It’s been a whirlwind of activity for our founder Dana! She arrives fresh from Hangzhou, China where she spent the last 2 weeks with executives from the Alibaba Group learning about the in’s and out’s of e-Commerce in China - including witnessing Alibaba’s landmark 11.11 sales records in-person!

Specially selected for the Alibaba eFounders Fellowship, Dana joins 38 participants from a record 11 countries across South and Southeast Asia to take part in a 2-year programme starting with on-site meetings to gather insights on the Chinese e-commerce market and Alibaba. Kicking off with knowledge sharing sessions from the local experts, she had first-hand exposure to e-commerce best practices and innovations from China and around the world.

Upon completion of the programme, Dana graduates as an eFounders Fellow, a member of a community of like-minded young entrepreneurs who will then catalyze digital transformation in their home countries.

In this article, we share some of the key learnings and experiences from her 2 weeks in China.

1. To say that e-commerce is booming in China is an understatement - the power of 11/11

Did you know Alibaba set a new Singles Day sales record of 10 billion RMB in sales on 11 November? Dana joined the 11.11 gala on 10th October held in Shanghai's Mercedes Benz arena - seeing the media briefing and countdown at midnight firsthand. Next day at the Alibaba HQ in Hangzhou, she witnessed the excitement and buzz surrounding China’s largest shopping festival.

10 billion RMB (equivalent to 1.44 billion USD)  was made in the first 2 minutes of the day.

To put these numbers into context, Alibaba sold in a single day domestically what Amazon sells in 3 months.

Astounding.

The event is a cumulation of Alibaba’s New Retail programme; a blurring of the lines between e-commerce and in-store sales to drive the Chinese economy.  

2. Smart Logistics powered by Cainiao - how to handle 1 billion parcels with ease

For courier services and logistics workers in China, the craziness has just started to support the annual shopping frenzy. Alibaba’s logistics affiliate Cainiao Networks delivered a massive 100 million parcels in 2.6 days, processing a total of 1 billion orders during 11.11.

“We handled 152 million parcels during the 11.11 festival in 2013. Today, the industry is now delivering 150 million parcels every single day in China. With this pace of change, we believe that the 1 billion parcels handled in this year’s 11.11 will become the daily average within the next decade”

– Wan Lin, President, Cainiao

How did they accomplish delivering parcels on such a tremendous scope smoothly?

Cainiao Networks foresaw they will need an extremely robust delivery network and planned ahead. They opened China’s largest robotic warehouse, fully automating the parcel management process. They used technology to plan logistics routes and matched inventory allocation with consumer demand to ensure deliveries ran smoothly.

To see how everything came together, Dana visited Cainiao Networks Jiaxing warehouse, strategically supporting the online grocery service TMall and other business units. They process 1 million shipments a day through a mix of automated and manually-operated warehouses.

Cainiao has set itself ambitious goals - cutting down worldwide delivery time to a maximum of 72 hours worldwide. To do this, they’re building a global Smart Logistics Network - with the first Logistics eHubs outside China to be built in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Other initiatives Cainiao has in the pipeline to make achieving this goal possible:

• 10 Global Fulfilment Centres (GFCs) to be built around the world in countries as diverse as Los Angeles, Madrid, Seoul, and Hong Kong

• Charter Flight Deliveries; transcontinental flight routes to lead the way in cross-border e-commerce logistics.

• They also understand the need for seamless tracking - connecting all data points into one comprehensive parcel shipment profile for everyone to access. A great encouragement for us at Parcel Perform as we offer a similar parcel tracking solution to the world.

3. The Alibaba platform play. Retail, media, entertainment, travel and especially payment are fully integrated into the Alibaba ecosystem.

With the Alibaba Super ID, consumers have a wealth of apps and Internet services at their disposal, all uniquely connected by the same data backend and payment solution allowing a superior and seamless experience for everyone.

From video site Youku to Alibaba’s entertainment channels and e-commerce apps Taobao and TMall, consumers enjoy a personalized user experience across all platforms. With over 600 million active users across its e-commerce ecosystem, Alibaba collects a significant amount of data about their lifestyles and buying behavior to further personalize all consumer touchpoints.

All this data is harnessed through AI technology to create tailor-made shopping experiences for consumers and targeted marketing for brands through their Uni Marketing service arm called Ali Mama. Through features like smart product search, customized product recommendations, customer service chatbots, and product image search, they redefine the concept of providing hyper-targeted, personalized marketing to their customers. This service also is one of the main revenue generators in the Alibaba ecosystem.

Source: AGLA Blog

4. Alibaba’s dedication to their mission and vision

One thing that left Dana astonished was Alibaba’s dedication on their ultimate mission “to make doing business easy for everyone, anywhere”.

All business-related decisions from hiring, partnerships or new products are made with reference to a single question: does this initiative pay into or advance Alibaba’s core mission?

Dana was impressed to see that even in their early days, Alibaba didn’t shy away from taking difficult decisions. Did you know they even closed down a well-performing business unit as they realized it did not fit in with the overall Alibaba mission?

Alibaba also has a very unique vision; to be a company that lasts at least 102 years. They ultimately aim to make the success and impact of the company last three centuries long. From Alibaba’s inception in 1999, they looked ahead, developing a long-term strategy for the business that would even outlive its founder Jack Ma.

Everyone Dana met in the Alibaba team from the staff on the ground, the management and each of their first 18 founders all follows this key company mantra closely. All business decisions are aligned in light of the company’s mission, vision, and values.

Dana’s most impressive memories were the ones with the initial founders of Alibaba. One of them is Savio Kwan, former president and Chief Operating Officer (COO) from 2001 to 2003, the man behind Alibaba’s path to profitability. She also met the humble Chief People Officer, Jane Jiang. She was first a student of Jack Ma and started her Alibaba journey as a customer service agent. Fast forward to today and she is now a key driver behind the strong Alibaba culture.

Both Jane and Savio are one of the 18 founders of Alibaba that later stepped down to become partners. This is a long-standing Alibaba tradition to encourage loyal, active contributing senior Alibaba staff have gotten to steer the company into the next century.

The highlight was of course to meet Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman; the one and only Jack Ma. He joined the group of founders to share his insights and explained why he set up the program with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). China’s transformation into the economic superpower and e-commerce ecosystem has been nothing short of awe-inspiring. We are honored to have had the opportunity to spend 2 weeks with the Alibaba team and like-minded entrepreneurs across Asia to learn more about the digital transformation to become one of the market leaders in China.

For the next 2 years, Dana will be part of the Alibaba eFounder Fellowship, aiming to share her learnings with other entrepreneurs and merchants.. Watch this space for event announcements and feel free to contact us for more insights or to arrange sharing sessions.

Follow us on LinkedIn as we share more about Dana’s experience over the next few weeks. If you’ll like to contact Dana to share more about her experiences in China, do so via her LinkedIn profile.