The strategic plan defines Alibaba. com’s overall mission and objectives, and that is true for any given company. Within each business unit, marketing plays a role in helping to accomplish the overall strategic objectives. Alibaba. com’s goal is to build strong and profitable customer relationships. Alibaba. com’s marketing strategy will consider the marketing logic by which the company hopes to achieve these profitable customer relationships. How they do that? Through market segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Guided by marketing strategy, Alibaba. com designs a marketing mix made up of factors under its control (product, price, place, and promotion). To find the best marketing mix and put it into action, Alibaba. com engages in marketing analysis, planning, implementation, and control. Through these activities, Alibaba. com should watches and adapts to the actors and forces in the marketplace environment. It is clear that an Alibaba. com objective is to win suppliers and buyers relationships. Long time relationships are profit to the company.
The marketing mix is the set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. The marketing mix consists of everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its products and services. The many possibilities are collected into four groups of variables known as the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. (G. Armstrong, 2007)
Product means the goods and services combination that Alibaba. com offers to the target market, to the buyers. At Alibaba. com web site buyers more often find not only the products they need but service agreement, warranty, or other services. All which are parts of the product package. Product package include: variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, and services.
Price
Price is the amount of money Alibaba. com’s buyers has to pay to obtain the product. The retail price of a consumer product may be suggested by the manufacturer, but retailers are free to set any price they wish for items sold in their stores. In business to business sales, the price of a product is usually negotiated. However, at Alibaba. com, if a buyer wishes to get more of the same product, the buyer will get a discounted price.
Place
Place or distribution refers to the locations where the product is available to the customer. Most consumer products are available at retail outlets. In business to business, transaction should be from a manufacturing to the buyers. And every product, whatever it is a consumer or a business product, must begin somewhere, and must, somehow, get into the hands of the buyer. The path
that the product takes, from the point of origin to point of sale, is called the distribution channel, which is an important part of the marketing mix. Most of Alibaba. com’s products are from China. Therefore, Alibaba. com must deal with third company such as FedEx to ease the transportation of the distribution.
Promotion
Promotion is the set of activities that communicates the merits of the product and persuades prospective customers to buy it. These activities include everything related to marketing communications: advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and personal selling. As for Alibaba. com, the company needs to focus more into promotion. More direct marketing and advertising is the key to success at this stage.
An effective marketing program blends all elements of the marketing mix into a coordinated plan designed to achieve the company’s marketing objectives by delivering value to customers. The marketing mix constitutes the company’s tactical tool kit for establishing strong positioning in the target markets or into the marketplaces.
Conclusion and recommendations
In conclusion, Alibaba Group makes it easy for anyone to buy or sell online anywhere in the world. Alibaba group is a family of Internet-based businesses that includes business-to-business international trade, online retail and payment platforms and data-centric cloud computing services. The Group was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, a pioneer who has aspired to help make the Internet accessible, trustworthy and beneficial for everyone. The privately held Alibaba Group reaches Internet users in more than 240 countries and regions, and employs 17, 000 people in more than 50 cities in Greater China, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. (www. news. alibaba. com)
There are many companies partnered with Alibaba group. Such companies:
Alibaba. com – Global leader in business-to-business e-commerce
Taobao – China’s largest Internet retail website and one-stop platform for shopping, socializing and information sharing
Alipay – China’s leading third-party online payment platform
Alibaba Cloud Computing – Developer of advanced data-centric cloud computing services
China Yahoo! – One of China’s leading Internet portals
Although, since Alibaba group was found in 1999, and won more than 6 awards and honors, I recommend that the marketing management of Alibaba group should look into consideration to their promotional strategy. In fact, more of public relations and advertising will pump up awareness. Doing so, the group may benefit more buyers and seller; after all, that is the marketing objective of the group.
