As reported by German magazine WirtschaftWoche and other media, Alibaba has started to enter the European market with the first pilot of its B2C marketplace Tmall in Spain. Following Alibaba’s recently announced split into several divisions, one of them will be exclusively dedicated to internationalization.
It remains to be seen whether the promise that Tmall will only sell local products to local consumers is to be taken seriously. If a comment by Alibaba CEO J. Michael Evans regarding the Spanish pilot is to be believed, this will only be the beginning because, “Europe is a top priority for all of the businesses that have an international component.”
