Taobao Global Kicks Off Its Second Double 11 Campaign Across 20 Markets, Now Offering Direct Shipping for Mid-To-Large Sized Items

On September 21, Taobao Global unveiled its platform strategy for this year’s Double 11 shopping festival. The campaign will launch simultaneously across 20 global markets, with 1.2 million participating merchants. Global free shipping services will cover 13 regions worldwide, and an additional RMB 1.2 billion will be earmarked specifically for overseas marketing.

Speaking about this year’s Double 11, Ye Tian, General Manager of Taobao Global, noted that merchandise remains Taobao’s strongest competitive edge. On one hand, the platform needs to deliver greater user value to consumers; on the other, it must provide sellers with a full suite of reliable, end-to-end solutions to lower their operational costs when expanding overseas.

For consumers, Taobao Global’s Double 11 will translate the well-known value proposition of "The Everything Store on Taobao" into six tangible pillars: high quality, tasteful curation, lifestyle-aligned offerings, smart technology integration, trend relevance, and unexpected delightful finds. According to Ye, the initiative aims to better align Taobao’s brand positioning and seller business outcomes with consumer preferences, driving sustained user growth. For merchants, Taobao Global will roll out strategic playbooks covering three core areas — traffic, logistics, and operations — to help them deliver predictable growth.

On the traffic front, starting this Double 11, Taobao’s overseas sites will shift from a search-dominated, typical shelf e-commerce model to a recommendation-focused model. The "Premium Store Recommendation" initiative is a core part of this transformation: the platform will identify and recommend high-quality stores based on four criteria — product quality, unique characteristics, price competitiveness, and service quality. This recommendation algorithm will move beyond relying solely on explicit operational metrics such as sales volume and conversion rate to identify quality stores, incorporating more intangible, invisible dimensions such as product distinctiveness and differentiation into its recommendation logic. Additionally, Taobao will add dedicated overseas traffic entry points on its homepage, launching a Discover channel, overseas bestseller rankings, and curated overseas shopping lists.

In terms of logistics, Taobao will offer zero-threshold free shipping for four core markets: Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR, Singapore, and Malaysia. Eligible product categories for cross-border sales will also be fully opened up, no longer restricted to small, lightweight items.

The most notable update is that over 90% of mid-to-large sized products, including personalized custom goods, industrial products, and home improvement and building materials, will now be eligible for direct international shipping. Yi Shan, Head of Taobao Global’s Merchant Operations Center, explained that cross-border sales of mid-to-large sized products place high demands on fulfillment capabilities, which has created a major barrier for many merchants looking to expand overseas. This year, Taobao Global will provide these merchants with an end-to-end free cross-border shipping solution, leveraging the platform’s built-in fulfillment capabilities to help mid-to-large product sellers expand their overseas business.

Finally, on the operational support front, Taobao will provide cross-border merchants with protections including dedicated customer service and a "zero rejection" special program, with 24/7 human customer service response, and platform-level guarantees for after-sales issues such as delivery delays and product damage. Merchants only need to focus on sales, and can run both their domestic and overseas business growth seamlessly from a single storefront without additional operational burden.

At the Double 11 launch event, officials also disclosed that merchants already participating in Taobao Global’s cross-border program have recorded double-digit GMV growth for six consecutive years, twice the growth rate of the overall e-commerce market. This year marks the second time Taobao Global has hosted a Double 11 campaign. During last year’s festival, the total number of signed Taobao Global merchants grew by over 30%, and more than 200,000 merchants saw their overseas GMV double.

This article was first published on the official website of Ebrun.