Alibaba invests in Mei.com
Alibaba has invested in Mei.com, the Chinese “flash sales” platform for luxury and fashion products. Alibaba did not specify the scale of the investment, but described it as a “strategic” move.
The Mei.com website specializes in selling limited time discounted products from well-known international luxury and fashion brands to consumers in China.
Alibaba said it will integrate resources from its B2C platform Tmall.com “to form a specialized services team to support Mei.com’s development and assist them in growing their user base, brand cooperation base, logistic services and IT infrastructure services”. The company anticipates that Mei.com’s close cooperation with a wide selection of luxury brands will complement Tmall.com’s existing selection of affordable luxury goods for Chinese consumers.
Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group, said: “Alibaba Group’s ecosystem and its multi-level cross-platform retail services will be further enhanced with our investment in Mei.com. We hope that Mei.com will exert its advantages to create synergy with Tmall.com in providing more premium luxury goods to consumers. At the same time, Alibaba will help Mei.com and other brand partners enter our ecosystem to allow more efficiency in helping them locate consumer groups, conduct brand marketing and establish an online supply chain system.”
Mei.com cooperates directly with international brands or official designated brand distributors and – according to Alibaba – it “has successfully cooperated with more than 2,400 brands across the world”. Alibaba added that “around 280 well-known international brands including Armani, Zegna, Michael Kors, Trussardi, Roger Vivier, Longchamp, Tumi, and Guerlain have partnered with Mei.com in China’s e-commerce market”.
As previously reported, Alibaba’s relationship with international fashion houses has not always been completely smooth. In May, for example, Paris-based Kering Group, the luxury goods company whose famous brands include Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Puma, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court accusing Alibaba of allowing counterfeit goods to be sold on its e-commerce website.
