Alibaba launches 'Project Sprout Up'

CNI Desk: Alibaba.com, a leading platform for global business-to-business (B2B) trade, launched a landmark initiative 'Project Sprout Up' to help businesses in Bangladesh to go online and global.

According to a press release issued on Tuesday, the roll out of the project will help existing and potential Alibaba.com users in Bangladesh with better access to B2B trade opportunities available in the vast global market.

This programme is part of the broader 2020 Spring Thunder initiative by Alibaba Group to help SMEs survive and thrive via digitalisation in the wake of the pandemic and to support them on their road to recovery.

 

The project will aid SMEs in the country across three main areas – faster onboarding onto the Alibaba.com platform for establishing global reach, access to solutions designed to accelerate business growth and tailor-made training programmes to help SMEs deepen their online capabilities, reads the press release.

Alibaba.com hosts more than 20 million active buyers from over 190 countries and regions, with an average of 300,000 inquiries made daily for goods ranging from raw materials to finished products in more than 30 major categories. Over 40,000 products from Bangladesh-based businesses are currently listed on the Alibaba.com platform, including items from key local industries such as apparel and textiles as well as leather products such as luggage and bags. 

"This year more and more businesses are looking for sustainable business models and we believe that ecommerce can provide that opportunity and enable more SMEs move from recovery to tangible, sustained growth. Bangladesh is already recognized in terms of apparel and textile exports and can further accelerate their businesses through global B2B trade," said Mr Zhang Kuo, General Manager of Alibaba.com.

"Unlike retailers who have adopted e-commerce more instinctively in the past few years, most B2B businesses are still to understand the potential of this space," he added.

Helping Businesses Go Online
Alibaba.com will help lower the barriers to entry for SMEs looking to kickstart or accelerate their online B2B trade operations. The solution offered will help new suppliers set up their e-commerce presence on Alibaba.com from scratch, and the Alibaba.com platform will provide special discounts for local SMEs joining the Alibaba.com platform as supplier members before 30 September 2020.

Bangladesh based businesses will also benefit from a new 90-day onboarding process onto Alibaba.com, which aims to boost traffic and generate additional business opportunities for new suppliers within the period. 

 

To further support the move by businesses online, Alibaba.com will enlist professional third-party partners to help newly joined suppliers create an online store from the ground up, develop product listings and conduct keyword advertising. This package will be made complimentary for participating SMEs, with costs absorbed by Alibaba.com.

Helping Business Go Global
To provide businesses with more confidence when participating in global trade, Alibaba.com will be offering its Smart Marketing Solution, an intelligent keyword advertising tool, available for supplier members in the country.

The tool draws on insights from the Alibaba.com platform and AI algorithms to help suppliers market their products with intelligent bidding without additional labour and investment required.

Apart from enabling businesses to understand the demand for a product category, the Smart Marketing Solution will also adjust automatically the bidding price for their keywords to acquire new customer traffic and fine-tune their business strategies via a simple and basic interface even for businesses new to the Alibaba.com platform.

In addition, supplier members in Bangladesh will be provided with regular training programmes and workshops to strengthen their performance on Alibaba.com while covering topics ranging from the basics in online business to online buyer behavior, business negotiations, customer support, marketing and more.