Roundup: Alibaba Maps Out Three 'Shortcuts' for Tmall Brands Going Global

【Ebrun Original】At this year's annual summit and Double 11 Merchant Conference, AliExpress joined forces with Tmall to launch the 'China Brand Global Growth Plan,' combining AliExpress's infrastructure advantages in overseas markets with Tmall's brand management capabilities to help merchants achieve brand globalization. This is yet another new overseas expansion solution Alibaba offers Tmall brands, following the 'Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan' and Lazada's 'One-Click Light Expansion.'

As AliExpress President Jingshi put it, 'Compliance and tariffs are forcing China's cross-border e-commerce into a new stage of development; the broad-listing business model will be completely gone within a year or two.' This judgment essentially raises the question: when the old growth logic fails, the clear path forward—localization and branding—is right there. The key is how to walk it in a way that genuinely delivers new growth.

Connecting domestic and international e-commerce resources is Alibaba's answer. Domestic trade brands need to go global, and cross-border platforms need to build brands—combining the two undoubtedly creates the possibility of reusing existing resources to seek cross-border growth.

1. AliExpress + Tmall: Helping Tmall KA Merchants Convert Domestic Brand Momentum into Global Operating Capability

The newly released 'China Brand Global Growth Plan' from AliExpress explicitly targets three types of merchants—Tmall KA brands, AI hardware brands, and factory brands—providing them with integrated domestic and international growth solutions.

For Tmall KA brands, which possess mature products, supply chains, and brand capabilities, the next challenge is how to extend domestic brand momentum overseas, build brand awareness in more markets, and capture entirely new incremental growth. What AliExpress and Tmall aim to do is help them establish global operating capabilities. To this end, the platform will set up a dedicated service team to provide operational support in brand protection, marketing products, digital advertising, and consumer asset operations.

It is reported that AliExpress plans to bring in 500 Tmall KA brands. Currently, 10 leading brands including Midea, Haier, Hisense, and TCL have already joined.

This is closely tied to AliExpress's proven track record of brands as its new growth driver. Starting in September 2025, AliExpress launched the 'Brand Overseas Expansion Plan' to help Chinese brands go global, with the goal of achieving higher transaction volumes at half the cost of Amazon. During this period, AliExpress provided brands with data analysis on advertising performance and channel conversion, and also built AI tools for operations to help brands with refined management.

According to official data, more than a quarter of AliExpress's business is currently brand-related, maintaining high growth of over 50% year-on-year. More than 1,100 brands have benefited from AliExpress's branding strategy, achieving sales scale of over one million US dollars on the platform.

2. Lazada + Tmall: Enabling Domestic Trade Brands to 'Lightly' Expand into Southeast Asia

In fact, Tmall merchants going overseas through Alibaba's sibling platforms first began with Lazada. In 2020, Lazada partnered with Tmall to launch the 'New Domestic Brands Overseas Plan,' under which Tmall brands joining LazMall enjoyed dedicated service teams and Southeast Asian cross-border logistics solutions.

By September 2025, Lazada and Tmall achieved system-level integration. The 'One-Click Light Expansion' project enables Tmall brand stores to be mirrored onto Lazada, providing merchants choosing Southeast Asia as their first overseas destination with a lightweight expansion solution. Inventory, pricing, marketing, and other information from original Tmall stores can be synced to Lazada with one click.

Lazada's various service configurations make it almost effortless for Tmall merchants to expand into Southeast Asia. After choosing 'One-Click Light Expansion,' merchants only need to send goods to a domestic central warehouse, and the platform handles subsequent fulfillment. For store operations, Lazada also provides AI-powered full-chain intelligent operational services—product selection, customer service, and business diagnostics can all be handled by an intelligent assistant; dedicated operations staff also provide one-on-one service for key clients.

Tmall merchants operating with a light touch quickly delivered impressive overseas results. Data shows that during last year's Double 11, Tmall merchants participating in Lazada's 'One-Click Light Expansion' project achieved over 100 million yuan in sales in Southeast Asia. As of the first half of this year, nearly 10,000 Tmall brands have entered Southeast Asia through this project, with Tmall merchants' transaction volume achieving double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth, and single-month transaction volume in June alone exceeding 400 million yuan. This has both opened up incremental markets for a batch of Tmall merchants and strengthened Lazada's competitiveness in branding.

3. Taobao Going Global: Enabling Domestic Merchants to 'Run Two Businesses with One Store'

Launched in 2024, the 'Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan' also focuses on helping Taobao merchants expand overseas with one click, but differs from Lazada in that merchants don't need to open new stores for overseas business: they can directly use their existing domestic store and inventory while retaining operating rights and pricing power.

Domestic business may be thriving, but going overseas can feel like groping in the dark. 'Taobao's product offerings are very rich and diverse, and this richness and diversity is even more scarce overseas,' said Taobao Going Global General Manager Ye Tian at this year's Taobao Going Global Double 11 press conference, affirming the resource advantages of going global. But he also pointed out the pain points brands face when unfamiliar with overseas markets: How to ship? Where does traffic come from? What about after-sales service?

The 'Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan' responds to Tmall merchants' overseas pain points with a complete set of solutions covering operations, traffic, and logistics. Among them, multilingual versions address the language barrier; overseas new user 1-yuan purchase, the 'Recommended Stores' model, and other subsidies and traffic support give merchants customer acquisition opportunities without building overseas operations teams, and without worrying about customer service and after-sales.

Moreover, this year Taobao Going Global expanded from small and light items to medium and large categories such as furniture and home building materials, with over 90% of medium and large items to be shipped directly overseas. A full-chain overseas free shipping solution prevents fulfillment issues from holding back merchants of medium and large products.

It is reported that during last year's Double 11, over 200,000 merchants saw their overseas GMV double. This year's Double 11, Taobao Going Global is further increasing its marketing investment, raising it from 1 billion yuan to 1.2 billion yuan. Currently, the number of merchants signed up for the 'Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan' has reached 1.2 million. Many brands have gained business incremental growth by opening overseas operations. For example, fastener brand Guwanji, after signing up for the overseas plan, sold products to over 100 countries overseas, with store business growing 30%.

While each 'shortcut' differs in the merchants it accepts, the markets it targets, and the overseas toolkit it provides, all three share the same starting point. In the overseas routes Alibaba has paved for Tmall brands, 'one-click going global' and 'global operations' appear frequently, signaling the core message that domestic and international businesses can no longer operate in isolation. The path is laid out; what remains is for domestic trade merchants seeking to go global to make their choice.

This article was first published on the Ebrun official website.