Alibaba Marketing Mix

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Marketing Mix of Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group is a fast-growing e-commerce and cloud player based in China. The head office of Alibaba Group is in Shenzhen, China and it is led by founder Jack Ma. The company has seen fast growth in its e-commerce business in recent years. Apart from that, the cloud revenue of Alibaba group has also risen fast.  The fiscal year 2019 has ended on a strong note for the Alibaba group and apart from growth in its customer base, its total revenue also saw impressive growth. The company is investing a lot in research and development to increase its pace of growth. However, the international footprint of the Alibaba group is much smaller as compared to the leading e-commerce player Amazon. China is still a strong market and holds immense potential which has enabled Alibaba to find financial growth faster.

Take a look at the marketing Mix of Alibaba group analyzing its four P’s – Product, Place, Price, and Promotion.

Product:-

Alibaba Group is a leading Chinese e-commerce business and also a major cloud player in the Chinese market. Apart from that, the company also offers digital media and entertainment products. Ecommerce is the largest business segment of Alibaba group accounting for more than 85% of its revenue in FY 2019. Its Chinese e-commerce business includes China retail, Taobao and Tmall. Taobao Marketplace is China’s largest mobile commerce destination with a large range of product offerings and Tmall is China’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers. In March 2019, Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces had 721 million mobile MAUs (Monthly Active Users).  Alibaba Cloud offers a complete range of cloud-based services that include elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform, and IoT services.

Place:

Alibaba group’s core market is China. It is based in Shenzhen, China. Its e-commerce platform provides international brands with access to a large Chinese consumer base. While it is a leading Chinese e-commerce and cloud business, its international footprint compared to the leading competitors is still lower. However, the brand is focusing on international expansion in order to grow its presence in Asia and Europe. To grow its presence in international markets, it is also partnering with other brands or investing in them like the Tokopedia in Indonesia. Apart from that Alibaba intends to grow its presence in Southeast Asia, India, and Russia.

Price: –

In terms of pricing, Alibaba has relied on a competitive pricing strategy that is targeted at deeper market penetration. While Alibaba has grown into a popular brand in the Chinese market, in the rest of the world it is still struggling to expand. There is a lot of pressure in the global e-commerce industry and apart from Amazon, the global e-commerce leader, there are several local brands in most of the developed and developing economies. This is also a reason that the brand has mainly focused on pricing its products and services competitively so as to acquire faster growth. Apart from e-commerce, in its cloud computing segment too, Alibaba has used a competitive pricing strategy in order to grow its market share.

Promotion:-

Alibaba has acquired a lot of fame and recognition in recent years. Apart from quality products and services, the reason behind its growth in popularity is customer convenience. Now, it is a leading brand in China and targeting faster international expansion. Its websites including its main e-commerce website are the main channel of marketing for the brand.  In a short period of time, the brand has built significant recognition in China and overseas. Alibaba has also been able to grow its brand recognition using media promotions. Apart from them, the brand also uses its own marketing platforms for marketing. The company also invests in Corporate Social Responsibility Programs including poverty relief and charitable programs in order to create a strong and accountable image.

  • Sources:
  • Alibaba Group Annual report 2018 and 2019.
Cite This:
APA:
Pratap, A. (2019, May 17). ALIBABA MARKETING MIX. Retrieved from https://notesmatic.com/alibaba-marketing-mix/.
MLA:
Pratap, Abhijeet. “ALIBABA MARKETING MIX.” Cheshnotes, 17 May. 2019, notesmatic.com/2019/05/alibaba-marketing-mix/.