Alibaba has offered an olive branch to the US amid the continuing trade war, opening its online platform to US merchants for the first time.
The Chinese ecommerce giant announced today that American sellers will now be able to sell their wares on Alibaba.com, the group’s business-to-business (B2B) selling platform.
US retailers due to be the first to sign up and begin offering their goods to China’s multi-trillion-dollar retail market include Office Depot and Robinson Fresh.
It is due to send staff to the US to promote the new service to businesses, alongside a promotional event in September to raise awareness.
READ MORE: Alibaba launches English language website as it seeks to double number of foreign sellers
Alibaba’s president of north American B2B operations John Caplan told Bloomberg that US business owners “increasingly want to find domestic producers because of trade concerns and this platform will allow them to do that”.
This comes amid a growing effort to expand its platform outside of its domestic market, which is hindering its growth due to a slowing economy, leading to predictions it will post its slowest quarterly revenue growth since 2016 soon.
Last month launched a brand-new English language website on its business-to-consumer (B2C) platform Tmall in an effort to double the number of global brands on its platform by 2022.
Its chief executive and co-founder Jack Ma has also set the goal to generate more than half of the company’s revenue from outside of China by 2025.
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