Alibaba are set to debut a permanent physical store in Spain this weekend in a bid to show off the marketplace’s merchants’ products, giving them a taste of the physical retailing.
Alibaba will open doors to their first Spanish bricks-and-mortar store on Sunday, the 25th of August at the Centro Comercial Xanadu, Madrid to magnify the exposure of their third-biggest market by revenue.
“Spain is a key country for the Alibaba Group, where the largest number of customers, the highest valued and highest valued customers are concentrated engagement for our brand. After the United States and Russia, Spain is the largest market for AliExpress and above all represents the gateway to the rest of the countries in Europe. ”
– Rubén Bautista, AliExpress Operations Director for Spain and Portugal.
Spanish merchants selling on Alibaba represent the largest share of sellers within the marketplace ecosystem, making it an obvious business decision to chose the European country as an omnichannel funnel to attract more shoppers to the Chinese marketplace.
The move marks the following dive of Alibaba into the world of multichannel trading. The last two years saw the marketplace planting pop-up stores in Madrid to see whether the physical retailing ground was fertile enough to reap sales in Spain. This test-and-learn approach proved a success as we now seeing the marketplace expanding their reach beyond China to conquer markets beyond their border.
