In Alibaba's e-commerce history, branding has been a proven path for growth.

In 2008, Taobao Mall was established and rebranded as Tmall in 2012. By then, Taobao had accumulated a vast user base, merchants, and transaction volume. Alibaba's task was to stratify supply within the existing traffic pool. Branded merchants gained a more stable operating environment, while some consumer demand shifted from "just being able to buy" to "buying better."

Today, AliExpress is also directing more resources toward brands.

On April 15, 2026, AliExpress President Jing Shi announced to executives from nearly a hundred Chinese brands, including Xiaomi, Pop Mart, Dreame, and Li-Ning, that AliExpress would create a "new home for Chinese brands to go global." Previously, at a merchant recruitment event in Hangzhou, "brand globalization + overseas fulfillment" had been set as AliExpress's core annual strategy.

In regional markets, AliExpress has launched the "Saiya Program" for new brand recruitment in the U.S., expanding overseas warehouse capacity by 2.5 times. South Korea will also provide exclusive traffic support for brand merchants participating in the "Brand+" program.

However, replicating Tmall's path by increasing the proportion of branded supply to establish new price bands and consumer perceptions poses significant challenges for AliExpress. Taobao once dominated China's e-commerce market, capturing 83% of the C2C market share by 2007. Today, AliExpress faces multiple challenges in its branding efforts, including global compliance, cross-border fulfillment, supply issues, and intense platform competition.

Notably, on July 20, the European Commission fined AliExpress €550 million (approximately RMB 4.25 billion) under the Digital Services Act for issues related to product quality and platform review processes.

As the era of cross-border direct mail bonuses wanes, AliExpress may need to restructure its platform supply, fulfillment models, and merchant base more than ever to adapt to the times and even create new growth. AliExpress's branding strategy is not simply a replication of Tmall's approach overseas. As the saying goes, "A single move affects the whole situation," and Alibaba needs to carefully manage this complex transition.

I. No "Overseas Tmall" Without Taobao's Foundation

Platform operations are like a seesaw, with the allocation of focus being crucial.

AliExpress's branding strategy differs significantly from Tmall's, despite some superficial similarities. Alibaba only needed to further direct existing consumer demand toward more stable, higher-priced goods for Tmall.

Taobao brands also grew during this process. Brands like OSA and McBAG relied on platform benefits to thrive naturally, while unbranded goods sustained ecosystem traffic, and branded merchants generated profits, forming a dual structure of "nurturing at the base and harvesting at the top."

Domestically, Taobao and Tmall first established a market before stratifying it. AliExpress, however, lacks such a "bottom-up" ecosystem. While its platform business covers 200 countries and regions, few markets have a dominant user base.

As of July 29, AliExpress ranked only 12th in the U.S. App Store's shopping subcategory, behind Amazon and domestic platform TEMU.

The fragmented overseas market does not constitute a unified whole. Tmall's success was built on a unified fulfillment, payment, and search-recommendation system that directed existing consumer demand toward branded goods. However, AliExpress's consumer perceptions accumulated in one regional market are difficult to fully transfer to another.

More importantly, overseas consumers lack the cognitive context for buying branded goods on AliExpress. Previously, AliExpress promoted Choice, offering abundant unbranded goods that rivaled branded products in quality while maintaining a price advantage.

Thus, a more practical approach for AliExpress is to promote the localization of Chinese brands and cultivate greater brand awareness, attracting its limited user base with higher-quality, branded goods.

In November 2024, Alibaba announced the establishment of an e-commerce business group, unifying management of Taobao & Tmall, International Digital Commerce, 1688, and Xianyu, appointing Jiang Fan as CEO. The goal is to integrate domestic and international resources, forming globalized supply chain, fulfillment, and consumer service capabilities.

This strategy focuses on "what to sell" but fails to address consumer perceptions—AliExpress needs not only to introduce brands but also to build brand awareness simultaneously.

In September 2025, AliExpress officially launched the "Brand+" program, providing traffic and operational support to established brands like Xiaomi, Pop Mart, Dreame, and Li-Ning. A dedicated "Brand+" channel was introduced on the platform, offering exclusive branding, search weighting, and priority exposure for branded goods, while enhancing consumer trust through authenticity certification, free shipping, and price protection mechanisms.

