Alibaba to allow more vendors outside China to use AliExpress to sell goods internationally, starting with retailers in Russia, Turkey, Italy, and Spain
James Kynge / Financial Times :
Context & Ripple Effects
In 2019 Alibaba began turning AliExpress inside out: rather than only a conduit for Chinese sellers reaching overseas buyers, the platform started accepting vendors outside China, beginning with retailers in Russia, Turkey, Italy, and Spain. That local-seller supply base is what made Europe strategically important enough that Alibaba later launched a pilot of its Tmall mall in Spain, and it underpins why payments followed — Ant Group added [[a:833928|installment payments through Splitit for Alipay users on AliExpress in Germany, Spain, and France]].
The starting markets also proved durable commitments: when sanctions hit its partners and the ruble collapsed, Alibaba still chose not to exit, with sources reporting it kept AliExpress operating in Russia despite lower orders and shipping delays.
First-order effects
- Retailers in Russia, Turkey, Italy, and Spain gain direct access to AliExpress's international buyer base without building their own cross-border logistics, while Alibaba's marketplace supply stops being China-only.
- Chinese sellers on AliExchange's home turf now compete for the same listings and search placement against local vendors closer to their customers.
Second-order effects
- Amazon, which had already entered Alibaba's turf by opening a storefront on Tmall for Chinese shoppers in 2015, faces reciprocal pressure as Alibaba's platforms recruit sellers in Amazon's core European markets.
- Payments and fulfillment providers become the bottleneck for the new seller cohorts — the gap Ant Group moved to fill by extending Alipay-linked installment buying across AliExpress's European footprint.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Chinese marketplaces evolve from export channels into genuinely two-sided global platforms — foreign sellers in, Chinese brands out — forcing Western rivals and regulators to treat Alibaba's infrastructure as domestic competition in every market it touches.
- The Russia case sketches a template for how Chinese platforms weather geopolitical shocks: absorb sanctions costs locally rather than cede market position, raising questions about how Western governments police platforms embedded on both sides of sanction regimes.
The trend: Alibaba's commerce platforms are shifting from one-way export channels for Chinese vendors toward two-sided global marketplaces that recruit local sellers — and keep operating — in each region they enter.