HANGZHOU, China, July 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Unilever China and Alibaba Group recently signed a Strategic Partnership Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The two companies will make joint effort to build the biggest online & offline platform for sales, branding, cross-border ecommerce and innovation.
This partnership is the first time for Alibaba to develop a full channel, whole field group corporation with a FMCG company. It's also a new attempt to achieve resource sharing between the two sides.
The cooperation in following areas would be further strengthened in future:
"Alibaba has changed the shopping habit of Chinese consumers. Its mission is to make it easy to do business everywhere, and its vision is to build the future infrastructure of commerce. This meets the Unilever's development needs in China." said Marijn Van Tiggelen, Unilever North Asia President.
"Alibaba is the leading internet company in China, with the most innovative thinking. It's not only an online store, but also a solution platform for online payment, e-finance, and e-commerce logistics. In cooperation with Alibaba, Unilever can provide more convenient services to consumers in China."
In the last few years, Unilever has made proactive try in the field of ecommerce. It has opened an online flagship store on Tmall, Alibaba's most important B2C platform, since Jun.2011. On September, 2014, Unilever started the cross-border ecommerce business on Tmall Global. The cooperation in ecommerce has given Chinese consumer easier access to quality-assured Unilever products made in China and exported from other countries.
"We are very pleased to amplify our partnership with an industry leader such as Unilever," said Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. "We look forward to building on our success in sales over the years and taking the collaboration to the next level. Moving forward, Alibaba Group and Unilever will jointly innovate in Big Data analytics application, cross-border e-commerce, and supply chain management. In this rapidly changing business landscape, we are committed to continually provide greater value to merchants and better experiences to shoppers."
The new approach for "Internet plus FMCG" initiative is a win-win for the two companies to drive business growth with shared resources and strong commitment to each other. The upcoming Unilever Week on Tmall, scheduled 22-24 July, will become an initiating event after the MOU. This event will put Unilever products on spotlight online, and help Unilever to drive e-commerce business.
