Tesla China has opened a store in Alibaba’s Tmall, a massive online marketplace that’s considered as one of the world’s biggest e-commerce websites. The Tesla store at Alibaba’s online mall offers a variety of services, from test drive bookings to accessories. A promotion for the Tesla Tmall store is expected to be launched between April 21 and 28, 2020. 

Tapping into Alibaba’s massive online presence in China is a very strategic move for the electric car maker. Tmall, after all, is quite literally one of the biggest online marketplaces on the internet. As of December 2019, Alexa ranked tmall.com as the world’s third most-visited website with over 500 million active users monthly, ranking behind Taobao, another Alibaba-owned e-commerce website that holds the title of the world’s largest online marketplace. 

An announcement for Tesla’s Tmall store was shared online by TSLA bull and 86 Research founder Ming Zhao. A rough translation of the announcement dubs the online store as the first Tesla official “flagship store” of its kind. Granted, the store will only be offering a somewhat limited number of services, but its presence goes a long way towards extending Tesla’s reach into the Chinese market. 

$tsla announced opening a storefront on Alibaba’s https://t.co/6zIIK9w1fc, world’s largest marketplace measured by GMV. Bravo! pic.twitter.com/zZyfiekowm

— Ming Zhao (@mingcalls) April 16, 2020

In a way, tapping into the Tmall platform also grants access to Alibaba’s massive network of services, such as Alipay, an online payment platform that’s widely used in China. Tesla already allows orders in the United States to be conducted through methods such as Apple Pay. If the company can tap into China’s variety of cashless payment methods as well, the company could end up vastly increasing its reach into the market. 

Tesla’s performance in the Chinese market serves as a dark horse for the electric car maker this year. With the Coronavirus pandemic shutting down Tesla’s production facilities in the United States, it would likely be up to Gigafactory Shanghai to augment the company’s numbers.

This is especially true this quarter, which will cover the brunt of the shutdowns in the US. With this in mind, any strategy that boosts Tesla’s presence in China is a pretty good move. With more exposure, Tesla’s vehicles could get to the mainstream Chinese market even faster than before. 

Featured Image Credit: Tesla