We also note that compared to Tmall's era, AliExpress has invested significantly more in online and offline marketing. For example, AliExpress hosted 200 brand marketing events, including leading Brand+ brands to exhibit at the Berlin International Consumer Electronics Show (IFA) in September 2026, featuring high-tech brands in robotics, 3D printing, and AR glasses.

Unlike Tmall's broad consumer focus, AliExpress emphasizes "premium" and tech-driven branding. Additionally, high-intensity offline exposure attracts media attention, amplifying brand voices among local users.

With support in funding, traffic, and operations, AliExpress has attracted over 1,500 officially certified brands, expanding its branded supply.

Alibaba has the capital to aggressively pursue consumer perceptions and supply expansion but still lacks a unified large market to migrate user brand perceptions. The question of whether "if you build it, they will come" hinges on whether branded supply can translate into brand perception.

II. Acceleration and Growing Pains

Beyond seeking growth, AliExpress's branding push is driven by pressing platform challenges.

Tmall once operated within a unified market, redistributing internal traffic. Today, AliExpress faces twenty fragmented battlefields, each with local giants, independent regulations, languages, and logistics systems.

In each market, compliance and user trust must be rebuilt from scratch.

Regulatory compliance pressures are undeniable. The 2025 termination of the U.S. T86 de minimis exemption for small-value imports signaled a shift, disproportionately affecting small merchants reliant on direct mail.

On July 1, 2026, the EU eliminated tariff exemptions for imports valued below €150, imposing a flat €3 tariff per parcel based on different tax categories. Merchants reported that this increased direct mail costs by €5–8 per item.

The new regulations raised fixed fulfillment costs for low-priced goods, with a more pronounced impact on cheaper items. This forces platforms and merchants to reassess the economics of cross-border direct mail versus local stocking, further elevating the importance of overseas warehouses and local fulfillment.

Consequently, the cost advantage of B2C cross-border direct mail from Chinese warehouses to overseas consumers has diminished. Platforms must accelerate their transition to "pre-positioning" goods closer to consumers, shifting internally from B2C direct mail to B2B2C local warehousing and driving full hosting (comprehensive hosting ) for light and small items. Meanwhile, the potential for increased compliance and regulatory friction in global trade looms large for AliExpress. A case in point: On July 20, the European Commission fined AliExpress €550 million (approximately RMB 4.25 billion) for failing to fulfill obligations under the Digital Services Act. The Commission highlighted the circulation of illegal products, from counterfeit goods to unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics, which remained online for weeks even after detection. AliExpress's failure to curb counterfeit products not only harms consumer rights but also undermines legitimate merchants.

The urgent situation compels AliExpress to accelerate its transformation, one direct result being a sharp stratification of its merchant base.

As early as January 2026, AliExpress held a thousand-merchant summit in Hangzhou, designating "overseas fulfillment" as a core annual strategy. The platform offered tangible support, such as fast-track entry into Europe—zero commission and zero annual fees, with stores launching in three days for merchants stocking in Spain, France, Germany, or Poland and possessing a VAT number.

For the Choice (full or semi- hosting ) model, AliExpress underwent a more thorough transformation under the EU's new tariff policies, planning to push over 95% of light and small items into Choice hosting mode.

Merchants using POP (self-operated mode), caught between "overseas fulfillment" and Choice, face a dilemma. AliExpress reaffirmed POP as the platform's foundation but emphasized compliance, such as launching a "Product Compliance Center," which may push some POP merchants out.

To support POP merchants, AliExpress introduced "Regional SA" and special incentives in early May 2026, lowering the threshold for "Global SA" by adding regional commission incentives, allowing qualified merchants to focus resources on deepening penetration in a single national market.

As noted earlier, stricter compliance requirements and incentive policies will gradually filter out high-performing POP sellers, who could serve as a reserve force for branding. However, as the platform advances, supply reshuffling continues, and some sellers will inevitably face elimination.

On the other hand, factory-based merchants with integrated production and trade capabilities and branded merchants with localization strengths have gained structural opportunities. Shenzhen-based robot vacuum brand ILIFE achieved "one in ten households" in Poland through local stocking, while Xiaomi swiftly expanded into European local markets via overseas fulfillment.

The "survival of the fittest" principle may no longer adequately describe this accelerated transformation, where eliminated supply represents unavoidable growing pains for AliExpress. As merchants with sufficient capital and localization capabilities, along with those with strong supply chains to serve as platform suppliers, settle in, the platform's previously diverse ecosystem may evolve toward concentration around top players.

