AliExpress



AliExpress is an online retail service based in China and owned by the Alibaba Group. Launched in 2010, it is made up of small businesses in China and other locations, such as Singapore, that offer products to international online buyers. It is the most visited e-commerce website in Russia and was the 10th most popular website in Brazil. It facilitates small businesses to sell to customers all over the world. AliExpress has drawn comparison to eBay, as sellers are independent and use the platform to offer products to buyers.

Business model
AliExpress started as a business-to-business buying and selling portal. It has since expanded to include business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer, cloud computing and payment services. As of 2016 AliExpress ran websites in English, Spanish, Korean, Dutch, French, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Russian, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai and other languages - English being the default offered to those countries with languages outside the preceding list. AliExpress is often used by e-commerce stores that use a dropship business model.

Sellers on AliExpress can be either companies or individuals. AliExpress is different from Amazon because it acts only as an e-commerce platform and does not itself sell products directly to consumers. It directly connects Chinese businesses with buyers.

Although most of the retailers are Chinese, AliExpress is aimed at international import buyers and does not sell to customers in mainland China.

Government responses
In November 2020, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology banned the AliExpress mobile phone app along with 42 other Chinese apps.

In 2022, the Office of the United States Trade Representative added AliExpress to its list of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy.

In November 2023, the European Commission opened a probe into AliExpress regarding "potential dissemination of illegal products such as fake medicines, non-compliant food, and ineffective dietary supplements."