Alibaba seeks partnerships to grow in Brazil

Sao Paulo-the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba see in Brazil a great opportunity to strengthen its presence in Latin America.
With more than 2.5 million users in the country, the company is investing in local partnerships and can open soon a Brazilian Office to centralize their actions in the region.
For the company, the continent''s strategic plan to grow outside Asia and conquer the leadership of global e-commerce-post that today belongs to Amazon.
Officially, Alibaba arrived in the country in 2014, through the AliExpress-shopping site of the retail-oriented company and Alibaba.com, for sales in wholesale.
Before long, the two companies have popularized, making the eyes of Jack Ma, founder of the company, shine and see Brazil as a potential focus of growth.
The sites had good performance last year: according to figures released by the company, the AliExpress registered more than 18 1000 new users a day in the country in 2015.
In wholesale, the Alibaba.com also didn''t disappoint, registering growth of 20% in number of Brazilian users last year, compared with 2014.
"Brazil is the fourth largest country in number of users inside the Alibaba.com platform", says the head of marketing and business development of the company for Latin America, Alexander Tsai, the newspaper O Estado de s. Paulo.
"The country is experiencing a moment of interest in e-commerce, which has grown wholesale and retail is ripe already," said the Executive.
Entrepreneurs
To maintain growth and raise levels of Alibaba.com, the wholesale site focuses on partnerships with Brazilian entrepreneurs of small and medium-sized businesses.
Last week, Tsai was in Brazil, and participated in the entrepreneur fair, held by the Brazilian support Service for Micro and small enterprises (Sebrae-SP). The idea is to empower entrepreneurs to the dynamic offered by Alibaba on their sites.
Today, the Brazilian export items in the Chinese company''s platforms are the clothing, food and typical drinks-as cachaça and craft beers.
"Foreign trade is an opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises," says Tsai. "You can have partners all over the world. In addition, opens a door for people to buy products in a market with increased competitiveness. "
The logic of partnerships is simple: the two Chinese sites in Brazil depends on the register of entrepreneurs, carrying out direct transactions with the final consumer, by placing their products for sale in the Alibaba.com and AliExpress. The more empowered they are sellers, more users and greater billing Alibaba will have.
Opportunity
According to Tsai, the economic crisis affecting Brazil the way the company''s expansion. With the economic problems, more people started looking for alternatives to sell their products.
"The crisis is an opportunity. Our target audience are businesses who need training to afford international sales "comments. "The use of electronic commerce should complement the traditional channels for business."
With the partnerships, the Alibaba can also, in the long run, reduce the feeling of their customers that the purchases made on the site takes a while to reach. Another step towards this is the installation of an Office in the country-rumor circulating hard a few months ago.
"We''re studying have an Office in Brazil," admits Alexander Tsai. "We can delve into more investment in the Brazilian market, facilitating the achievement of local businesses", says the Executive.
Currently, Alibaba has offices in China, United States, England and Italy-the last two were opened recently, expanding the expectation that the Chinese company would be in fact about to open its doors also in Brazilian soil.