Marketing Strategy of Tmall: Leading Ecommerce in China

About Tmall 

Source – 1000 logos

Taobao Mall is a Chinese-language website for business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail, separate from Taobao, operated in China by Alibaba Group.

It’s a platform for international businesses and local Chinese to sell brand-name goods to consumers in Greater China. It has more than 500 million monthly active users according to Feb 2018 data.

Over the years, it has opened its facilities to brands not only for online sales but also to develop brand awareness. Tmall is the third most visited website globally in 2021, according to Alexa Rank.

Tmall was launched in April 2008  to provide a premium shopping experience to Chinese consumers looking for top-quality branded merchandise.

A large number of international and Chinese brands and retailers have set up storefronts on Tmall.com. According to research, Tmall.com was China’s largest platform for brands and retailers in terms of gross merchandise volume in 2014.

Tmall established itself as the most popular Chinese E-commerce website and became the best online gateway for local & international retailers. 

Over the years, Tmall was able to grab most of China’s e-commerce market share, establishing itself as the most popular Chinese e-commerce website and becoming the best online gateway for local and international retailers.

Primary activities in this industry include the sale of clothing, cosmetics, maternity and baby goods, food, digital products, and jewellery and watches.

For the product and services division, computers, communications, and consumer electronics accounted for the largest share (34.2%). Clothes, shoes, and bags make up the next largest share (31.5%).

Quick Stats on Tmall & Company

Marketing Strategy of Tmall –

Let’s learn how Tmall became so famous with a 62.2% Market Share in the E-commerce industry.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning 

Tmall’s target market is primarily Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and its concept is wise and ambitious as it allows both international and Local Chinese Companies to sell their products in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China.

The Target audiences for Tmall are Digital-savvy consumers with higher education levels who will be more likely to become e-commerce consumers.

Therefore, as B2C e-commerce enterprises continually improve their service and product quality with lower prices for customers, they have managed to retain existing customers and attract new customers.

Tmall has positioned itself as one of the leading e-commerce company in China.

Marketing Campaigns

In October 2020, Alibaba Group announced a partnership with Bravado to help bring artist merchandise and exclusive collaborations to Chinese consumers.

Bravado is a global, 360-degree full-service merchandise company that develops and markets high-quality licensed merchandise, and works closely with new & established entertainment clients, creating innovative products carefully tailored to each artist or brand.

 International recording artists including Guns N’ Roses, Tupac,  The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, and Taylor Swift, were the store’s first featured artists. 

New artist collections and collaborations will be added every month

The store launch was the first time Taylor Swift’s most recent album, Folklore Influence, was available in China.

In addition, Taylor Swift decided to launch her latest collection exclusively on Tmall Global during Alibaba’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, giving Chinese shoppers exclusive access to it before anyone else in the world i.e. two weeks.

Double 11

Tmall showcases their creativity as they design “virtual” streets to showcase new products in an “open window”

In addition to real celebrities and prominent opinion leaders, Ayyi, a virtual influencer, was also invited to the exhibition in Shanghai.

All visitors have the chance to upload their selfies on the virtual streets in an interactive installation, enjoying being a celebrity at a time.

In addition, the campaign invited Ayyi, the first meta-human virtual influencer, to the exhibition, and in turn, this led to a lot of hype about “virtual” streets.

In fact, before the exhibition, Tmall had made a short 3D film showing his brand mascot roaming the streets between windows.

Define Your Ideal Life via BBDO Shanghai

BBDO Shanghai has taken data collected by Tmall to help the agency develop Tmall’s 2019 brand campaign, called “Define Your Ideal Life”.

The insights uncovered by Tmall used global data to create the top consumer trends, and it inspired BBDO to put together a 2019 brand campaign that sheds light on different definitions of an “ideal life.”

BBDO created a series of online video, print, and social ads, the first of which launched last week for the Chinese market.

Social Media Marketing

It is operated by the Chinese Tech Giant Alibaba Group.

• Facebook: 21.9 Million likes
• Instagram: 3.4 million followers 
• LinkedIn: 1.1 million followers 
• Twitter: 230k followers

Weibo is a source of traffic for Tmall. Consumers trust the personalities available on Weibo and want to receive suggestions about what is cool and good in quality from them.

SEO Strategies

Source – Ubersuggest

As per SEO Analysis, organic keywords around 500 are bad, 1000+ are good and above 10000 are amazing.

As you can see in the image above tmall.com has 3,604 organic keywords which are good.

They have organic monthly traffic of around 62k which is amazing as monthly visits of around 20,000 are considered great.

Influencer Marketing

Magic Johnson joined a special live-streaming session hosted by Alibaba to unveil the new skincare products from Uncle Buds.

The veteran basketball player and entrepreneur is an ambassador for the American cannabis and CBD brand as it prepares to enter China through Alibaba’s Tmall global cross-border platform.

Tmall Global Influencer Program’s “Walk of Fame” was attended by mega-celebrities like Johnson, Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez.

Ecommerce Strategies

Five Steps to Meet New Demands, Tmall recognizes that it needs a platform to create a customer journey with five distinct steps – discovery, engagement, entertainment, verification, and transaction mechanics.

Mobile Apps

The Tmall app is available on the Apple store and Play Store but in China only.

Content Marketing Strategies

Tmall has a massive display advertising system divided into 16 Tmall ad formats. Optimizing spending at Tmall is a key operating strategy to drive revenue growth in China’s largest market.

Tmall is a self-service backend that provides a variety of paid digital marketing services.

Usually, brands manage the platform’s performance marketing or allow a Tmall partner (so-called TP) to do it for them.

Taobao Affiliate Marketing enables the establishment of commission rewards for individual users or third-party platforms promoting the brand.

This is the best tool to use to drive traffic from outside the Taobao ecosystem.

Conclusion – What’s unique about the marketing strategy of Tmall?

Tmall is very popular and leading in China’s E-commerce Industry, having a 62.2% Market share.

Tmall’s creative strategy for engaging with audiences is still working by focusing on its 5 significant key steps discovery, engagement, entertainment, validation, and transaction mechanics to meet the new demands.

Tmall – a Company of Alibaba Group working for more than 14 years by maintaining its position with the other company competitors and providing high-quality Service to Consumers.

We hope that this blog has given you a good knowledge about the marketing strategies of Tmall. If you would like to read and learn such insights about other companies, check out IIDE’s Knowledge Portal. This portal covers more interesting case studies.

With the constant demand and importance of digital marketing, learning about the growing field is an important step. If you want to learn more and develop skills, check out online digital marketing courses to learn more.