AliExpress, the global marketplace for online sales of the Alibaba Group, announced today that it will invest one million euros throughout 2021 to develop new training initiatives from its seller development area in Spain, AliExpress Businesses, taking advantage of the best practices of local and international vendors and making available the tools to promote the digitization of Spanish SMEs.
This need arises after the notable growth in the number of local sellers on the platform during 2020 (more than 100% compared to 2019), reaching more than 8,000 Spanish companies in the marketplace to date. Due to the pandemic, thousands of Spanish companies have established or increased their online presence after observing that millions of customers turned to e-commerce to solve their daily needs in the midst of the health emergency.
From January to June 2021, AliExpress Businesses held more than 70 sessions for local sellers and accumulated around 4,200 hours of training. The platform has set itself the goal of accumulating more than 12,000 hours of training for local vendors during 2021.
“During the pandemic, the growth of e-commerce in Spain forced small and medium-sized businesses across the country to accelerate their digitization processes to keep up with the ‘new normal’. The number of Spanish sellers active on AliExpress also increased significantly in 2020 “, says Estela Ye, Executive Director of AliExpress in Spain, Italy and France.
“We are committed to companies in Spain, we want to help them develop their business on our e-commerce platform. To achieve this goal, we have revised our training center for sellers and we have designed a series of initiatives at the local level that will provide them with advanced knowledge and will guide them through different areas to achieve positive results.
These learning programs will be essential for our sellers to realize the full potential of AliExpress and perform successfully on the platform, “adds Ye.
As part of the new training initiatives developed for the second half of 2021, AliExpress Businesses has released the following programs:
- AliExpress Navigator: an innovative program developed in Spain, in which outstanding sellers on the platform are certified and professionalized to design training modules that cover the main development areas for local sellers.
- AliExpress Learning Center: the natural evolution of AliExpress University. It is a renewed space in which Spanish companies can access all the training modules created by AliExpress Businesses, live webinars and special sessions that gather all the information necessary to develop in the marketplace.
- AliExpress Businesses leadership initiatives: throughout the year, business leaders will participate in a program of strategic advisory sessions aimed at around 100 representatives of European SMEs (including Spanish companies), providing them with an in-depth analysis of the new economic paradigm that has generated the pandemic, as well as more innovative and dynamic solutions in terms of business, to face these circumstances.
Participants will design a plan to implement some of these successful practices in their own business, with the support and supervision of the program’s expert entrepreneurs.
In parallel, Spanish companies have participated in the Alibaba Netpreneur program, a series of workshops organized by the Alibaba Group to discuss business strategy, management, the digital economy and the use of technological innovation.
In this program, different entrepreneurs and experts from China, one of the most advanced and innovative markets in terms of e-commerce and digitization, share their knowledge with entrepreneurs from all over Europe.
- AliExpress Rocket Camp: individual counseling program for companies on the platform, either to take a step forward in their business, in the case of sellers who have recently joined the platform, or for sellers already established in she can grow her business on AliExpress.
- AliExpress Compass: an advisory initiative by the AliExpress Businesses team to serve the most advanced sellers on the platform, developing customized solutions for them, based on the diagnosis of their business performance.
Navigator, a unique initiative designed in Spain
With the aim of developing innovative learning sessions that are closer to the needs of Spanish SMEs, AliExpress Businesses has designed the Navigator program. It is an initiative in which experienced AliExpress sellers will share their knowledge of e-commerce in different areas with a greater number of sellers or potential sellers, using AliExpress training platforms and other external platforms.
These e-commerce experts, called tutors in the Navigator program, will develop different training modules focused on the most relevant aspects that they themselves have identified for Spanish sellers operating on AliExpress or businesses looking to digitize in the near future.
Tutors have access to the intellectual property of Alibaba Group and AliExpress, as well as tools to help them create their own training sessions. These experts will receive compensation based on the time spent on the program and the assessment of the attendees. They will be able to obtain an advanced certification by meeting certain requirements, such as accumulated consulting hours and the satisfaction of participating vendors, among others.
Spain is the first country in which the Navigator program has been developed and will be implemented, demonstrating the importance of this market for AliExpress. AliExpress Businesses expects more than 5,000 Spanish sellers to benefit from the tutors’ knowledge and their respective learning programs.
The training sessions are free for sellers interested in attending. Although their attendance is not mandatory – since they can choose the courses that interest them and fit their agenda – the sessions will be an opportunity to establish direct communication with other sellers to ask questions, share doubts and have access to valuable information. for your business.
These are the profiles of the first five tutors selected by AliExpress Business to participate in the Navigator program. These are Spanish professionals with extensive knowledge and experience in the world of e-commerce, in addition to having a proven track record of success in managing local brands on AliExpress:
- Julio Girau, the first Spanish seller on AliExpress, creating the Todotumóvil store on the platform together with his brother Rubén Girau. Currently, Julio is the director of Ecommerce TP and an expert in the operation of the AIiExpress store.
- Juan Martínez, manager of the Muzuki store on AliExpress and an expert in pricing strategies and customer service.
- Jaime Porta, manager of the official SHAF store on AliExpress and an expert in promotions and product detail pages.
- Pedro Soriano, manager of the Flamingueo store in AliExpress and expert in platform analysis.
- Miguel Ángel Villagrasa, co-founder of Ecommerce TP, owner of the Fashion Jewelery store BDM in AliExpress and an expert in search engine optimization and integration of e-commerce solutions such as Prestashop and Woocommerce.