Alibaba kicked off a 50-day promotion for agricultural produce starting today, expecting to sell 1 billion units of products such as rice, the company said in a press release.
Alibaba’s C2C marketplace Taobao, B2C marketplace Tmall, brick-and-mortar supermarket Hema, and supermarket chain RT-Mart will all participate to promote produce sourced from 1,000 sites across China.
Alibaba said that it has hosted more than 200,000 live streaming events since 2018, selling more than 1 billion units of agricultural produce to more than 600 million consumers.
In 2018, agricultural produce worth RMB 161.1 billion (USD 22.9 billion) was sold on Taobao and Tmall, beating JD.com’s RMB 51.74 billion and Pinduoduo’s RMB 3.74 billion, Alibaba said in the press release, citing data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Alibaba’s sales drive follows a similar 12-day promotion designed by Pinduoduo, which hopes to generate 100 million purchase orders.