AliExpress is aggressively poaching Amazon brand sellers.
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Author | Huang Yu
Editor | Wang Xiaojuan
Once upon a time, Amazon was almost the top choice for global brands looking to expand internationally. But after nearly a year and a half of focusing on international expansion for brands, AliExpress, Alibaba's cross-border e-commerce platform, is rapidly rising as another crucial battleground for brand globalization, and now it has even more confidence to directly challenge Amazon.
On September 23, AliExpress announced that its branding strategy for overseas markets was upgrading from the "Billion Yuan Subsidy for Global Brands" to the "Super Brand Globalization Program," and clearly stated its intent to recruit well-known brands, including Tmall brands and top Amazon sellers.
This move not only means that supporting brands' international expansion has become a top strategic priority for AliExpress, but also signifies AliExpress taking on Amazon head-to-head to compete for the mid-to-high-end brand market.
It is worth noting that to attract more brand merchants to its platform, AliExpress is also making significant moves in the area of merchant costs, directly calling out the slogan: "Let merchants achieve more sales in key markets at half the cost compared to Amazon."
Yan Zhi, head of AliExpress global branding, pointed out that AliExpress charges merchants an average commission of about 8-10%, while Amazon's goes as high as 15-25%.
This upgrade of its brand expansion plans will undoubtedly mark a major turning point in the development of AliExpress.
Yan Zhi stated that the essence of this brand expansion upgrade is that AliExpress is making changes from the ground up, providing a systematic global brand strategy, shifting from brands adapting to platform operations and relying on promotions for breakout growth, to a platform-driven, bottom-up branding upgrade.
Specifically, for consumers, AliExpress will launch an exclusive "Brand+" channel, strengthening brand awareness and trust through official certification, free shipping, and price protection mechanisms.
All of these measures are intended to assure consumers when purchasing high-price-point products on AliExpress. Yan Zhi noted that the decision-making process for buying a $200 item versus a $2 item is not the same, so AliExpress must provide users with a better experience and solutions in this area.
"Of course, in this respect, I think we still have some gap compared with Amazon, but at least we can achieve about 70-80% of their level."
For merchants, AliExpress will also launch a "Brand Service Center," providing hourly updates on ad performance, channel conversion analytics, and brand audience retention capabilities to help brands achieve refined operations.
According to reports, AliExpress mainly serves more than 2,000 global brands, primarily outstanding Chinese brands, and is also open to some local brands in areas where it is developing local markets, such as Spain and Poland.
In terms of marketing, AliExpress is offering brands access to its years of local marketing expertise, such as teaming up with Pop Mart to host offline music festivals in Spain, helping brands connect with local consumers.
At the same time, under the backdrop of AI reshaping industries, AliExpress will provide brands and merchants with a full suite of brand e-commerce AI tools to help reduce costs and increase efficiency.
AliExpress's efforts to support brand globalization can be traced back to April last year, when it launched the "Billion Yuan Subsidy for Global Brands," designating it as its No. 1 initiative for 2024. During the overseas Double 11 sales event last year, the AliExpress Billion Yuan Subsidy also participated for the first time.
Reportedly, in the first half of this year, the number of new brands joining the AliExpress platform grew by 72% year-over-year, with over 500 brands doubling their sales and more than 2,000 brands tapping into new overseas markets through AliExpress.
Additionally, Yan Zhi revealed that the volume of branded products and high-ticket items sold on AliExpress is gradually surpassing some of the mid- and low-ticket products. "If we now view brands as a type of inventory, the branded inventory has already become a growth engine for AliExpress."
As global trade dynamics change, one consensus is clear: cross-border e-commerce must shift from growth at any cost toward a focus on profitable growth, and move from simply "low-priced exports" to a high-value-added "branding" strategy.
Against this backdrop, international expansion is transitioning from the "selling goods era" to the "brand era." Yan Zhi has also said that only brands can transcend economic cycles and truly build businesses for the future, helping the cross-border industry move beyond low-end manufacturing to create more consumer demand and more profitable solutions.
This is also why AliExpress is placing increasing emphasis on empowering brands and has proposed to become a global brand e-commerce "Marketing place."
"AliExpress will become the second growth curve for brand internationalization, providing a new option when brands decide to go overseas." In Yan Zhi's view, Amazon is currently a larger e-commerce platform serving Chinese brands, but as part of Alibaba, AliExpress has accumulated extensive experience in serving Chinese brands domestically, and the past couple of years have proven that this experience is also valid for cross-border business.
To support global branding needs, coupled with the impact of global tariff issues, the overseas fulfillment model has also become a major tool AliExpress now offers brand merchants.
Reportedly, under the AliExpress "Overseas Fulfillment" model, merchants are responsible for stocking products in overseas warehouses, while the platform handles subsequent marketing and user operations. Order fulfillment is completed by certified warehouses or third-party services, and the platform ensures operational efficiency via system integration.
Around the "Super Brand Program," AliExpress has also systematically upgraded its overseas fulfillment services, now covering 30 countries. Products stocked overseas immediately receive a "Local+" label to help consumers identify locally available inventory; the platform will also boost the exposure of these fulfilled products through core resources like home page pop-ups and search ranking boosts.
Wu Chang, head of AliExpress Overseas Fulfillment, believes that brand globalization plus overseas fulfillment amounts to a "royal flush" combination for internationalization in 2025.
As the global cross-border e-commerce market undergoes rapid changes and intense competition, it is entering a new stage of "strong profits plus powerful brands." At this time, only platforms that can operate with refined precision and help merchants build brand value have a hope of becoming one of the winners.
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