The afternoon began with networking over welcome drinks, before our top European publishers took their seats for a presentation from Aki Chi, head of digital marketing at AliExpress. Aki took attendees on a journey through the Alibaba ecosystem, key milestones since its inception, and AliExpress' global affiliate strategy. Aki then shared a thorough overview of Singles’ Day, China’s largest online retail event, and how AliExpress plans to take this success worldwide with Awin.
After the event, we sat down with Aki to ask a few questions on AliExpress as a company and how they create long lasting relationships with their affiliate partners, as well as gain some more insight into Singles' Day.
What makes AliExpress an exciting company?
It’s our mission, which is to make everything as easy as possible to do business everywhere. Our mission never changes and all our employees believe this, and give their best effort to follow this.
What added benefit does affiliate marketing bring to your business?
We do believe that affiliate marketing will help us expand our business in key countries.
What is the most exciting time of year for you as a business?
Definitely Double 11 (Singles’ Day). We saw the GMV (gross merchandise value) increase a lot and a lot of buyers celebrated the festival with us.
How are you preparing for Black Friday?
To be honest, our main day of celebration is Double 11 not Black Friday, but we prepare our promotions for Black Friday and the Monday after Double 11 as well.
What does AliExpress do to create long-lasting relationships with their affiliate partners?
We communicate with each other and discuss our ideas and plans. Also, our partners help us to expand our market presence and market promotions. In exchange, we support them with tools and product selections, to name a few. We support them and they help us to grow in our key markets. That’s why we can maintain long-lasting relationships with our partners – like Awin.
What was the reason for hosting the exclusive Singles’ Day publisher event with Awin?
This is the first time for Alibaba Group and AliExpress to do such an international presentation. We have done presentations in Moscow, London, and Berlin now, and it is a great chance to communicate with our publishers and actively listen to their ideas. I think this is very exciting and I want to thank Awin for helping us with this event. Regarding 2019, we’re happy to say that we’ll have presentations in other key European countries like France and Italy as well.
For more information and/or partnership enquiries, contact Jillian Sun.
