Alibaba has announced yesterday its plans to open a logistics centre in Liège, Brussels.
The marketplace’s, Europe general manager Terry von Bibra confirmed that “[Alibaba has] already started” working on developing the centre. Commenting on the upcoming launch, he said that the marketplace would consider opening a following one or two logistics hubs in Europe in the coming years, depending on Alibaba’s future performance.
As reported initially by Delano, Alibaba is working with Liège officials to find a 380,000 sq meter location to fit in the future distribution centre.
The new logistics hub will join the list of marketplace’s centres in Dubai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, and Moscow in Alibaba’s attempt to support its growing business.
“I believe that there will be significant spin-offs from the move. It is delivering the logistics strategy for the Liège region, which is taking shape. If investment takes place in the Liège region, Belgium as a country will follow suit. The move could translate into thousands of jobs.”
-Willy Demeyer, the Mayor of Liège
Is Alibaba aiming to become bigger in Europe?
These news come after Alibaba’s Singles Day sets the biggest sale record yet, surpassing Amazon’s Prime Day 2018 sale. The marketplace’s vice president Jet Jing said that Alibaba’s development of its logistics technology contributed to Single’s Day results. He said that the updated logistics infrastructure helped to support the billion of shipments during the sales event.
As it appears, Alibaba is putting its logistics infrastructure and expansion at the centre of its strategy, but is this effort aimed at becoming bigger in Europe as the marketplace suggested opening more distribution centres? Looking at its Single’s Day success, Alibaba is already gaining more prominence as more non-Chinese consumers are increasingly buying from the marketplace. Now, that the marketplace is focusing on increasing the efficiency of shipping pan-Chinese goods to European consumers is its only a matter of time before we see Alibaba becoming more present in Europe.
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