Alibaba Talks To Bamboo Works On RedNote Partnership

Embedded links in recommendation notes on the popular lifestyle platform will take buyers directly to items for sale in Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao marketplaces

Taobao and Tmall, two core marketplaces operated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA.US; 9988.HK), recently entered a landmark partnership with lifestyle social media sensation RedNote, in the former's latest step to bring its core e-commerce services closer to consumers in their everyday lives. The tie-up is just the latest by two of China's largest e-commerce marketplaces, as they look for new and innovative ways to engage consumers through steps like integrating links to products in online conversations and videos.

At the same time, Taobao and Tmall are giving their thousands of online merchants better tools to make their marketing and back-office functions more efficient, often using the power of AI. A company spokesperson discussed those developments and more in a recent interview with Bamboo Works.

Q: Taobao and Tmall have recently announced a partnership with RedNote. Could you tell us more about the collaboration?

A: Taobao and Tmall's strategic partnership with RedNote represents a significant step in bridging content and commerce, offering consumers a seamless path from product discovery to purchase. The partnership enables merchants to embed product links from their Taobao and Tmall stores directly into recommendation posts on RedNote. Users can tap on these links and be redirected to the Taobao app to complete their purchases.

The partnership also includes the launch of joint merchant accounts and performance dashboards, allowing merchants to track the full journey from content exposure on RedNote to completed orders on the Taobao app in real-time. To further support merchant success, Taobao and Tmall will invest in amplifying hero products featured in RedNote posts, providing marketing resources and performance advertising tools to boost product visibility and engagement.

Q: Is this the first time Taobao and Tmall have struck such a major partnership with an outside company and what's the strategic importance?

A: We have a strong track record of successful partnerships with other platforms as part of our "user-first" strategy and merchant-friendly initiatives. Currently, Taobao and Tmall work with over 200 internet platforms, ranging from social media to mobile payments, supporting brand growth through expanded traffic channels, diversified content formats, and omni-channel operations.

Last September, Taobao and Tmall partnered with WeChat Pay, which expanded payment options for consumers. Additionally, last October, JD Logistics fully integrated with Taobao and Tmall, providing comprehensive services to Taobao and Tmall merchants that encompass the entire supply chain process, including warehousing, express delivery, and freight.

These developments represent significant milestones for China's cross-platform interconnectivity and enhancing Taobao and Tmall's competitiveness. All these partnerships create a more seamless and convenient experience for consumers while opening up new business opportunities for merchants, benefitting both.

Q: Do you see content-driven e-commerce as key to driving further user and business growth, and can you elaborate on how?

A: The partnership between Taobao and Tmall and RedNote bridges content with commerce, reflecting our commitment to supporting brands. At its TopTalk annual merchant conference in March, Tmall announced a series of new initiatives to support brands in 2025, including measures to attract users across channels and the extension of its commission rebate scheme to cover all categories.

Tmall President Liu Bo said the RedNote collaboration marks a new chapter in the marketplace's support for brand growth in 2025. He added that combining Taobao and Tmall's commerce expertise with RedNote's strength in lifestyle content, will help brands reach consumers more effectively and drive incremental growth.

Q: What other initiatives are Taobao and Tmall taking to enhance overall user experience and overall stickiness?

A: With 1 billion annual active consumers, Taobao and Tmall are continuously introducing new initiatives to enhance user experience. To convert more new users into loyal consumers and ultimately VIP members, Taobao and Tmall will increase investment in initiatives such as exclusive 88VIP benefits this year, aiming to cultivate repurchasing habits and deepen long-term engagement.

To boost repeat purchases, Tmall is increasing investment in not only platform-wide loyalty programs like 88VIP but also in brand-specific ones. Brands will be able to increase member engagement through more membership access points across Taobao search results, personalized recommendations, and shopping carts.

Q: I understand Alibaba has leveraged AI-powered technology to support merchants on your e-commerce platforms. Can you tell us more about these tools?

A: Taobao and Tmall have been integrating advanced AI technologies into every stage of the e-commerce process, from product recommendations and bidding optimization to content creation and performance analytics. These AI tools are designed to transform the digital shopping experience while boosting operating efficiency for merchants.

At the 2025 TopTalk conference, we introduced major upgrades to the merchant AI toolkit, including new image-to-video generation capabilities within the AI-generated Content (AIGC) tool and an advanced marketing bidding model that has demonstrated an average 12% boost in campaign ROI through automated bidding strategies. Additionally, our AI customer service chatbots have continued to evolve, offering increasingly sophisticated support.

To date, Taobao and Tmall's AI-powered e-commerce toolkit, launched last year, has served 7 million merchants. This May alone, merchants reduced their marketing expenses by generating over 100 million marketing images, videos, and text and conducted over 1.8 million AI agent services for traffic analysis and more.

Our new "Image-to-Video" AIGC product has generated over 1.5 million videos since its beta launch in April. It enables merchants to generate up to 20-second videos from one or more product images, and provides additional features such as one-click editing, smart refinement, and script-based production

Q: Can you tell us about your Quanzhantui marketing solution?

A: Quanzhantui launched in April 2024 and is an important AI-powered marketing tool to help merchants market effectively and drive business growth. Over 1.4 million merchants have enhanced their marketing efficiency with the aid of Quanzhantui. As our CEO Eddie Wu explained in our earnings call last August, achieving strong sales performance requires more than just having a product in place, and Quanzhantui can help merchants to streamline operations and optimize marketing efficiency.

For the quarter through March this year, our customer management revenue grew 12% year-over-year to 71.1 billion yuan ($9.8 billion), primarily driven by the improvement of take rate, which benefited from the impact of software service fees and the increasing penetration of Quanzhantui.

Q: How are these new products and offerings driving user growth?

A: Taobao and Tmall are committed to enhancing support for product launches, providing brands with powerful tools and resources to capture market share and attract new consumers. Specifically, Taobao and Tmall have introduced new marketing tools that leverage AI and data analytics, along with more prominent ad placements and an extended new product incubation cycle from 30 days to 90 days, giving brands more time to build awareness and gain traction.

The "Tmall Super Launch" campaign has been particularly successful, enabling 34,000 new products to achieve sales exceeding 10 million yuan each. This feature alone generated a total of 100 billion yuan in sales in 2024.