Source of this article: The latest news from Times Finance shows that 1688, a subsidiary of Alibaba, has opened offline physical stores by investing in industrial belts to open product selection centers, selling white-label products from source factories, and benchmarking against

Source of this article: Times Finance

The latest news shows that 1688, a subsidiary of Alibaba, has opened offline physical stores by investing in industrial belts and opening product selection centers to sell white-label products from source factories, benchmarking Sam’s Club and Costco (open for business). Customers), focusing on investing in 177 industrial belts in 40 cities, 68 of which are tens of billions of yuan-level industrial belts.

Under the influence of e-commerce, "refund only" and "lower price" have become the two main weapons for e-commerce sellers to gain customers. However, this approach has caused source manufacturers, especially factories, to be under tremendous pressure, and profits have been squeezed again and again. . The e-commerce price war has spread pressure to the source industry belt. All e-commerce sellers are forcing the source manufacturers to provide lower prices, resulting in a lot of chaos of cutting corners and reducing quality and distribution of bad money driving out good money. .

As one of Alibaba’s four little dragons and the source of wholesale e-commerce purchases across the entire network, 1688 has launched a series of anti-involution measures since August. The "Efficiency Improvement and Revenue Increase Plan" was released on August 12, promising that merchants will obtain a certain number of orders, number of customers and reasonable profits. At the same time, we launched a free AI business assistant and made all AI products on the platform free of charge. In September, we began to continue to crack down on malicious complaints by merchants such as refund-only and malicious fraud.

Recently, 1688 has collaborated with the capabilities and resources of the entire Alibaba Group to start developing offline. Relying on offline product selection centers, it has invested heavily in industrial belts, focusing on 177 industrial belts in 40 cities, 68 of which are worth tens of billions. Yuan-level industrial belt. There are three largest gatherings in China's industrial belt, namely Yiwu Small Commodity Market, Canton Fair and 1688. These three supply centers represent the largest concentration of Chinese manufacturing. The Canton Fair is the largest gathering of Chinese manufacturing in terms of time, Yiwu Commodity Market is the largest gathering of Chinese manufacturing in geography, and 1688 is the largest gathering of Chinese manufacturing in digitalization.

688’s goal is to create a “white label supply chain-driven global membership store” and provide services to members through all online and offline channels. Comparing with offline Sam's Club supermarkets and Costco (costco) membership-based white-label supply chain supermarkets. The product selection center focuses on consumer categories such as food, drink, entertainment, daily necessities, and beauty trends, such as food from Zhengzhou, toys from Shantou, storage from Taizhou, daily necessities from Yiwu, beauty from Guangzhou, digital from Shenzhen, home appliances from Jieyang, etc. The core categories of the industrial belt. According to

data, the current number of paid members of 1688 has reached nearly 10 million, exceeding the scale of Sam’s paid members in China. The number of members in the past year has increased by more than 400% year-on-year. 1688 has deployed more than 1,000 of its own employees in 1,000 industrial belts in China, and 16,000 full-time employees behind the service provider group are also stationed in the industrial belts. There are 2 million factories above designated size in China, of which more than 600,000 are on the 1688 platform.

688 Strictly Selected will also rely on some product selection centers, unite major brand OEMs in China and factories with strong R&D and manufacturing capabilities to launch 1688 Strictly Selected OEM products, further leveraging the advantages of large-scale supply chain, so that 1688's Members can enjoy more differentiated quality products. It is reported that the product selection center is a strategic project within 1688. In the early stage, it focuses on serving the business scenarios of the two major buyer groups of small store owners and anchors. The operation model of

product selection center is a "four-in-one": the government provides platform and guidance, 1688 provides technology, sales channels and digital capabilities, the chain owners of the local industry chain are responsible for daily operations, and local source factories are stationed. Through the "four-in-one" online and offline operation model jointly constructed by the government, chain owners, 1688 and industry belt source manufacturers, we will jointly create a business ecosystem with an industry belt digital supply chain.

As of September 2024, 12 product selection centers have been signed for cooperation to be built, of which 4 have been opened, mainly concentrated in the two major industrial belts of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. Six more are expected to open in September, mainly in Taizhou, Yiwu, Yongkang, and Jiaxing in Zhejiang, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shantou, and Jieyang in Guangdong, and Zhengzhou in Henan. Zhejiang's first product selection center has opened in Taizhou.

(Times Financial Reporter Zhou Songqing, based on Alibaba, 1688, and Taizhou Municipal Commerce Bureau)