Alibaba has signalled its plans to expand in Australia and New Zealand with the opening of a new HQ in Melbourne. Alibaba’s Executive Chairman Jack Ma was at the opening of the new offices on Saturday, 4th February which will serve Alibaba’s interests in both countries.

“With a local office and expert team, Alibaba Group will help Australian and New Zealand businesses share their world-famous products with billions of customers around the world,” said Ma.

Alibaba’s ANZ Managing Director Maggie Zhou is to head the new Melbourne operation. She was previously deputy general manager at Tmail Global. Alibaba has indicated that Zhou and her team are to support the 1300 Australian and 400 New Zealand businesses that sell on Tmail and Tmail Global. The new HQ will also work to bring new merchants onto the platforms.

“A physical Alibaba headquarters is a key step in ensuring Australian businesses have the support and information they need to succeed in China and the rest of the world,” commented Zhou.

Alibaba is known to be working with Australia Post to aid trade between China and Australia through its channels. This strongly suggests that from being a portal to the Chinese market, Alibaba is very interested in breaking new ground in business in the two countries.

It is likely that we will see Alibaba announce a new deal with a firm in India in the next week or so and this is likely to include a logistics element to this. As with Amazon, Alibaba seems to see control of its logistics as an important link in the retail supply chain.  
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