgets in the backpack. He makes mean dizzying Island Paradise cocktails too.
Latest from Author
Your email address will not be published.
Updated · Mar 28, 2023
Updated · Mar 23, 2023
Updated · Mar 22, 2023
Updated · Mar 21, 2023