Alibaba to launch South Korean Pavilion exclusively for local sellers

Alibaba.com will launch a new website exclusively for Korean sellers to link up with global purchasers.

Head of Alibaba.com Marco Yang, first from left, and Andrew Zheng, the vice president of Alibaba.com pose for a photo during a press conference in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Monday. The company will launch South Korea Pavilion, a website dedicated to marketing products by Korean sellers to help them reach enterprise clients abroad. [ALIBABA.COM]

Alibaba.com, an e-commerce affiliate of Alibaba Group, will launch a stand-alone website dealing exclusively in products by Korean sellers to help them reach enterprise clients abroad.

“We want 'made in Korea' [products] to stretch and reach out to the entire world,” said the vice president of Alibaba.com, Andrew Zheng, during a press conference in central Seoul on Monday, talking about its upcoming website South Korea Pavilion set to be launched on Aug. 8.

Alibaba.com is a global B2B wholesale platform operated by Alibaba Group. The company also operates Taobao, the Chinese market-focused retail service, and AliExpress, the global retail platform, among other services like Alibaba Cloud and the video streaming platform Youku.

Korean businesses have been using Alibaba.com since 2000, a year after the site was first launched. There are currently over 2,550 Korean small- and medium-sized businesses that operate on the website, with 610,000 items listed by Korean companies in 2023.

The company explained that there are still many firms that do not utilize e-commerce to export products; only 0.2 percent of Korea's total exports were sold through online retail, limited mainly to K-food and K-beauty products.

South Korea Pavilion, therefore, offers a “lower barrier” for those wishing to export products to foreign buyers, according to the vice president. The site will only allow Korean businesses to be registered as sellers.

“Global buyers’ demand for Korean products increased dramatically last year and the Korean market is considered key by Alibaba,” vice president Zheng said. “We found out that Korean small- to medium-sized businesses suffer from a lack of personnel and lack of understanding in the export business, and [South Korea Pavilion] is here to solve that issue.”

“Korean food and beauty-related products are very successful, but car parts, furniture and other non-consumer goods also see a very competitive status on Alibaba,” the head of Alibaba.com Korea, Marco Yang, said.

“Before, buyers had to search for Korean items on Alibaba.com [among products from the world] but with the dedicated platform, it will be easier for foreign sellers to search for Korean goods.”

The Korean Active Supplier plan will be priced at $199 per year, which will allow firms to list and sell items on the South Korea Pavilion. Alibaba.com will offer large-scale advertisement and marketing campaigns for the first three months of the service’s launch, starting in August.

"Consider this a beta, trial version of Alibaba.com. Korean businesses can first try our service and enter the global B2B market with it,” the head of Alibaba.com Korea said.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]