Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said its India strategy will revolve around strengthening its payment infrastructure. The global firm, which is holding its shopping extravaganza, said unlike its competitors Snapdeal, Amazon and Flipkart, who are burning cash to gain market share, it will be watching the market.

"We will focus on payment in India and services later. In India, we have made investments in Paytm and own 40 per cent in the company. We will continue to expand our base wherever there is mobile phone growth," Michael Evans, Group President, Alibaba said.

Asked about its India-specific plans, he said, "Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal use a business model that doesn't make sense for us. They are spending a lot of money to gain money. That is not in our DNA".

Alibaba is currently running the biggest shopping festival in China's consumption history. The 11.11 shopping festival by the tech firm, popularly known as 'Singles Day', focuses on marrying consumer technologies with omni-channel ecosystems.

For starters, it will demonstrate the world's first end-to-end virtual reality (VR) shopping experience in which the entire transaction from browsing to order and payment is completed within a VR environment. The company has also expanded its TMall -- the 'see and buy now' concept. TMall is the biggest online b2c concept.

Joe Tsai, Vice-Chairman, Alibaba Group said, "Shopping is entertainment in China. The idea is to make the experience fun and the interactive experience is a part of that experience.

He said the company has developed a location-based augmented reality mobile game called 'catch the TMall cat' into its TMall app. The aim of the game is to drive footfalls to offline locations of TMall merchants, an Omani channel model.

Alibaba said it is working with more than one million offline stores across product categories to present consumers an integrated online to offline experience across products.

This year Alibaba's event has over 11,000 international brands participating in 11.11 activities.

Several first-time brands are reposing their faith in the global shopping event, including Burberry, Sephora, Target and Maserati, among others.

Last year, Alibaba's event recorded sales of $14.3 bn in sales, up 60 per cent from the previous year.

Evans said shopping festivals such as 11.11 would become global as they connect manufacturers with buyers.

"The future of globalisation will not be with global MNCs but smaller SMEs. Our platform helps goods and services reach the consumer at a reasonable price," he added.

Alibaba Group's annual shopping event kicked off yesterday in China. Within the first five minutes, the total GMV settled through Alipay exceeded $1 billion (RMB 6.8 billion). In the first hour, the total GMV settled through Alipay was $5.2 billion (RMB 35.3 billion).

In the first two hours, the total GMV settled through Alipay was $7.2 billion (RMB 48.6 billion), and mobile GMV settled through Alipay accounted for 84 per cent of the total GMV.

(The writer is in Shenzhen at the invitation of Alibaba)

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