AliExpress seeks to fast-track growth with commission-free exports for Korean sellers

AliExpress announced that its Global Selling Program will exempt Korean sellers from commission fees on exported items.

AliExpress Korea General Manager Ray Zhang announces that the Global Selling Program will offer commission-free sales for the next five years during his presentation at the AliExpress Korea Seller Forum held the Grand InterContinental Hotel Seoul in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, on Wednesday. [CHO YONG-JUN]

AliExpress is making an aggressive move to expand its footing in Korea with its announcement on Wednesday that commission fees will be exempted for local sellers that join its new program exporting Korean products overseas.

Titled the Global Selling Program, the new scheme will allow new and existing Korean sellers on the platform to export using AliExpress’s global sales network starting in October.

The program will allow sellers to export to four countries — Japan, France, Spain and the United States — with the goal of expanding to other regions in the near future.

“We plan to focus first on helping K-fashion and K-beauty businesses export their products overseas, and we hope to invite 80 percent of the total businesses in the field to work with us,” AliExpress Korea General Manager Ray Zhang said during a press conference, held after the 1st AliExpress Korea Seller Forum at the Grand InterContinental Hotel Seoul in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, on Wednesday. At the seller forum, the company explained its future plans to local sellers on AliExpress.

Zhang added that the plan is to also invite the K-pop and K-food sectors to join the Global Selling Program.

Given that some Korean e-commerce platforms have been under fire for belated payouts, AliExpress claimed that its strength derives from its convenience and faster remittance to sellers.

“Korean sellers enrolled in the program will have access to the resources of the Alibaba Group, which communicates with 150 million customers worldwide,” Zhang said.

The resources include its automatic AI-powered translation system for product pages, descriptions and text communication with customers — "You can sell globally speaking only Korean,” as the company phrased it.

AliExpress also offered faster 15-day payouts to the sellers with the help of its giant parent company in China.

The China-based e-commerce platform officially launched in Korea back in 2018 and has been aggressively investing to stake a claim in the local market, including with faster delivery times and partnerships with local payment services like Kakao Pay, Naver Pay and Toss Pay. AliExpress also enforced a stronger copyright infringement policy to tackle the counterfeit issue on the platform in a bid to move away from its "fake market" image.

"We very much value the protection of intellectual property rights and we have 8,000 Korean brands' rights in the protection pool that we have," Zhang said.

AliExpress also introduced the K-Venue in October 2023, a dedicated platform for Korean sellers to offer their products in the domestic market.

The company was still in the review phase of the construction of a proposed $200 million logistics and distribution facility in Korea, according to the general manager.

“An AliExpress distribution center would have to firstly be capable of dealing with the logistics of local Korean businesses selling to local customers, foreign businesses selling to local customers and Korean businesses exporting overseas,” he said.

“So, it’s a rather complicated business and it’s taking us some time. We will be giving more details in the first half of next year.”

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