HANGZHOU, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Alibaba.com launched its first global online trade show on Monday, as a new channel for traditional trade businesses to reach customers at a time when many exhibitions have been canceled amid the COVID-19 epidemic.
The trade show is expected to last till May 24 and attract about 200,000 wholesalers each day to visit, inquire and place orders.
Zhang Kuo, general manager of Alibaba.com, said a total of 20 such online trade exhibitions would be held this year to help small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises get through the difficulty.
Zhang said although COVID-19 has frustrated global cross-border trade, Alibaba.com has maintained an upward trend, with the total transaction in April increasing by 86.3 percent year on year.
Cross-border B2B livestreaming will be introduced into this global exhibition for the first time, with more than 1,000 B2B livestreaming sessions to be held during the exhibition.
"It took only 15 minutes of livestreaming before we began receiving numerous customers from around the globe. The effect is surprisingly satisfactory," said Fan Xuequan, foreign trade manager from Dongguan Dolphin Daily Necessities Co.,Ltd, who was among the first groups to be invited for livestreaming.
"Cross-border wholesale business is about 'perfect matching'," said Zhang, adding that based on big data on the platform, Alibaba.com puts sellers into different layers and has requirements for buyers. Sellers can decide which group of buyers has access to all or part of their content. In this way, the platform can increase the efficiency of matching sellers with buyers, and protect intellectual property.
Alibaba.com, launched in 1999, is a global leading cross-border B2B platform owned by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Enditem