III. Caught Between Competitors

When AliExpress launched its "Brand+" initiative, its core goal was to help brands achieve higher sales at half the operating cost compared to Amazon.

During this year's 618 promotion, Brand+ brands accounted for 40% of GMV penetration, with nearly 400 brands surpassing Amazon in daily GMV on AliExpress.

Through "Brand+", AliExpress gained an early advantage. But can this branding strategy sustain its global competitiveness in the post-direct mail era?

The answer is far more complex than "challenging Amazon." AliExpress must not only compete for users' brand perceptions but also retain its user base built on low-priced goods.

Alibaba's financials show that with the advancement of Choice, overseas fulfillment, and branding strategies, its international commerce business has shifted toward "slower revenue growth but improved operational efficiency." In Q2 FY2026, international digital commerce retail revenue grew 10% YoY; by Q4, growth slowed to 5% YoY. Meanwhile, AIDC's adjusted EBITA fluctuated quarterly but showed clear overall improvement.

This shift from scale expansion to efficiency prioritization reflects changes in the platform's supply structure.

Historically, AliExpress relied on China's supply chain and abundant low-priced long-tail goods to carve out a competitive position distinct from Amazon. Brand+ drives branding upgrades, raising product value and average selling prices but potentially altering the platform's price-conscious image.

Furthermore, AliExpress must defend its existing user base while expanding. If the decline in low-priced supply outpaces the growth of branded goods, the platform risks user migration and slower growth.

Externally, platform competition intensifies, particularly from Amazon's downward encroachment.

In 2026, Amazon launched its largest-ever fee reductions in Europe, lowering commissions for clothing and accessories to as low as 5%, reducing FBA fulfillment fees by €0.32 per item on average, and expanding low-priced discounts to items under €20. This defensive move against TEMU's low-price strategy inadvertently affected AliExpress, which shares the same industrial supply chain.

Amazon can afford such drastic measures due to its native presence in Western markets. After two decades of building its FBA network, Amazon achieves "next-day" or even "same-day" delivery in Europe. This robust fulfillment infrastructure gives Amazon greater flexibility to engage in price competition.

AliExpress cannot overhaul its fulfillment capabilities overnight. Its Cainiao Network covers over 30 markets, with rapidly expanding overseas warehouses, but "coverage" does not equal "density." European local warehouses are concentrated in Spain, France, and Poland, with Germany's warehouse still under construction.

In terms of brand perception, Amazon's Prime membership fosters high repurchase loyalty, with users assuming "brands on Amazon are authentic." By comparison, Alibaba's domestic 88VIP program cultivates a similar high-value user base. By 2022, 88VIP members spent nine times more annually than non-members, and during the 2025 Double 11's first phase, over 70% of transactions from top brands came from 88VIP members.

AliExpress must further refine its user operations; otherwise, its branding reform risks becoming a merchant recruitment project driven solely by platform resources.

Meanwhile, TEMU is expanding upward, launching the "Xinpinmu" program to incubate brands. Continuing Pinduoduo's supply chain integration approach, Xinpinmu appointed Zhao Jiazhen, who previously spearheaded Pinduoduo's agricultural supply chain, as co-chairman. The plan aims to transform white-label factories and OEMs into self-operated brands, capturing brand premiums.

These factories may match established brands in quality but offer lower prices. Upstream integration allows them to adjust products based on platform policies and data, leveraging Pinduoduo's extensive user data for market adaptability.

Zhao successfully connected "small farmers" with "large markets" on Pinduoduo. If Xinpinmu can similarly link white-label factories with overseas markets, it could become Pinduoduo's new growth engine, replicating its past efficiency revolution in full hosting (comprehensive hosting ) models.

Thus, AliExpress is not fighting a battle to "replicate Tmall" but redefining its platform value in a complex competitive landscape: Chinese brands can go global at lower costs without sacrificing profits, service, or trust.

This approach also highlights the difference between Jiang Fan, who now leads Alibaba's e-commerce business group, and Zhang Yong, who bet on consumption upgrades via Tmall over a decade ago.

Zhang's consumption upgrade strategy was one-dimensional, concentrating platform resources upward and causing low-priced supply and price-sensitive users to cluster elsewhere. Jiang, however, is betting on China's supply chain efficiency to secure cost advantages for brands going global—AliExpress must avoid reducing "brand globalization" to another one-way upgrade path.