Home Latest Insights | News Helping Foreign Brands on Product Debuts in African ecommerce

Helping Foreign Brands on Product Debuts in African ecommerce

Helping Foreign Brands on Product Debuts in African ecommerce
Beautiful young asian woman holding a credit card and shopping online with using laptop computer at cafe on blue tone, girl payment on internet, business ecommerce icon concept.

 By Nnamdi Odumody

Alibaba’s B2B e-commerce platform, Tmall, recently launched a new dedicated gateway for consumers to discover new products on its sister Taobao’s app. This is as a result of Tmall’s redesign to position it as a branding powerhouse. and go to platform. for brands launching product debuts in China.

With this collaboration, Taobao users can click on a Tmall icon to access the channel ‘’TMall New Products’’ which features any array of creative content and personalized recommendations to help consumers discover exciting products that just made their debuts in the market. Taobao’s app has nearly 700 million monthly users, and is one of the most visited platforms in China at 7.8 times a day.

Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.

Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.

Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.

From today, customers clicking on the “Tmall” icon in their Taobao mobile app will be directed to the “Tmall New Products” channel, which includes a full array of new features – including Tmall’s “Most Sought-after New Items,” “The Next New Things,” “Limited Editions” and “New Flagships.”

Working with brands and key opinion leaders, the channel will provide customers with in-depth information and recommendations on new products.

“Building on our strong track record, we will continue to invest heavily this year to help Tmall brands and merchants attract traffic and infuse innovation into their supply chain management, product development and cross-disciplinary collaboration,” said president of Taobao and Tmall Jiang Fan.

“Our goal is for Tmall to become the top launchpad for global brands’ debuts. We will provide the necessary support to brands to make their product launches more effective, on target and successful.”

According to Jiang Fan, President of Taobao and Tmall, its goal is to become the top Launchpad for global brands that want to make their products debut in China, and its 2019 strategic focus is to help Tmall brands and merchants attract traffic and infuse innovation into their supply chain management, product development, and cross disciplinary collaboration.

Brands which use Tmalls suite of product debut marketing solutions such as Heybox or TMall Innovation Center which leverages consumer insights to help brands speed up new product development can extend their reach with the Taobao App.

Heybox uses machine learning to bring personalized selection of products to Chinese consumers.

On the first day of pre-sales, Tmall shoppers ordered more than 2,000 jars while over 10,000 orders were recorded by the end of the week. Its global release is slated for April 29th 2019.

Konga, Jumia and other leading African e-commerce brands, should learn from Taobao, and adopt a strategy tailored to fit local realities for foreign brands wishing to launch new products in the continent.

No posts to display

Post Comment

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here