Alibaba offered the tech world a double-whammy in the last fortnight, first with the ceremonial passing of the torch from chairman Jack Ma in a heartfelt open letter, then with the unexpected signing of a joint venture arrangement with Russia’s leading tech player a week afterwards. The deal...
Any foreigner trying to navigate Taobao for the first time will agree that online retail in China is a world of its own. Where technologies such as mobile payments and live-streaming shopping are still finding their feet in Western markets, they have become integral to the Chinese shopping experienc...
If you want to tap into China's e-commerce market, the first thing you need to know about are the online shopping festivals. You may have heard of Alibaba’s very successful Double 11 Shopping Festival, which is two and a half times bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. But that’s n...
China is leading the globe’s cashless trend with its ubiquitous mobile payments. According to Xinhua, the mobile payment market reached RMB 81 trillion (US$12.77 trillion) as of October 2017. Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial’s Alipay account for 90% of the industry. The...